There are just SO MANY people pleasers in the world! In this post, I’m going to help you understand why, and what we can do about it (i.e. what you can do about your own people pleasing to help change the world).
Like a college scout who can spot a star basketball player from watching a single play, I’m able to identify people-pleasers with almost the same precision just from observing the way people move, dress, and talk to others. And when I look around, in any major town or city around the world, I observe that MOST people are pleasers.
Today, I want to get a bit theoretical and explain why I think most people end up this way. This post is to help the Nice Guys out there attain self-acceptance, and to understand that:
a) you are in the majority,
b) it’s not your “fault” you turned out like this,
c) humanity will always continue to churn out people-pleasers for the rest of time, and
d) what you need to do to enjoy your life within this hellscape environment.
This post will stray into evolutionary psychology, social dynamics, and global politics. This is partly to exercise my own enjoyment by exploring something deeply from different angles, and partly to give you a stronger and wider context behind what made you who you are.
“Orthodoxy”
The word orthodox will come up throughout this piece. It describes conformity – behaving in a way that is approved of, accepted, and validated by your peers, family, and local culture.
People-pleasing is about trying to find the correct orthodox behaviour. Others are generally pleased when we play by the unwritten rules of society, and they get upset when we don’t. There are often different rules for each group (e.g. family vs work), and specific rules for each individual that we need to learn and remember if we wish to please them.
A person who’s good at learning, remembering and applying all the rules is an orthodox person; a “Good Person” – the master people-pleaser.
So one way to frame Nice Guy Syndrome and people-pleasing is: an obsession with remaining orthodox; of never appearing to be unorthodox; and thereby avoiding conflict, disapproval, and loss of love.
1984
In George Orwell’s book 1984 – which I just finished re-reading for the nth time – he explains some core political concepts that help us understand the ongoing creation of orthodox people pleasers.
The most important is the social status hierarchy. Orwell points out that for all of recorded human history, regardless of which political or religious system ruled, and regardless of what part of the world or which cultural influences existed, society always ended up creating three distinct tiers: High, Middle and Low.
The percentages in each differ from instance to instance, but always: most people are Low, the next largest majority are Middle, and a small elite are High.
This might seem abstract, but please bear with me because this system is one of the main reasons for the way you are.
Capitalism or communism, Catholic or Muslim, East or West, Ancient or Modern – it makes no difference. After an initial settling-in period, every new regime eventually creates these three social status groups. Why is this, and how does it relate to people-pleasing?
Wealth, Power and Popularity (a.k.a. Resources, Control and Love)
I think the why is explained by evolutionary psychology. When we strip aside all self-deception, any human behaviour can be attributed to one of these top three desires:
wealth (acquisition and keeping of resources),
power (control and influence over others), and
popularity (love and approval from others).
Until relatively recent advances in technology, humans spent tens of thousands of years somewhere in the middle of the food chain. We were predators, but we were also hunted. Most of us died in childbirth, many of us before the age of five, and only a few from old age. We died from exposure, illness and injury, abandonment, predators, and being murdered by other humans.
It makes perfect sense that becoming obsessed with one of the three desires described above ensured our survival as a species. And for thousands of years, it was appropriate to pursue these desires without restraint.
We collected as many resources as possible (wealth), because they were often scarce and hard to maintain. We never moderated ourselves, because tomorrow’s resources were never guaranteed, and it was impossible to stockpile too much (i.e. fruit would rot if not eaten immediately). There was no risk of overdoing it.
We obsessed over politics (power). Our standing in the tribe and our ability to get others to support and protect us was of paramount importance. We either strived to be the chief, or did our best to avoid the chief’s wrath. We gossiped and fawned, were hypervigilant to our status, and did all we could to climb higher in the rankings to access the most protection and to get the first cut of meat. Those who didn’t play this game died. There was no risk in constantly trying to achieve higher status – were we limited by numbers. You couldn’t get too powerful.
We became obsessed with love and approval from others (popularity). As individuals, we were weak: no claws or fangs, no fur or hide, and slower than other predators. But united as a group we were dominant. We hunted in packs, so the unity of the pack was a main determinant in our survival. The more we loved and were loved, the longer we lived. We needed others to take care of us when we were sick or hurt. Again, there was no limit to how popular we could be, because there’s little risk in being popular in a group where everyone knows each other personally.
Then technology flipped all this on its head.
Too Much
With farming and other advances, we could now stockpile resources. We could stockpile abundant caches of resources, and feed and clothe ourselves using other peoples’ labour.
With civilisations forming, powerful rulers could now design systems like laws and religion to govern thousands or millions of people – groups too large for personal relationships to exist between all members. Controlling the whole world of humans became a real possibility.
The advances in communication and networking meant that now fame was possible. You could now be known and loved by people you’d never met or even heard of, in staggeringly large numbers.
And because our brains had not evolved anywhere near the same pace as this technology, our endless hunger for these three desires continued unabated. We never learned to moderate ourselves. We never realised that at a certain point we have enough. We stayed as hungry for resources, ambitious for status, and needy for love as ever.
The Selfish vs The Ambitious vs The Pleasers
Well populated societies with abundant resources and widespread media, combined with our endless impulses to seek those three survival desires, inevitably led to the unstoppable formation of the 3-level social system.
In different cultures, it can vary what “High, Middle and Low” refer to. Most often High means rich and powerful, but in some places, e.g. within a high school, it might be popular people who are High, while social outcasts are Low even if they’re wealthy. However, in most cases, High means abundance in all three desires, Middle means abundance in one or two desires, and Low means no abundance in any (or just one at a moderate level).
During our evolutionary ascent to top of the food chain, those most obsessed with Power became the High. Those most obsessed with Wealth become the Middle. And those most obsessed with Popularity become the Low. (Generally speaking.)
The original High were probably the bloodlines of chiefs and psychopaths – the Ambitious. These people were more ruthless, lucky and clever in their acquisition of power, and then used this as leverage to also acquire wealth and popularity, though not always in that order, e.g. Arnold Schwarzenegger used his fame to acquire wealth and then both fame and money to enter into politics.
The Middle were anxious about stockpiling resources – the Selfish – so the High quickly created a scenario whereby the Middle were constantly competing with each other for resources (and not becoming too concerned with power), the way office staff are incentivized with moderate financial bonuses to battle each other for promotion into the management positions which are controlled by the very highly paid executives.
And the Low were everyone else; offspring from the bloodlines of socially anxious followers, who felt that all the wealth and power were already taken, and therefore focused on acquiring whatever small amount of social approval consolation prizes they were lucky enough to receive.
The Low are always, by necessity and design, people-pleasers. They survive by gaining the approval of the Middle and High, who (appear to) have the power of life or death over them, and who need the Low’s labour for their own goals.
In basic political and evolutionary terms, I think this is why most people in the Lower levels – the ‘working class’ as it’s often known – are the most likely to suffer from chronic and compulsory people-pleasing. They then model this to their children, and so they frequently breed equally fawning replacements, rarely breaking out of the Low level as a family group or a community.
The Middle are a mixture of all types. However, when they’re people-pleasers, they are more nuanced by their ambition to acquire resources, seeking only to please those above them – the High – while maintaining a superior identity when faced with a member of the Low group (e.g. a manager will fawn over the CEO but ignore the janitor).
The remaining Middle’s are the ambitious climbers, the future High’s (depending on their capability), possessing all the High ‘dark triad’ selfish traits in varying degrees: ruthlessness, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy.
Some Middle’s fall into the Low category over time, others ascend to the High, and most run on a treadmill, putting in a frantic effort to compete with each other that – due to lack of luck or skill – is only able to maintain a Middle position, which their children inherit and are left to maintain, improve, or lose.
The High are basically in a game where it’s theirs to lose. They are the descendants of highly ambitious, dominating and psychopathic bloodlines, and so are likely to maintain the High position, through inherited wealth, nepotism, exclusive social networks, and the general inertia of society.
The High cannot lose their position easily, unless they make enormous errors, or suffer tremendous strikes of bad luck, or are overthrown by a cooperative contingent of Middles, or willingly step down. Otherwise, they remain High with very little effort.
People Pleasers Are The Foundation
The Low, seeking approval from these upper levels and love from their peers, engage in people-pleasing behaviour that props the whole system up. From birth, Low’s (and Low-Middle’s) are trained and programmed to be orthodox, allowing the system to remain unchanged for the High.
Low’s – obsessed with popularity – worship celebrities. Famous people have a licence to kill and are generally exempt from normal laws and boundaries.
Low’s spend their money frivolously, trying to gain approval by pouring all their spare resources into the pockets of the already wealthy through consumerism (to impress others), alcoholism (to socialize fearlessly), and gambling/pornography (to cope).
And the Low are so worried what others think that they allow themselves to be seduced and easily manipulated, ensuring that the power game remains exclusive only to a few Highs and Middles who revolve endlessly at the top levels of influence.
If the Low didn’t desperately seek approval from others, the system would collapse.
The High, whether deliberately or unconsciously, in thousands of various ways, create societal systems that exploit the Low’s tendency to seek approval. They don’t even need to conspire with each other; the High just each act in their own best interests and according to their selfish programming. It’s the Low’s who do all the work.
The High create the traditions, rituals and cultural norms – orthodoxy – which force Middle’s to compete for resources, and Low’s to expend massive amounts of time and money each year (e.g. Christmas). The High cultivate a culture that shames Low’s in particular for being unorthodox – by getting them to shame each other – meaning the Low’s are prevented from creatingany extra time or money to improve their position.
Marketing encourages further expenditure of all resources and attention, by fostering approval-seeking attachment to orthodox identities that require enormous expenditure. Buying top brand clubs and playing golf every weekend; souping up your Honda Civic with overpriced accessories; getting drunk at nightclubs on $15 shots.
The hobbies and activities that consume the most resources are encouraged, while unorthodox practices like minimalism, studying philosophy, art, financial investing, and self-sufficient living are just as quietly suppressed, shamed and ignored. From elementary school onward, orthodox behaviour is praised, and even forced.
The High are always presented as morally superior, and so people-pleasers automatically trip over themselves in their efforts to show their love to their rulers. Workers worship billionaires as if they’re ethical. Catholics give up their few extra dollars to gain approval from the Vatican – possibly the wealthiest and most powerful organisation on earth. Celebrities don’t have to pay for their own meals.
And this system will never, ever change.
We are wired to repeat this over and over again, because technology will always move exponentially quicker than biological evolution. We can’t do anything about the whole system. Whoever succeeds in overthrowing it just becomes the new High, and in fact only rebelled in the first place because they were ambitious for power and control.
But you don’t need to despair. You can do something about yourself, at least.
How a People-Pleaser Can Enjoy Their Life
Once you realise that you’re a product of a system that doesn’t benefit you in any way, you might wish to start considering alternative approaches to life. You might start to consider becoming unorthodox.
When you start to see yourself being polite, professional, fawning, conflict-averse, easy-going, approval-seeking, pleasing and conformist, you might realise that these impulsive behaviours are not exactly natural to you. You would not do things like this if you hadn’t been trained, conditioned, programmed and taught to do them from an early age.
The system feeds itself. You were created to ensure the survival of the system. But once you’re aware of this, you are faced with a choice:
Should you stop people-pleasing and do something else instead?
But what? If you don’t live to impress others, try to fit in, and spend all your time, money and energy seeking approval from that vague monster we call “Society,” what should you do instead?
The key to answering this question lies in stripping back all the orthodoxy. What are all the things you do primarily to seek validation and approval? Once we remove these, we can see what remains in terms of what you would still do, would start doing, and could do if only you knew about it.
If you never bought anything to make yourself more appealing to others, what would you spend your money on?
If you didn’t spend time worrying what people thought of you, or reading about celebrities, or distracted by political bullshit, what would you spend time thinking about?
If you weren’t constantly striving to make people like you, what would you strive to achieve instead?
It can be hard to identify the orthodox things you do just for the sake of pleasing others. You’ll have justified these actions to yourself so frequently that they now feel authentic, or necessary. But you can slowly reveal them to yourself if you really want to face the truth.
Notice the difference between how you act when you’re being observed vs when you’re alone. Notice the activities that feel exhausting and meaningless after they’re done, even if they gain others’ approval. Notice how often you lie awake and think of things you wish you’d said or done, now that the opportunity has passed you by.
Think about rituals and societal patterns that you had no hand in creating. Working a 9-5 job. Drinking alcohol every time you socialize. Basing your entire personality around a common hobby. Obeying laws that make no sense to you. Taking time off work when everyone else does during the expensive and crowded season. Wearing costly fashions. Streaming popular shows. Getting a mortgage. Attending church. Reading the news.
How many of these things did you sit down and consciously decide you would do to enhance your life and to live by your core values?
And how many of these are things you just do because… why? Because it seems to be expected of you? Because everyone else does it?
People Pleasing Stole 25 Years of My Life
I was a Low-Middle. When I was a kid, we were broke enough that both my parents had to work full time. We moved a lot to chase financial opportunities. I grew up with the Low’s desperation to be liked because changing schools made friendships difficult. And I grew up with the Middle’s ambition for success because I did pretty well academically.
I didn’t start dancing – my favourite hobby – until I was nearly 30 because my friends thought dancing was gay. I only read books like The Lord of the Rings secretly in my bedroom, because ‘nerds’ were bullied in my high school. I played guitar and got tattoos partly just to look cool.
Without certain beliefs being drilled into me by Society, I would have never have agreed to exchanging gifts on arbitrary dates like birthdays. I would never have worn a suit. I wouldn’t have worked more than was needed to provide food and shelter. I would have thought getting a mortgage was a waste of money. I would have let other people be offended by me, disgusted by me, and disappointed in me.
Whenever I went out to nightclubs and spent more than half my paycheck listening to music I hated, feeling like a fool dancing, and desperately trying to attract girls, I’d go home deflated. There was something off about the whole experience. Some part of me couldn’t wait for it to finally be over, forever, so I’d never have to do it again. But, you know, all my mates were doing it, so… yeah.
When I wanted to start my own business, close friends of mine, from whom I expected support and encouragement, turned against me. It was like seeing them morph into Agent Smith from The Matrix and start shooting at me, just because I was the only one of them who wasn’t keen to remain an employee my whole life, and I was willing to take a risk.
Everyone else was allowed to play their music when we drove around in a car together, but they’d shout me down and cut me off if I wanted a turn playing a metal song. And I let it happen. It seemed the right way to respond to not being in the majority. Like it was good to accept being outvoted. I was a good little citizen of the group, following all the rules.
Fuck That
This is your only life. And it speeds up as you get older, because each year becomes a smaller percentage of your total life. I promise that if you remain orthodox, there’s a very high probability you will massively regret your life when you’re too old to do much about it.
People being unpleased with you is just about their own programming. They just represent an unhealthy, outdated societal system groaning because you aren’t being compliant. But this isn’t the 1600s. You can survive being unorthodox. You might get some hate, but you can probably get away with being unorthodox (unless you live in a backwards country).
You do so many things to be a “Good Person”, and yet you’re just allowing your orthodox programming to make your life miserable and to miss out on who you should be, all because human evolution can’t keep up and our brains are now seriously outdated.
Is it really what you want?