So I’ve gotta tell you about this moment that truly, and I mean truly, changed how many fucks I give about whether people like me or not.
We gotta rewind for a sec. It was during the slow death of a friendship that had once meant the world to me. You know the kind, the friend you were ride or die with, who you thought would be at your wedding, raising kids at the same time, still texting memes in your sixties, but truthfully, over time, something shifted. It stopped feeling safe. It stopped feeling like love. We were circling around the inevitable.
And then one day, toward the end of it all, we were texting, trying to find some kind of closure and she said something that made my jaw drop:
“I hate that you see me this way in your mind. What can I do to fix that?”
And listen, I know she didn’t mean harm by it, but I just sat there .. stunned. Like… wait… that’s what you’re worried about? After everything? After the silence, the defensiveness, the gaslighting, the way I bent myself to keep this thing alive? What’s hurting you most is that you don’t like the version of yourself you imagine I’m holding in my brain?
That hit me in a way I wasn’t expecting.
Because it made me realize: we all do this.We all crave that kind of control.We want to be seen as good, as thoughtful, as funny or deep or kind. We want the image of us in someone else’s mind to align with who we believe we are.
And when it doesn’t? When someone doesn’t get us, doesn’t like us, doesn’t mirror back the version we hope to be.. it shakes us. That moment, reading that text, something cracked .. and then it clicked:
We don’t just want to be liked, we want to be perceived the right way.
We want people to think of us as our best self. Not even because we were our best self, but because we want to be seen that way. Even when we weren’t. Even when we hurt someone. Even when we didn’t show up.
And the truth is: that’s absolutely wild.
It’s wild that we try to shape someone else’s private, internal, mental image of us. It’s the equivalent of wanting to interior decorate someone else’s brain.
I sat with that realization for weeks. I chewed on it. I started to recognize all the ways I’d done the same thing in my life. Wanting coworkers to “get” me. Hoping strangers thought I was cool. Wishing people in new spaces saw me as capable or interesting or kind. Putting energy into trying to be mentally curated in the eyes of people who don’t even know me.
Which brings me to the other day:
I happened to be near a group of PTA moms who fit every stereotype ever made about PTA moms. I’ve never been fond of what I assumed those groups to be and found this one to be particularly PTA-ish. The side-eye, soft smiles, lack of acknowledgement of anyone outside of their crew, high school mean girl energy was p a l p a b l e. You know that feeling, it’s like you feel it before it’s even obvious. Like you’re wearing something they’d never pick off the rack.
Now here’s what’s cool as fuck: I noticed it… and I didn’t care.
Not like before.Not like the old version of me who would’ve spent the whole night unraveling over why they didn’t like me. Not the version who would’ve convinced herself they had no right to judge me. Not the one who would’ve wanted to defend her goodness just in case someone had the wrong idea.
I saw it. I clocked it. And I was just like… okay, and here’s why:
Because we don’t talk. Because we’re not building anything together. Because their perception of me is none of my business.
That’s when it hit me again, the depth of that old conversation. The way it stripped something out of me I hadn’t even realized I’d been carrying: the burden of needing to be understood.
Because here’s the truth; being afraid of how you’re perceived is really just being afraid of someone else’s thoughts.
And their thoughts?You can’t control them.You don’t get to edit them.You don’t even know them.
You’re giving your energy to someone’s invisible, internal, highly biased narrative. A narrative you’ll never hear or that you’ll never fully understand. That probably says more about them than it ever will about you.
That text, that one moment, freed me.
It was the first time I really saw how much we scramble to be seen “right,” even when the relationship is over, even when we’ve done harm, even when we’re in rooms that were never meant to hold us.
So now:
I’m not bending myself for anyone’s mental Pinterest board. I’m not shape-shifting into someone more digestible. I’m not making myself smaller so I fit better into someone else’s imagination.
And I’ll leave you with this message: Let people think what they want. Let your energy speak for itself. You don’t owe anyone a polished version of your humanity just so they can picture you more pleasantly in their mind. You’re not responsible for who they pretend you are. You’re only responsible for who you actually are.
And honestly, that’s more than enough.
Lots of love,
Marr <3