This is topic A Public Face in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.


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Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
 
You know how people put on a Public Face? For most of my life, I HATE that. First, I did not posses the skill to create one, and secondly, I hated the idea of it anyway. So much malevolence can and often felt like it was hidden behind that public face, and it just stood directly in the way of any true interaction. Growing up in the yuppie South, there was a LOT of artifice. I hated it, and I still don't like it. However, I'm starting to understand the reasons for it.

When I was a teenager, I couldn't handle it at all. I felt like it was betraying something inside of me to create a public face, and since all interaction is superfluous if it is not honest, it was pointless to create one anyway. After some recent experiences, and after listening to the experiences of my friend last night, I'm starting to realize what the purpose of the Public Face is - it's armor that allows people to interact. I mean, when I was a kid, I hated the artifice but was exquisitely sensitive to being hurt. In refusing to have a Public Face that hid some of myself, I laid myself open to it. That was so scary that I flat out refused the interaction with people because I refused to take the necessary steps to protect myself.

Refusing to participate in the general world while still reaping the benefits of society is a hereafter unaffordable luxury.

So, Hatrackers, what do you think? Do you have a Public Face?
 

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Posted by Deirdre (Member # 4200) on :
 
I have several. Sometimes I think I have a different public face for everyone I know.
 

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Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
 
I currently have . . . *counts* . . . thirty-one public faces.
 

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Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
 
I am of two minds on this. I think that if one is too sensitive to lay their life out in the open a Public Face is a benefical thing. Not every one can handle not having one.

I never had a Public Face, persay but I did have a Family Face. Now the two have merged, because I don't see the necessity of pretending to be something I'm not to my family. When I was under 18 having a Family Face was a matter of day to day survival. I couldn't lay out what I was really thinking to them because they couldn't handle the fact that it was different from what they thought.

But on most things I'm quite thick skinned. I would rather have people laugh at my faults than hide them or pretend they don't exist. Not everyone can handle or enjoy being laughed at though. So while I don't instantly reveal my entire life to everyone I meet, I'm pretty consistently the same person regardless.

The place where there might actually be the most discrepancy are between my Hatrack typing face, and my normal conversation face. I'm probably much more intricately detailed and have more complete thoughts on Hatrack than I express in real life.

AJ
 

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Posted by T. Analog Kid (Member # 381) on :
 
I totally identify with that, Kat. In fact, I haven't had one for a long time but am coinsidering getting one now. See, I did it again (really upset a friend) and this time I figured out why and how.

Monica has been on my case about these things called "boundaries" for some time now. I haven't ever really had them and, for the most part it's been a good thing. It leaves me open, honest, accessible, and trustworthy. But when I get really comfortable with someone (and it doesn't take long) I start saying things as they come to mind-- sharing my thoughts without filters letting people see what's going on in my head...

and this invariably goes wrong somewhere, because I haven't filtered those thoughts to find out what *they* actually mean. I just say what comes to mind... what I need is not so much a public face, but something like a crypto team to clear away the noise and get to the meaning behind the thought... and say that. It's even more honest in some respects-- filters let you get to the essence without any of that extra residue, right?

[ October 02, 2003, 11:38 AM: Message edited by: T. Analog Kid ]
 

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Posted by celia60 (Member # 2039) on :
 
i have a public face, but it's just as real as my face. i don't stop being anything i am when you meet me, but i don't feel the need to be totally defined to every person i encounter.

in my professional life, i have a slightly more refined face that includes a handful of social lies simply because the truths involve discussing way more about me than i want to on a professional level relationship. most of those are lies of omission, like yes i'm married (but i don't feel the need to mention how long we've been living together).
 

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Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
 
I may have had a public face when I was younger, but I think as we age we get comfortable enough with who we are and toughened enough to hurt that we find a face-for-all-times.

However, I DO have different voices. By that, I mean I talk one way (kinda like a dialect) around my redneck friends, a different way around co-workers and perhaps a third way if I'm with a more sophisticated group (higher education, executives, symphony-goers, etc). If was to use my "symphony" talk when around my hometown redneck friends, they would think I was trying to be "uppity" and show off my education in front of them.

When in Rome, speak as the Romans.

Farmgirl
 

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Posted by ana kata (Member # 5666) on :
 
There are different mes, but they're all real. They just show different aspects of me. My relaxed true life self I show to my closest friends. I talk about whatever I'm thinking or feeling or seeing or doing, and the same about them. I want to know everything that's ever happened to them and what they think and feel about it, and so on.

To my less close friends I show that but edited to omit what I don't think they'd connect to or find interesting. This would be my hatrack self, I guess.

At church I have a sister self who is only a tiny portion of me. She takes care of people and socializes and is friendly and polite. She does the work that's asked of her. I probably don't make that many friends at church because this is such a tiny part of me. They can tell there isn't much there, I expect.

Work gets a huge part of me, but that part seems to be a grown up, i.e. very competant, in charge, confident, and knowledgable. Really a different person than my personal me, in a lot of ways. Though it's still real. I do seem to be good at what I do, thank goodness. Work gets the geek me, who researches trivia and takes delight in choosing just the right component for the task at hand. Sometimes I get so involved in doing every tiny thing perfectly that the overall task suffers. Mostly if it goes over the time budget, I guess. But I just can't stand making even the smallest preventable mistake. It's constitutionally impossible for me to not go ahead and spend that extra small amount of time it takes to get each little thing right. (As right as I can possibly manage, anyway.) Sometimes I get off on some theoretical tangent and have a hard time just seat-of-the-pants guessing and going on. Engineering is fun cause you might need pretty arcane physics one day and languages, philosophy, or metaphysics the next.

Anyway, I think for the most part I don't have much in the way of a public face either. Kids seem to always be attracted to me, I have this pied piper thing that happens to me fairly often, and I've hypothesized that it's because they recognize me as being a kid with adult privileges and power. <laughs>

But even so, I don't think public faces are bad or anything. If their intent is not to deceive, anyway. They just are what humans do.
 

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Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
 
I think celia said it very well. I like to think of my various "faces" as mere facets of my overall self. I act differently in class than I do at home, but that doesn't mean that the class-me is fake. Different situations simply require us to act in different ways.
 

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Posted by Toretha (Member # 2233) on :
 
I act differently around different people, not changing who I am, just natuarally, different sides of me come out depending on who I'm talking to-it's like whatever language they speak, I speak from that part of me. But all the sides share the basic components of anna-ness, just different ways of acting. As for holding a Public Face, one that's not quite me, or acts as a shield, I can't do it, and I have never wanted to.

Anne kate, parachat, please?
 

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Posted by T_Smith (Member # 3734) on :
 
I have a public face, for those that like public faces.
 

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Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :
 
I have a public face, kinda.. It's just my regular personality scaled down so that people can understand me. I try to be myself no matter what, but if I'm too much of myself, I start acting/talking in shorthand, and only people who've known me for years can understand what I mean.

Also, I'm way less polite to people I know really well, because usually the politeness is an undercurrent.
 

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Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
 
So some of y'all are saying that the Public Face is just a selection of aspects of your true personality. Like Public Celia, who mentions very little of Married Celia or Evil Celia. That works.
 

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Posted by Book (Member # 5500) on :
 
I have quite a few of them. It's like cheating on life.
 

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Posted by T_Smith (Member # 3734) on :
 
Not entirely, no.
 

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Posted by Head Ditch Digger (Member # 5085) on :
 
I have many faces. In my job i have to. I have one face for my sub contractors another for my boss, and yet another for the city inspectors.

I live by the addage, "Treat others like THEY would like to be treated." This gets things done, and it is no sweat off my back.
 

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Posted by Book (Member # 5500) on :
 
If you trick people into thinking you're someone that you're not, that's cheating, right?
 

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Posted by ana kata (Member # 5666) on :
 
Alas, Anna, I didn't see your chat request until a couple of hours after you posted it. I hope you didn't wait in there too long. You were gone by the time I made it. I've got an errand to run shortly but will be home 3:30ish and will try back then. </preemption of thread for personal messages>
 

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Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
 
I took a class in Social Psychology years ago at Georgia Tech, and while I've forgotten most of it the basic ideas of social personas and mindsets and social roles has stuck with me. I'm a real believer in role psychology because I often notice my behavior or the behavior of others confined to the role of the moment--boyfriend, friend, son, brother, polite stranger, employee, supervisor, consumer, etc. The problem is roles can become too confining and sometimes seem impossible to break out of.

[ October 02, 2003, 03:16 PM: Message edited by: Morbo ]
 

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Posted by Ayelar (Member # 183) on :
 
I'm like Banna with the Family Face, which has become more and more distant from the real me over the years. I've never been able to be the real me with my family, except my brother, as far back as I can remember. From age 8 on, there was always a list of things we couldn't tell Grandma, which taught me that I shouldn't tell certain things to mom, either.
 

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Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
 
*thinks*

That's interesting. There is actually almost nothing I wouldn't tell my family, but that doesn't mean they are happy to hear it. When I hit college, I figured I wouldn't do anything I couldn't tell my mother about - that should cover most things. After a while, she started to request that I not tell her about honestly very innocent things, like getting caught by the police in cemetary. It hurt my feelings, actually. What do you mean I can't tell you things like that?

[ October 02, 2003, 04:29 PM: Message edited by: katharina ]
 

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Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Clearly your mother suspected you were performing satanic rituals in the cemetary, and preferred to remain in ignorance. Clearly.



Perhaps she thought you were too gosh-darn honest and upright. How dare you be so moral, that's downright fiendish!
 

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Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
 
It most definitely and assuredly was not the second.

Probably the first. *nods vigorously* That would explain a lot.
 

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Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
 
I've spent a goodly chunk of my adult life trying to eliminate the different faces or voices I use. I've been very fortunate in that I have a job where I don't have to watch what I say (too much) and a family that understands and accepts my opinions and sense of humor. The person I am here is the person I am at home and the person I am at work.
Not perfect yet, and it probably never will be. My wife will always get a more intimate version than anyone else, and politeness and respect keeps me from offering all of my opinions at every possibility, but I won't change opinions to fit my audience.
 

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Posted by Head Ditch Digger (Member # 5085) on :
 

quote:

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If you trick people into thinking you're someone that you're not, that's cheating, right?

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