identities

we can hold multiple, contradictory truths

Nicolae Maniu, L'Interstice de la vie, 2003

Everyone has a foil, a personality type that really grates on them. For me, it’s people who are super anal and micromanager-y. The reason is because I have my own inner task master, and that voice is constantly pushing me to get X done by Y date. But I don’t manifest my task master outwardly because I don’t particularly like that part of me. I think it’s a useful part, but if it were a person, I wouldn’t want to introduce her to my friends. 

It’s amazing how well I’ve hidden that part. No one who knows me would call me anal or bossy. I think your foil reveals the part of you that you’re least comfortable showing to the world. It’s helpful to look at people who get on your nerves and examine whether you inhabit some of the characteristics you dislike about them.

And then there are the people that you envy: do you envy them for something they did or an intrinsic quality? I think which way you lean reveals something about your insecurities. If you tend to envy people for their accomplishments, your insecurity probably stems from feeling a lack of self-worth (you’re prone to self-criticism). But if you tend to envy people more for their intrinsic qualities, your insecurity stems from a fear of social rejection. This is similar to the difference between introjective and anaclitic personalities.  

When I witness another person’s success, I feel a renewed urgency to accomplish my own goals, but I hardly ever feel envious. I tend to envy people more for a certain personality trait like being funny or outgoing. I think the characteristics you envy in others are the ones you’ve renounced in yourself.

What makes this feeling of envy more complicated is that I’ve fully accepted that I’m not funny or outgoing, and I feel genuinely O.K. with that. Yet, when I meet people who embody these traits, I can’t help but feel a tug of envy. I think it’s because even though I’m really happy with who I am, there will always be a tiny part of me that still yearns to be the kind of person I’m not. We can’t eradicate our parts. We have to learn to live with them. 

Every relationship brings out certain parts of us, and moving through life is a constant exercise in managing our parts. Friendships are a reflection of your parts. If you don’t think some of your friends would get along with others of your friends, congratulations—you are probably a highly complex, multifaceted being. Maybe some people have a cohesive personality that shows up in all of their social interactions, but I don’t think that’s the case for most people. 

I used to be very uncomfortable with having a “fractured personality.” It felt somehow duplicitous. But I don’t think there is such a thing as a unitary “me.” Case in point: we don’t just make up our minds about things and go do them, we have raging, internal debates. It wouldn’t be half as hard to decide where to go to college or which job offer to accept or even just where to go for dinner if we had a unitary mind through which all external information is processed. The reason we have internal debates is because we have parts that want different things and are in constant dialogue with each other. Maybe your status-conscious, security-seeking part is telling you to take the job at the more prestigious company, but your curious and creative part is telling you to take the job that would allow you to do what you’ve always wanted to do but doesn’t pay as much. This is why we feel conflicted about certain issues or find ourselves wanting seemingly opposing things.

Once you notice your parts, it becomes easier to spot other people’s parts. I had a breakthrough last year where I finally understood why someone I really cared about was behaving in a way that seemed contradictory, saying one thing and acting differently. Instead of getting upset and accusing him of being inconsistent or dishonest, I felt empathy toward him because I could see the internal conflict he was having. Instead of trying to figure out the Truth about him, I could accept that he had multiple truths in him.

I think everyone—avoidant or not—has a part that seeks closeness and connection, but some people have another part that fears what might come with greater intimacy, e.g. losing their freedom. When you realize this about a person, you no longer see them in black and white terms: anxious or avoidant, wanting to spend time with you or not wanting to spend time with you. They can hold multiple, contradictory truths.

People are kaleidoscopic: they show different parts of themselves in different situations with different people, and there’s nothing dishonest or inauthentic about that. Whenever I have a strong reaction to someone (e.g. envy, annoyance, infatuation), I try to look inward to see where that reaction is coming from. It usually tells me more about myself than it does about the other person.