Hello My Name Is Julia and I Need You to Like Me
— Julia LaSalvia
I’ve got a bad habit and I’m finally ready to admit that it’s kinda, sorta starting to ruin my life.
Hello, my name is Juliana Marie LaSalvia and I’m addicted to getting people to like me. It’s gotten so extreme that “like” doesn’t actually feel like a strong enough word. I need to make everyone I come into contact with love me actually. Yes, that includes you, Internet Person Who Stumbled Upon This Article. I yearn for your approval more than almost anything in the world. And for the first time, I’m ready to admit that it’s a problem.
The life mantra of Try To Get As Many People To Like You As Possible served me well for a solid twenty-five years. It’s only the last few where some concerning patterns have emerged. For most of my life, trying to get the approval of parents, teachers, classmates, coaches, and frat boys (jk… that was a sad, gross phase) led to positive outcomes. I was lucky to be surrounded by a support system (family) that encouraged me to do things that were good for my growth (get an education). Now that school and first-jobs-out-of-college are over, however, I’m looking for cues on how to spend my time and who to spend it with and it’s dawning on me: my own internal compass is just kinda, well, not really there.
I’ve always prided myself on being the “chill” girl. Once at a party, a friend went around the room, giving thoughtful introductions to everyone. When she came to me, she paused, smiled, and said, “Julia’s always down.” I wore my “downness” with pride and built an entire personality around it. There’s a lot of interesting experiences you have when you’re “down.” I’m the kind of person who enjoys not having a set plan, meeting a cute, German tourist in my uber pool, and changing my location to his place instead of my own. Sometimes you gotta carpe diem or in this case, carpe the German.
Opening myself up to new adventures and people made each day unique. I pitied people who were so strict with their routines that they couldn’t drink a whole bottle of wine on a Tuesday because of a “workout class.” San Francisco started to feel like a city full of people so focused on achieving the next goal, so blinded by their own ambition, that they missed all the life happening around them. I took a hard stance against it. Productivity culture be damned! Look at me turning up with anyone who asks me out on Hinge! This is living, my friends.
Unfortunately, “being down” went beyond the occasional, sexually-charged uber pool. My value started to become solely determined by how much people wanted me around. I equated being a good friend, employee, and person as rarely saying no to things. Saying no means I might make someone feel bad and when you’re a people pleaser, you avoid that at all costs. You need them to like you and saying no to them might make them not like you. It’s very simple actually.
Saying yes was the path of least social resistance. Plans with other people, regardless of how trivial, took precedence. A lot of my time was spent waiting to be invited to places. Moments by myself felt kind of pointless, like the in-between times, waiting for the “real” ones to start. If someone wanted my company there was no higher compliment and I obliged.
Needing people to love me permeated my online existence too. I had an epiphany when chatting with a writer’s group I joined recently (think: Dead Poets Society but if it all took place over Zoom). The idea of notification anxiety came up and how social media and business communication platforms, like slack and g-chat, create this artificial need to respond to people right away. We shared stories of how difficult it is to achieve your goals when you’re constantly in reaction-mode. A few people mentioned how they’ve created a precedent, in their personal and professional lives, where they don’t respond right away. Setting boundaries where you’re not available all the time? People will still like you if you do that? If someone messages you a cute picture of their dog, you don’t stop whatever you’re doing to respond with three heart faced emojis and ask for an update on the kennel cough?
I didn’t get it.
It takes a certain level of self-assurance to trust that people will like you even when you define your personal space, and it takes a hell of a lot more not to prioritize “being liked” over all other things. Maybe some people will like you less if you don’t immediately respond or say yes to them. Maybe that’s okay. I envy people who can consciously make those choices.
From the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed, my cell phone is present. I’m in reaction-mode, planning my day around slack notifications and comments as they roll in. Some of my reactive behavior is out of my people-pleasing habit, but I think a good portion comes from avoiding the painful process of looking inward. Filling my time with people and notifications is a great distraction from the difficult work of figuring out what matters to me. I now know what I have to do and step one is being a little less available (and a little less concerned about the kennel cough).
Maybe some people will like me less and I’m okay with that.
Maybe I will like myself a lot more.
