Podcast Ep. 211: Too good to be true?

Tags: expectations, Future Fakers, Future Faking, low self-worth, managing expectations in relationships, putting people on pedestals, self-doubt, shady behaviour, shady people, shady relationships, Those Who Doth Protest Too Much, trust issues, worry and anxiety

Something that makes us nervous is when someone appears to be a little (or a lot) too perfect. Things are so great, so impressive, so much of what we want or hope to get that we find it difficult to believe. Even if there aren’t what seem like obvious reasons not to trust them, we feel uneasy. In this week’s episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions, I explore some of the reasons why we think someone is ‘too good to be true’ and what we can learn from it.

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5 key topics in this episode

We need to consider whether it’s our perception of the person that’s ‘too good to be true’ or whether it’s about how they’re coming across and what’s being portrayed. Sometimes, because we judge ourselves all the time, we put others on a pedestal by default. There becomes this almost wilful blindness to their humanness. If we’re exaggerating who someone is and blowing smoke up their proverbial bottom, it’s our perception of them that’s too good to be true. They’re being whoever they are, we’re just not living in that context.
Sometimes it’s not that the person is actually trying to be perfect or even that what they’re doing is ‘perfection’, but that we’re inherently suspicious of people who don’t have an ulterior motive. It may well be that we think they’re ‘too good to be true’ because we’re used to assholery. When someone treats us halfway decent, we’re all suspicious. Their behaviour doesn’t match our identity.
But sometimes people do go out of the way to come across as the embodiment of perfection. They seem to say and do all of the right things. And it’s not necessarily because they’re trying to be shady but because they’re engaging in their own form of people-pleasing. They like everything we like, want to do everything we want to do, and are always agreeable. As flattering and even enjoyable and convenient as that might be–we get to have our own way–we don’t get to know them.
Some people do try to come across as flawless or certainly like a dream come true because they’re advancing their self-interest. It’s the big con. They breeze into our life with big promises–future faking.
But maybe the reason why we feel as if someone is too good to be true is that we recognise ourselves in this person. Trying to act ‘flawless’ might be our thing. Or it used to be.

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