Cultural Expressions of the Unrequited Desire To Be Liked and Included

 

CULTURAL EXPRESSIONS OF THE UNREQUITED DESIRE

TO BE LIKED AND INCLUDED

Christopher Ebbe, Ph.D.    2-13

ABSTRACT:  The expression in social media and in our culture of continuing anxiety about being liked and included is explored, and guidelines for liking oneself better are provided.

 

KEY WORDS:  inclusion, liking, personal value, self-esteem, social anxiety, heroes

 

Human beings have a very strong desire to be accepted by others and included in various groups (family, social groups, village, tribe, nation), since being rejected, particularly by an entire group, leads to lowered status, humiliation, a smaller share of resources, and even death.  The simple (albeit crude) measure that people use to confirm whether they are accepted or are in danger of exclusion is whether they are “liked” by others of the group.

Being liked and included is also used by many as a prop for self-esteem or as a proof that they are “worth something.”  Since we are all so dependent on each other for our welfare and our very lives (think of how many hundreds if not thousands of people you are dependent on for the food that you eat every day), and since we are not born with inherent self-esteem (which arises through conditioning), most people do not achieve a stable, healthy conviction about their positive worth and must try to reaffirm their value every day through how they are treated that day by others--in the carpool, the office, the koffee-klatch, the Women’s Aid Society meeting, the lunchroom, the beauty parlor, and all the other contexts in which we interact with others, including our own families.

This essay will examine conceptions and uses of “liking” by individuals and in the culture that are not actually liking but are intended to quell our anxiety about being liked, and it will then offer guidance regarding ways of fulfilling our true and understandable need to be liked.

In order to become less anxious about being liked by others (hopefully, partly by liking yourself more), it is important first of all to be clear on what we mean by “liking.”  Liking (“favorable regard” in the Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary), is feeling warmly and even affectionately toward someone and feeling better for being with them (which can be at a distance as long as one feels connected).  It is not admiring them (because you’d like to be more like them).  It is not approving of them (because they conform to your standards).  It is not endorsing them (because you agree with them).  And it is not needing something from them.  Liking is simply feeling positively toward someone and feeling better for being with them.  (We misuse what it is to “love” someone even more than we misuse “like.”)

A major task of adolescence is establishing our place in peer groups and in the status hierarchy, and as we can all remember, the competition is fierce.  Being in the “popular” group was the ultimate prize in terms of being liked, and staying there involved considerable anxiety and took considerable effort, as allegiances and the usefulness of individuals varied over time.  The rest of us were relegated to establishing our value in peripheral groups (chess club, Future Farmers of America, choir), all of which were valuable in themselves, but many of us would rather have been “popular.”  This is the essence of “popular,” of course—that others would like to “be” one of those “popular” people.  The apex of being “liked,” in common parlance, then, is being popular or famous, and we seem to believe that if we could achieve fame or popularity, then we would no longer have to worry about being liked.  This is patently false, of course, since most famous and popular people spend great amounts of time and effort trying to ensure that they continue to be famous or popular.  Even more importantly, since being popular and famous are not based on true liking (feeling positively toward someone and feeling better for being with him or her), being popular or famous does not fulfill our need for real contact with others.

The point of being popular is simply that others admire or praise one and would like to “be” one.  We say that we “like” them or imagine that we like them, even though we usually know little or nothing about them as people.  Hence, the things that make and keep people popular are relatively superficial, such as appearance, outer confidence, “coolness” or “in-ness,” and physical (sports) abilities.  Most popular people have no more claim to value in terms of usefulness or virtue than any other people, as becomes evident frequently as famous or popular people display their moral or ethical failures and we waver in our “liking” of them.

Activities in our media illustrate and assist us in our quest to be liked.  We are avidly interested in the activities or those we would like to be “like,” and we imitate them in clothing, mannerisms, and activities, hoping to be similarly liked ourselves.  Family and neighborhood gossip analyze and evaluate everyone so that they can be properly liked or disliked, or moved to another position in the status hierarchy.  This is the source of the popularity of “reality TV,” which shows “real” people (not really) doing common things, like living together and competing with each other.  Many people do not feel competent in these tasks, so they want to see how others do it and to learn what to look out for, and they enjoy feeling superior when they see others make mistakes.

The social media craze has similar foundations.  People are naturally interested in what those they care about are doing, but for many this quickly turns into a pressure to keep up and to know everything everyone else knows about others (and to compete by knowing it first), so many people engage in this game not because it is the level of connection that they actually want with others but because they do not want to be left out or fall behind or have others they care about stop liking them because they do not seem to care enough to check their Facebook pages several times an hour, for example.  People who are insecure about being liked also use social media because they can issue “likes” and “dislikes” as if they were superior (or at least equal) beings and as if their likes and dislikes counted with other people.  (Of course, another fundamental reason that people spend time on social media is that they prefer doing that to doing what they would otherwise be doing, such as doing their jobs properly or being alone.  Of course, communication media of any type can be used to cooperate more effectively in mutual activities, but this type of use is a small percentage of the actual use of social media and instant messaging.)

Various parties in society are savvy enough to know how insecure people are and how much they crave connections with others that lead to being liked, and they have created activities and things to buy that cater to this insecurity and need (Facebook, Twitter, instant messaging, many of the smart phone “apps,” faster phones so that one can get information even sooner, etc.).  It was brilliant of Facebook to let users “like” people and things, since this gets to the heart of the social needs and insecurities that are part of users’ motivation to frequent Facebook and other social media.  (It is not rational to argue or to feel that we can no longer “do without” electronic social media, since clearly people got along just fine before they had electronic social media.)

Our concerns as human beings about how others view and feel about us are always relevant to our ongoing success in life, since others can have significant impact on anyone’s life (unless one chooses to be a hermit and find all one’s own food, etc.).  Our desires to be like others and to be liked are also relevant to having enough commonality among the members of a society that they can all have sufficient understanding of and trust in each other to make the cooperative activities that extreme specialization requires in order for us to have food, potable water, fuel for heating, electricity, etc.  If people cared little about what others thought and felt about them, we could become so different from each other that we could not carry out these cooperative tasks effectively enough.  However, since most of us are insecure enough and desirous enough of the benefits of relationships in which others like and are pleased with us, we can trust that we will continue to conform sufficiently for society to operate adequately.

DEALING WITH ISSUES OF “LIKING”

Those who are insecure about being liked might lead less anxious and more enjoyable lives if that insecurity could be lessened.  This would involve gaining more confidence in being liked adequately by others.  The first step would be assessing realistically whether and how one is liked, followed by redefinitions of liking and of how much liking one really needs.

People who are anxious about being liked are usually actually liked by some people but feel that this liking is tenuous, undependable, or not by a person of high enough status and therefore worry about it.  A person in this situation must first of all rule out that the persons in question are people that use their liking as a carrot or reward for doing certain things for them.  If you are being blackmailed into doing certain things in order to continue being liked, then this kind of liking will never feel secure (and it is the kind of liking that values you only as a tool and not for who you are).  You may be better served by finding others whose liking is more reliable and sincere. 

We all like people because of what they do for us and for how we feel in response to them, so in a sense having others like you is always contingent on how they benefit from knowing you, but since you like others for these reasons, too, you cannot expect others to like you unconditionally (as, hopefully, your parents did), and you will have to get used to the notion that others like you for their own reasons but that this liking can be reasonably consistent over time, as long as they like the person you are and as long as you treat them well.  The key is whether they like you for being what comes reasonably naturally to you, or whether they like you only if you work at not being yourself around them.  Again, if you have to work hard at not being yourself so that someone will like you, you are either trying to be liked by the wrong people, or you should evaluate whether you want to change some things about who you are and how you treat people.  (If, for instance, you are truly a person who enjoys hurting others, because you were hurt so much and now have a drive to “even the score,” then you will not be liked by very many people, nor will you be able to sincerely like others, so to solve your problem about being liked, it would be best to seek personal change, through psychotherapy, religious counseling, or other means, so that you can finally like others and want to treat them in ways that will make it possible for them to like you as well.)

Decide what you really want from others.  Do you want to be liked (to have others feel warmly toward you and feel better for being around you), or do you actually want to be adored, admired, approved of, or superior to others, or to have others give you things to curry your favor?  If you actually want some of these other things, rather than being liked, then it may help you to recognize what you really want and to stop calling it “liking.”

To feel more secure in being liked, you must give up the hope that being liked extremely well will ensure that the liking will last forever.  Some who seek fame and mass audiences are making this bargain with reality—that if they are “number one” or are liked by thousands, then they no longer have to worry about being liked.  This is not a successful strategy, though, since they have to keep on demonstrating their usefulness in order to maintain their position, and they cannot escape the facts that people change and that even one’s best friends sometimes drift away.  Philosophically, the better strategy is to accept that everything changes, including oneself, which means that we must accept that we cannot ensure liking or loving or even life itself against change.

In order to feel secure with being liked, you must give up any hope of being liked by everyone.  Liking others (beyond simply appreciating their courtesy and other basic ways that they treat you) is a very individual thing, and no one likes everyone else.  Come to appreciate more how great it is to have rewarding relationships with even a few people that you “really like” and that “really like” you.

If you depend on power over others or on having higher status than others to be “liked,” then you must realize that others don’t really like you—they just act like it to stay in your favor.  If you really want to be liked, then you must give others total choice in whether they like you or not.

Stop “liking” people just because you want them to like you, and consider how you actually feel toward them.  Liking others may make them slightly more positively disposed toward you, but it won’t make them like you.

Stay clear about the public liking games, such as Facebook.  Attention, adulation and endorsement are not really being liked, and they do not give the true rewards of being liked.

A fundamental fact in regard to liking and being liked is that if you like yourself, you will be less anxious about whether particular other people like you and how much they like you, and, being less anxious and more comfortably yourself, more people will tend to like you.  You have more control over your liking for yourself than you do over the liking of others.  You can check out whether you like yourself, and you can work on liking yourself better and more deeply.  Liking yourself depends on—

·       recognizing and appreciating your value to yourself (you do more for yourself as an adult than anyone else does!),

·       recognizing and appreciating the good effects that you have on others (and learning skills that help you to benefit others),

·       accepting and valuing the valuing of you by others that you receive and have received in life,

·       making yourself more valuable to yourself by always acting in your best interest and by doing nice and loving things for and toward yourself every day,

·       avoiding doing things that harm yourself (drug use?, too much partying?, accepting others’ put-downs so that they will not reject you totally?),

·       avoiding people who like you only for what you do for them concretely and do not really like you as a person, since this is degrading to your self-respect over time, and

·       giving up trying to make certain others like you who don’t (the popular group?, a girlfriend or boyfriend?, a poorly chosen spouse?) and instead seeking out those who do value and like you.

If you do these things in order to like yourself better, you will find that you have become a person who is more likely to be liked by others.

Being liked by those who are insightful and sincere in their liking is more rewarding than being liked by those who “like” only superficially and whose liking is therefore less dependable and more dependent on what you do for them concretely.

Approach others whom you think you might come to like positively and with confidence in what you have to give.  The important things that you have to give are companionship, decent treatment, loyalty, appreciation, and trustworthiness.  Develop these skills so that you can have the best relationships possible.

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