There is no such thing as a fake person. I know this is kinda hard to believe but yeah. Sorry, everyone. There is no such thing as a fake person.
It’s a made-up concept. And I don’t only mean this in the literal,
existential sense, being that we’re all “real” and everything. I mean I
fundamentally reject the idea that people out there can be “fake.”
Why? Well, let’s look at the definition of a fake person. Part of the
definition, as I understand it, is a fake person is supposedly someone
who says one thing to your face and says something else behind your
back. That makes them fake. Except it doesn’t really, if you think about
it. If someone says something to your face and says something else
about you to other people, that makes them just like every single person
I’ve ever met in my entire life. (This is excepting a few special
examples of really “good” people I’ve met, who refuse to joke around
about people not present. These people, these good people, who tell you
“Guys it’s best not to joke about someone not present” and “How would
you feel if someone said this stuff about you?” usually strike me as
holier-than-thou and sanctimonious and, to be honest, sort of gave me
the willies.
Everyone talks differently about people who are present vs.
people who are not present. It sucks. I’m not saying it’s right. But
it’s something we all do. So let’s cross that one off the list, or else
we’re all going to be categorized as fake here, and not everyone can be
fake.
Next thing that makes someone fake, as I understand it from these
lists: he/she is a person who disappears when you need them most. They
don’t help you move apartments. They don’t comfort you when you went
through a rough breakup. They aren’t THERE for you.
Listen. I am a writer. An insecure, possibly hypochondriac
writer but
guess what? I’m also a grown ass adult. And if there’s one thing I’ve
learned so far in this weird, bizarre little life I’ve led, it’s that
you don’t rely on other people.
And not in a “Everyone sucks and I only
need myself” way, but in a “Everyone is busy, and I am busy, and people
who go out of their way to help me should not be EXPECTED to but should
be celebrated as a fucking miracle, a gift from heaven, and I should buy
them beer and offer them my car whenever they want.”
If you expect things out of other people, whether you expect them to
help you move or expect them to be a shoulder for you to cry on — you’re
being selfish. And I’ve found as soon as you stop expecting things out
of people, and stop classifying everyone who won’t help you all the time
as “fake,” they’re probably going to want to help you more. Maybe not.
But guess what? In the words of my father and his father before him —
that’s life. People don’t like helping other people move. People don’t
like staying in on a Friday night to have someone cry into their
shoulder. Don’t expect that out of anyone, and don’t label anyone as
fake who doesn’t want to do that. They aren’t fake. They’re human
beings.
(Before I go on, I will admit that there are two exceptions to this
“no one is really fake” thesis, two exceptions that you might convince
me of. One exception is a person who says they are things they are not.
If you represent yourself as the Princess of Siam, and you are not the
Princess of Siam, I guess that makes you fake. Well, more like a
pathological liar, but I’d be willing to concede that one. The only
other instance I can find of someone being “fake” is if they latch on to
someone who is really wealthy, and pretends to like said person, with
the underlying intention of getting said wealthy person to support them.
Again, these could be considered con artists, but I guess you could
convince me they are “fake.” I will grant you those two. I realize this
torpedoes my whole “no one is really fake” argument, but I didn’t want
to title this essay “There is No Such Thing as a Fake Person, Except for Like Two Exceptions, Maybe” because it doesn’t pack the same punch, you know? My apologies.)
One of the great gifts of adulthood that I’ve
come to understand is that I get to choose the people I surround myself
with. If someone is a drag, or talks shit about everyone, or makes me
feel smaller than I normally otherwise would… guess what? I don’t call
them anymore. If I do see them, I might smile, and wave, and say we
should hang out sometime. But I won’t really mean it. Which I guess, by
these standards, would probably classify me as fake. So it goes.
www.thoughtcatalog.com, written by Natalie!