False Modesty

[Rageaholic]

Okay, I can understand being modest, not wanting to alienate people with your bragging. I'm pretty modest myself. It's just that some people are so caught up in being modest, that they fail to realize that they are actually offending people.

Example, telling someone who is much heavier than you that *you* need to lose weight. Okay, you didn't directly say that your friend or who ever you were talking to needed to lose weight, but considering it's obvious you are the skinnier one, it's damn well implied.

Same thing goes with other things, like grades, skills, or any other thing someone else may be better at. I think some people just do this to get others to tell them "no it's okay, you're not that overweight, I'm the fat one." It's really quite passive aggressive. Why can't people just be proud of their's and others accomplishments instead of being so damn negative?

[Hobbs]

I don't think that's modesty, actually. Nor is it false modesty. False modesty would be recieving praise for some accomplishment and feigning that it was nothing, yet doing surreptitious things to show off your accomplishment.

I get what you mean though, and ppl like that annoy me to. It's one thing to be a concerned friend or trying to be helpful; it's quite another to be a smarmy git.

[Plaidman]

I wanna see if I can explain this as best I can.

I was raised to belive in the best in most people. I generally belive that about 98 percent of the world is just flat out better then me, be it in strength, brains, looks, wealth, friends, talents etc etc. Schoolmates pounded that into me too, that I was weak, stupid, ugly, loser, etc.

So in my view point, everyone is better then me. It doesn't matter if they weigh 800 lbs, a caved in face, a body order that would make Jabba the hutt faint, I still won't see them as worst then me.

However, I see all my faults in me. Every single one, and there are a thousands of them. I've been told its out of proporation, but I don't see it any other way. All I see is just how horrible, ugly, stupid I am.

So when if for example, I'm next to a /heavier/ person, and I say I need to lose weight, I really mean just me. That person to me, is already perfect and doesn't need to lose any weight.

[Boozy]

Plaid's right; sometimes it's not "false" modesty at all. It's a symptom of por self-esteem. It can be annoying to hear someone we think so highly of malign themselves, but they're not always putting it on.

But, there are most definitely people who fake it. In such cases, it's rude and self-centred. I would never tell an obese person that I was on a diet, or someone struggling to learn to read that I was having a bit of difficulty slogging through "War and Peace".

If one is looking for something to bitch about together (which can be a fun bonding experience), the classy thing would be to find something that is genuinely common ground.

[Rageaholic]

I guess I can see what plaidman is saying. I've often felt that I was an idiot who didn't know shit. The problem is I was only looking at the things I was bad at and failed to see my strengths. I very rarely had people insult me directly for my many weaknesses, but when I see the success, better grades, and more independant people than myself, I feel so depressed. It's even worse hearing about someone who shares my faults be labeled as a loser or an asshole. Like with the false modesty thing, they may not be directly insulting me, but I feel that it's implied (only in those cases, it may not be as intentional). Lately, I've found myself lashing out (even a few times in this forum) at those who are overly critical of me. I mean, it's bad enough downing on yourself, but to have other people do it is only adding gas to the fire.

But back to the topic, I was mostly talking about those who are obviously trying to get you to compare themself to you. It's actually a pretty crafty tactic psychologically, but it's still kind of crummy.

[HYHYBT]

I've long since gotten to the point of not wanting to tell anyone anything along those lines, good or bad. For example, when I got my first iPod I was ashamed to let anyone find out. Not because I was afraid it would get stolen, or because I thought there was anything wrong with having one, but because I'd seen others accused of getting one just to show off. Which *I* knew wasn't true in my case: I'd gotten it because I wanted something *like* that, and had always liked Apple's other products. In the same way, i'm afraid to mention anything going wrong because invariably whoever hears it will turn out to have it worse. For example, I didn't feel right complaining about having trouble finding a job because, unlike many people in that situation, I wasn't at risk of having nowhere to live.

[Lace Neil Singer]

However, I see all my faults in me. Every single one, and there are a thousands of them. I've been told its out of proporation, but I don't see it any other way. All I see is just how horrible, ugly, stupid I am.

That's exactly how I used to be. Even after I lost loads of weight, I still thought of myself as being fat and ugly. Even now, I sometimes have days where I look in the mirror and see a fat, ugly, stupid hag staring back. If, back in the days when I had incredibly poor self esteem, you'd been standing next to me and overheard me talking about needing to lose weight and how I wished I was prettier, that wouldn't be false modesty; that would have been the truth of how I saw myself.

[blas87]

Agreed, Lace. Much agreed.