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Erving Goffman says the business of living is the business of attempting to play various roles, while the drama of living is the question of whether the roles we attempt to play will be credited (i.e., accepted) or discredited. Sometimes, we attempt to play roles, especially perfectionistic ones, that are bound to be discredited, because we cannot live up to our own hype. Most roles, though, are credited or discredited by the reactions of others. We can claim expertise and run into rolled eyes and challenging questions we cannot answer, or we may find that there is deference to our opinion. We can claim to be a Christian and find others noticing things about us that undermine our performance (depending on how we define that term) or tactfully ignoring those same things.
When we say that two people like each other, we often mean that they facilitate each other’s performances. This may reflect mere tact on each other’s part, but then we usually don’t go so far as to say the tactful person likes the performer. Still, many people can’t tell the difference, and they think that tactful acceptance of a performance means the other person likes them. Usually, though, facilitation involves cuing the person, responding in such a way that the performer remains in character, or creating a team that puts on the performance jointly for some other audience.
If I try to pull off the role of wit, a friend may remind the group of something witty I once said, laugh at my jokes, or banter with me for the benefit of a third party like a restaurant server. The server’s tactful smile is not a sign that she likes me, but my friend’s behavior is. If I try to pull off the role of wittiest, then my friend’s witty banter may discredit my performance, and I am likely to feel liked by and to like only people who laugh at my jokes or quote them, but I am not likely to feel liked by or to like people who meet my wit with their own. This formula applies to any virtue and its perfectionistic version.
Karen Horney teaches us that a sense of not belonging can drive us to develop a false self. She says that people are neurotic to the extent that they invest energy in their false selves and not in their real selves. In Goffman’s terms, when we cannot pull off the roles we are born to play, we specialize in roles that don’t really suit us. Which roles are we born to play? Human baby, offspring, a creature of comfort, touch, sleep, love, food, drink, play, collaboration, aggression, and sex. The false self is generally more interested in money, status, and applause. It’s not easy to specify how the selves differ, but generally, the false self cares about how it is seen by others, while the real self cares about the biological reinforcers and the quality of relationships. The real self cares about the taste of the wine, the false self about the label. We develop a false self that specifically is more likely to be credited by those we are performing for than the human role is. The false self drives away those not suited to it and attracts those who are. The role of genius draws acolytes but not colleagues, the role of sacrificer draws egotists but not playmates, and the role of free spirit draws other free spirits and jailers but not companions.
Unfortunately, the more we bolster the false self, the fewer people we end up having in our lives who credit our performance of a real self. This makes us even more sensitive to any discrediting we experience, and even more desperate to have the false self credited. This vicious circle does not entrap those whose performances of their real selves are reliably credited by several people, since they have less at stake in most situations. If you belong somewhere, it’s easier to take not being liked in stride. Marriage should be a place to belong, but with so many variations in our culture on how to play the spousal role, and with a focus while mating on crediting the role of dating partner rather than life partner, it is not unusual to find married people discrediting each other’s performances.
One good idea, recognized by Tolstoy in The Death of Ivan Ilyich, is to ask yourself if the people who like you like your real self or your false self, whether their positive messages make you feel included or merely proud. (When Ivan finds out he’s dying, he discovers that none of his friends or family members really care about him.) You might also wonder about your own affections for others. You might also wonder about your own affections for yourself: do you care more for yourself or for your reputation? Sometimes, these questions are hard to answer because sometimes our false selves have been so successful that we have forgotten what it is like to have our role of human-all-too-human facilitated by others. Indeed, it is the proximity to death that reminds Ivan Ilyich that he has a body with needs for affection, play, and love. This connection between death and one’s humanity is why the humanist school in psychology is also called the humanist-existential school.
One way to think about therapy is that it’s a place to get in touch with one’s real self, a place that communicates a certain degree of safety from shame and humiliation. This is accomplished largely by defining the patient role, according to Goffman, as one that is impossible to discredit, and by designing the relationship to facilitate the removing of social masks (by promising privacy above all, but also stability and a lack of moral judgments). The patient says whatever comes to mind to find out what it is like to belong somewhere with the real self, and this discovery prompts the patient to demand more of relationships and to provide more to others. The therapist also intervenes when the patient discredits his or her own performance as a human being, whether by claiming to be, in Albert Ellis’s terms, a superhuman or a subhuman.
