Why You Care What Others Think, and Why It’s Not a Bad Thing

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If you believe that you shouldn’t care about what others think of you, then the bad news is that you are wrong—no one likes being wrong. But the good news is that your concerns are valid. They are part of being human and show up in innumerable ways.

Sally bites her lip as she considers whether people will think she looks good in what she chose to wear today. Bill jokes with his friends about last night’s game, though he couldn’t care less about baseball. Jesse feels paralyzed at the thought of sharing her thoughts about "The Last of Us" on HBO. Though you may know that you don’t want to be ruled by the opinions of others, telling yourself not to care is like telling yourself not to be hungry when your stomach is demanding to be fed. The simple fact is that you are biologically driven to connect with others, and so you cannot help but be influenced by threats to that need.

At a very basic level, people are animals that have evolved to survive, in large part, by being part of communities. This requires that people connect with each other. It is not enough to just be near others in a kind of parallel play, though that can be nourishing, too. We need to feel seen and heard and cared about. We need to feel interconnected with the community around us. Thus, we care about what people think of us.

To better understand the importance of the need to feel seen, check out this three-minute video, You Are NOT Invisible.

When Caring About Others Is a Problem

When you care about what others think of you, your struggle is frequently related to the fear that they will either be uninterested in you or outright reject you. This sensitivity to others means that you want to connect with them, and so it can help you to nurture relationships. However, when your sensitivity is driven by an assumption that others are likely to be rejecting, you become overly attuned to what others think. You are likely to hide who you are and to focus on pleasing others to your own detriment. This way of trying to avoid rejection can be a serious problem.

If you are envious of people who seem not to care about what others think, you may be surprised to learn that, in fact, they probably do care. Like you, they also have the biological need to connect. However, they might be better at balancing their need to please others with their need to please themselves. Or, they might consciously or unconsciously distance themselves from the need to please others in an effort to avoid feeling vulnerable. For instance, they might focus almost exclusively and intensely on achievement or shutting out upsetting emotions. Still, they experience the lack of connection, even if it is just an unsettling sense of not being happy or fulfilled, or of feeling emotionally numb.

The Need to Feel Seen

Along with an awareness of the need to connect, the need to feel recognized and empowered in our lives is important. If your need to be liked drives you to always defer to the needs and preferences of others, you will undoubtedly feel some version of invisibility or depletion. And by regularly not expressing your thoughts or taking action on your preferences, you will also end up feeling alone and like you don’t really matter.

How to Meet Your Need for Connection

For fulfilling relationships, choose to surround yourself with people who want to interact with the real you. These are people who want to spend time with you, not just with someone who is going to be a mirror for them, or who will do their bidding. If they offer compliments, you may be inclined to dismiss the kind words—such as how they appreciate your help with figuring out a personal dilemma or your input about what they should wear on a date. If so, practice consciously recognizing their honest appreciation of you.

When you are considering taking action that makes you worry about what others think, try gaining some perspective. Ask yourself these questions:

Do I have good reason to believe that they will judge me negatively? And that they will reject me?

Or, when I actually keep them in my mind, do I think my fear is unrealistic?

If you think the other person might be judgmental, then ask yourself what you fear will happen and whether they are realistic concerns. And finally, ask yourself, Am I willing to live with those consequences? If you are, this might give you the permission you need to do what you want. If not, then caring what they think, and acting accordingly, makes sense.

Again, keep in mind that caring what others think is in your biology. But where you go from there is up to you.