Why Do I Feel Like I Have to Perform Being Okay with Friends?
The Pattern
You arrive at the friend's house and the okay self comes online before you have taken off your shoes. The funny stories arrive on cue. The light interest in everyone else's news lands at the right volume. You hear yourself perform being a person in your own life, and you cannot find the off switch even when you want to. You wonder if you have any friends who know you, or just people who know the bit. The okay self is not a lie. It is an old strategy. It is the self that learned the room got worse when you were not okay, and so it learned to be okay in advance, as a precaution, before anyone had a chance to be disappointed.
Origins & Context
Donald Winnicott's work on the false self describes the social persona constructed in childhood to meet the emotional needs of caregivers. The false self is competent, agreeable, and performs okayness with great skill. The true self, which carries the actual feelings, stays hidden because the original environment could not hold it.
Alice Miller's writing on the gifted child elaborates this into adult friendship. The gifted child grew up being praised for being easy, for managing her own moods, for not requiring much. The adult version of this child enters every friendship in pre-managed mode, smoothing the floor before anyone walks on it. The performance is so smooth that no one knows it is happening, including her.
It is the self that learned the room got worse when you were not okay, and so it learned to be okay in advance, as a precaution.— Nikita Datar
How It Shows Up
You notice it in the lag between the question and the answer. Someone asks how you are, and there is a half-second where your body considers telling the truth, and then the okay self answers without your permission. You hear the answer with a slight surprise. You did not consent to it. It just came.
It shows up in the way you become more performative the longer you are with a friend who has not seen you in a while. You catch yourself doing a kind of standup version of your life, the highlights packaged for entertainment, the hard things made funny. You leave the conversation having entertained her well and having met no one, including yourself.
It shows up in the depletion afterward. You go to bed earlier than usual the night of a long brunch. You cancel the next day's plans. You attribute it to introversion. It is partly introversion. It is mostly the cost of performing okayness for three hours, which costs the body more than the body lets you know in real time.
Named in the Literature As
The pattern is named in the literature as the False Self (Donald Winnicott), the social persona that maintains relationships at the cost of authentic contact. It is also named as the Gifted Child Adaptation (Alice Miller), the performance of okayness as the price of inclusion. Pete Walker's work names the chronic version of this Performative Fawn.
Related entries in this library: Fawn Response, Adaptive Self vs Original Self, Self-Abandonment.
Nikita's Note
The okay self is not your enemy. She saved you when you needed her. The problem is not that she exists. The problem is that she now answers questions the real you would like a turn at.
The practice is small interruption. Before you answer the next how are you, pause. Take a breath. Let the okay self stand down for one sentence. Try one true thing. It does not have to be a confession. It can be a small thing, a real thing. Watch the friend not flinch. Let your body learn that the room can hold the truth. The okay self can retire once you have built something for her to retire into.
From the work
It is the self that learned the room got worse when you were not okay, and so it learned to be okay in advance, as a precaution.From The Waiting Is the Wound by Nikita DatarAbout this book
Related Concepts
More in The Pattern Atlas
See all in The Pattern Atlas →I wrote about this in The Waiting Is the Wound — available on Amazon.