| Take off the mask
Posted: 6/4/2009 7:02:50 PM | We all wear a mask, do you know where yours starts and ends?
It's called a persona, basically it's a projection of who we want to be not who we really are and we all do it. It's like a mask that we put on before we go out and show ourselves to the world outside our consciousness.
<div class="quote">At its best, it is just the "good impression" we all wish to present as we fill the roles society requires of us. But, of course, it can also be the "false impression" we use to manipulate people's opinions and behaviors. And, at its worst, it can be mistaken, even by ourselves, for our true nature: Sometimes we believe we really are what we pretend to be! (Boeree, 2006)
The mask is the main reason why so many times we will find someone that is "perfect" only to find out they're not even close to what we want or need once we've gotten to know them. Sometimes you're lucky and the persons mask was the good impression. Unfortunately it seems that a lot of the time it's the false impression or our mistaken identity.
Accepting that you wear a mask and then trying to get that mask to match who you really are as best as possible is, in my opinion, a task that must be completed long before you start looking for someone to spend the rest of your life with.
Never mind other peoples masks for a second, look at yourself from a different perspective. If your mask is so very different than who you really are than every relationship is doomed for failure simply because those that you have attracted are initially attracted to your mask, not you. Once the true you comes out you're probably not going to be what they are looking for.
I really think that a lot of people could benefit from looking closely inward and asking questions of themselves instead of wondering why they can't find anyone and/or any meaningful relationships.
Coming out from behind our masks is going to increase our chances by at least 50 times, simply because at least one of the two people attempting the relationship (namely you) is going to be presenting a persona as close to their reality as possible.
46&2 | |
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| Take off the mask
Posted: 6/4/2009 7:29:03 PM | Is there a point to all this or did you think this up while you were sitting pensively in the bathroom?
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| Take off the mask
Posted: 6/4/2009 7:37:53 PM | You might like this... Or you might not. I did... I don't know who wrote it but I think it's pretty awesome:
THE MASK
Who am I?
Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear,
For I wear a mask, I wear a thousand masks.
Masks that I am afraid to take off.
But none of them are me.
But don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I am secure,
That all is sunny and unruffled with me,
Within as well as without,
That confidence is my name and coolness my game,
And that I need no one,
Don't believe me, Please!
My surface may be smooth,
But my surface is my mask,
My varying and ever concealing mask.
Beneath lies no smugness,
No complacence.
Beneath dwells the real me,
In confusion and fear,
In loneliness.
I idly chatter with you in the suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that's really nothing,
Of what's crying within me.
So, when I'm going through my routine,
Please don't be fooled by what I'm saying.
Please listen carefully, and try to hear what I'm not saying,
And what I'd like to be able to say,
What for survival I need to say,
But what I can't say.
Only you can call me into aliveness,
Each time you're kind, and gentle, and encouraging,
Each time you try to understand because you really care,
My heart begins to grow wings.
Very small wings, very feeble wings, but wings.
With your compassion and sensitivity,
And your power of understanding,
You can breathe life into me,
I want you to know that.
I want you to know how important you are to me,
How you can be a creator of the person that is me if you choose to.
Please choose to.
Do not pass me by.
It will not be easy for you.
My long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
The nearer you approach me, the blinder I may strike back.
I fight against the very thing I cry out for,
But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls,
In this lies my hope.
My only hope.
Who am I, you may wonder.
I am someone you know very well,
I am a hurting member of your family,
I am the hurting person sitting beside you in this room,
I am every person you meet on the street.
Please don't believe my mask,
Please come behind it to glimpse the real me.
Please speak to me, share a little of yourself with me,
At least recognize me.
Please ...
Because You Care.
Author Unknown
In a site that has more than its share of hurting people, I think it bears reading... | |
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| Take off the mask
Posted: 6/4/2009 7:44:00 PM | I think somebody did this thread a few months ago.
I just have say, what mask were you wearing when you decided to make up your mind that "everbody else" was wearing a mask? Do you think that maybe we could have some input on that, or did you make up our minds too? | |
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| Take off the mask
Posted: 6/4/2009 7:45:32 PM | I never wear a mask,this is real,ya'll try it. A very good didy of such things. | |
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| Take off the mask
Posted: 6/4/2009 7:52:28 PM | | I am too cheap for a whole real mask. I just got one of those fake nose and glasses things. | |
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| Take off the mask
Posted: 6/4/2009 7:54:17 PM |
Take off the mask
You're supposed to wear a mask?
I never got the memo... | |
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| Take off the mask
Posted: 6/4/2009 8:11:42 PM | I'm not the man you think i am
I'm not that kind of guy
Beneath this sleek exterior
There's less than meets the eye
I'm just what you've been looking for
Your wildest dream come true
I'm not the man you think i am
But i'm the man for you
I'm on important business
I'm late for my premiere
I'm doing you a favor
Just by being here
Surely you can buy a drink
For someone so renowned
I'm not the man you think i am
But i'm the man you've found
I'm burning with indifference
I'm sleeping with desire
I'm selling snow to eskimos
I'm preaching to the choir
My past is catching up to me
My chips are coming due
I'm not the man you think i am
But i'm the man for you
Bryan Adams, and no I am not transexual | |
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| Take off the mask
Posted: 6/4/2009 8:20:34 PM |
I'm not the man you think i am
But i'm the man for you
Do we ever know who is actually right for us??
As for the mask....it will be taken off for the deserving person...
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| Take off the mask
Posted: 6/4/2009 8:23:45 PM | | I try not to put on a mask at all, but it does come up sometimes depending on present company. The mask comes off completely depending on if I like and feel I can trust the company I'm with. What is revealed is basically a very sweet, funny goofball with a dark edge. | |
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| Take off the mask
Posted: 6/4/2009 9:31:26 PM | I'm perplexed as to why you've posted this. Jungian psychology is not a recent concept, and anybody interested in it can find it pretty easily.
Is this something you just stumbled across that you wanted to share? Or are you trying to start up a discussion of psychology on the relationship section of a dating site?
Not trying to be confrontational or anything, I'm just really confused as to why you've posted this. | |
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| Take off the mask
Posted: 6/4/2009 9:50:47 PM | Oh, do you mean the "nice guy" mask? Or how about the "player" mask? Or is it the "I'm a horny chick" mask?
How we want people to see us OP is a privilege of being human. It is how we engage socially and it is with these necessary masks on that we live our daily lives. It is not healthy to have no masks on. It isn't healthy to want to be intimate with everyone we meet, much less with everyone on a dating forum.
We all long for connections with others, some of us deeper connections than others as we require that substance to come forward, but ultimately, we must remove our masks in appropriate settings, not in the general public and certainly not in places where we feel unsafe.
I am not sure what "masks" I wear...but I'm sure that beneath it/them, there is a fine human being waiting to be discovered like everyone else.
Some masks, naturally, aren't as common as others...but assuming we're talking about relatively stable persons, masks are a way of having boundaries and identities around who we are and who they are. | |
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| Take off the mask
Posted: 6/4/2009 10:02:02 PM |
I think somebody did this thread a few months ago.
Which you have discerned in the whole week you have been here.
OP, the other area where this has an impact is when things don't work out. Some people like to conclude that the person's failure to know himself better was a deliberate attempt to fool you to get you into bed or get you to love him/her, etc. when it is just someone that doesn't know themselves as well as they think they do.
Yeah, more relationships would "stick" if both parties were actually who they thought they were or wanted to be but knowing this allows people to recognize problems in a relationship for what they are rather than clinging to that 'I wish he/she would be the man/woman I fell for again.' The one you encounter three months or so down the road is the real him/her. | |
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| Take off the mask
Posted: 6/4/2009 10:07:35 PM | | I wish you luck. Tell women you're a broke pulmber from small-town Arkinsa with a shabby car and a shabby home and see how it goes. I'm sure it will get you the woman of your dreams! | |
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| Take off the mask
Posted: 6/4/2009 10:08:23 PM | I don't think that as many people wear masks as we might think. For instance, I'm a multifaceted guy and not all the facets share the same image in other people's mind. I think that instead of wearing masks, I wear different hats.
I have what I call "warrior mode" at work. I'm direct and focused. If one were to see me at work only, I'd appear to be a type A personality.
I have a fun and carefree personality when I'm at the lake. If one observed me there, I'd look like a slacker lake bum.
When I'm doing a home improvement project, I'm a grunting, cro-magnon personality. I'd appear to be a blue collar he-man type.
I turn into a big kid around dogs. If one were to see me, they'd think I were much more childlike that I am at any other time.
I'm comfortable with each of these personas. In fact, I'm looking forward to letting Mr. lake bum out this week-end. He's been feeling neglected lately.
In the end equation, perhaps rather than looking at a person as the way we perceive them, we should accept that we only see the person filling the role we're seeing at the moment. | |
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| Take off the mask
Posted: 6/4/2009 11:03:47 PM | ^^^^^
Agree 1,000 % especially the last statement. Very nice post.
spoken as a nerdy, professional, sometimes dirt covered in a garden, shoe collecting, animal loving, big hearted water loving people loving storms loving she lake bum.
Love every last dang hat. None of which cover either eye. | |
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| Take off the mask
Posted: 6/5/2009 12:16:19 AM | | Oh baloney, I'm way too lazy to wear a mask and besides I couldn't breath well and it would fog up my glasses. Maybe it's not about people wearing masks but you being too blind to see. | |
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| Take off the mask
Posted: 6/5/2009 12:50:42 AM | | I prefere the Mickey Mouse Mask and a Blue Balloon. | |
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| Take off the mask
Posted: 6/5/2009 1:22:04 AM |
Take off the mask
You're supposed to wear a mask?
I never got the memo...
It was sent out via email. Might be in your spam folder.
I don't wear a mask. What you see, is what you get. I stopped caring what others thought years ago. I yam what I yam. | |
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| Take off the mask
Posted: 6/5/2009 1:52:23 AM | msg1.
Bravo!! A person whom has done their research! Unfortunately, the encouragement to think inwardly might not sell to portions of the populace whom prefer not to think at all.
One person taking off a mask is a bold step. Two agreeing never to wear them around eachother is a beautiful experience called relationship, and all that encompasses that state of truth.
And now a retro quote from Billy Joel:
"We all have a face, that we hide from one another. And we take them off and show ourselves when everyone has gone." Billy Joel- The Stranger
9to9 | |
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| Take off the mask
Posted: 6/5/2009 2:29:46 AM | | When I wear a mask, I find it difficult to breathe. | |
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| Take off the mask
Posted: 6/5/2009 5:02:06 AM |
We all wear a mask, do you know where yours starts and ends? I have somewhat of a vague idea of where it starts and ends...
I'm not quite as nice and I'm far less serious in person than I am on here...
It's called a persona, basically it's a projection of who we want to be not who we really are and we all do it. It's like a mask that we put on before we go out and show ourselves to the world outside our consciousness. Alrighty... I'll put on my serious persona for a moment to respond to this...
We are different people to everyone we meet in life... this isn't a mask, this is human nature. I will respond differently to a client than to a co-worker than to a friend than to a family member.
Does this mean I'm putting on a façade for each of them? No... what it means is that I respond to the environment I'm in just as the majority of the population responds to their environments.
Human beings have so many different facets to our personalities that unless the person is deliberately doing something to mislead another such as projecting an image of someone that would be more attractive to others; whether that be through using a spray on tan, hair extentions or portraying someone that is more worldly and benevolent than they actually are; then it could simply be another aspect of our personality.
I'm not perfect, I'll be the first to say that I'm opinionated, outspoken, fiery tempered and I will procrastinate, but those are simply parts of me and they by no means identify me as a whole. I do try to temper them, but this isn't a mask I don to mislead people, this is what a normal person does to try to be a better person all around.
I would say it's a small minority of people that put on masks... the rest of us simply are who we are... and until you've been around us for a prolonged period of time, it's impossible to know all of us... we're that complex! | |
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| Take off the mask
Posted: 6/5/2009 5:07:12 AM | | i react with different people differently, depending on how engaged i want to become with them and at what level. that's a moat and perhaps also a perimeter of razor wire, but it's a whole lot different than wearing a mask. masks are fake. they hide things. the perimeter wire, i can assure you, is quite real but it hides nothing. | |
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| Take off the mask
Posted: 6/5/2009 6:25:52 AM | @daynadaze:
You 'socked' to him pretty good. Perhaps OP would prefer a leather mask with one hole near the mouth to put a straw for breathing? | |
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| Take off the mask
Posted: 6/5/2009 6:46:40 AM | | Its all about perspective. I am a million different people to a million different people. Some see me as Mom, aunty and daughter, some see me as career woman, some as teacher, some as referee, some as translator, gardener, disciplinarian and maid. Seeing someone in one instance is no indication of how far/wide thier spectrum goes. Only my closest friends would describe me as warm, I am very reserved around people who have not made it to my inner circle. I dont bear my soul to all, many simply dont deserve it, or know what to do with it...nor care enough to really look...so it stays hidden with me until Im surrounded by my safe people. Thus, yes, I wear many masks. I like to think I know when each one is called for, it has worked for me so far. | |
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