Feel free to move this thread if it isn't in the right forum. I felt that this would be the proper place for it.

Anyway, have you ever met people that seem to have "personality masks"? For example, in one place they're nice and friendly but in another they're the opposite.

Since I'm in high school, I wasn't too surprised when I met some people there who seem to have more than one personality. I've met one person that has 3 personalities: funny and nice, serious and mean, and funny and mean. It seems like he chooses a personality for each class he's in. I think it depends on who his peers are and who his teacher is.

Edit: changed the thread so it isn't misleading

Edit again: And changed the thread title so it wouldn't disappear

Yeah, I met people like that. Specifically speaking, myself, Sword Legion, Eniitan, Mohammedroxx3, and barathemos.


I don't really act mean, you know unless somebody get's me to that point. Even then I'd more than likely just try to ignore them and calm my self down.

I do have a sort of serious/funny personalty, and seen some other members on the board act the way you described.
Good thread btw.

SuperCrash64 : Thanks I try not to be mean unless I absolutely have to, but sometimes anger slips out of me at my brother and sister.

I knew there had to be some people on this site that had multiple personalities. People like that are pretty much everywhere.

I won't call it "multiple personalities" so this won't be easily associated with the multiple personality disorder. I think the term you're looking for is "different personas", or more commonly known as "personality masks" a person uses whenever appropriate. It can be noted that while a person only has 1 real personality, he or she definitely has more than one personas. Proof? You are different when infront of your parents; you are different with your closest friends; you are different with your acquaintances; you are different when with strangers. That is totally normal. The mask is some sort of filter that we use to hide different traits or personalities that we don't want a certain group of people to know.

I can sometimes be have a different personality when I'm around someone I don't know all to well, and then when I'm around someone else, I act more like myself. The main time I get angry is when a football game doesn't go the way I wanted or if I can't get past a certain point in the game.

You will encounter many people like this throughout your time in high school. I generally don't have a problem with people like this, so long as their different personality isn't harmful or stand-offish. I would venture to say I have many varying persona for different situations and people. I'm not going to act the same way around a co-worker or teacher as I would with one of my friends. By having many personas, I am able to live my life comfortably without anyone being able to pinpoint or predict exactly what I'll say or do next.

The best way to combat people like that are to create different personas of your own and learn when and where to use them effectively. As I said before, you're in high school now, you will meet many different people with multiple differing personalities, so don't be shy to observe and mimic/develop a new persona to call your own.

I think most people are like this. Maybe not quite as extreme as you describe it but it is pretty common. The way you act in one place or situation would (and usually should) differ from other places or situations. Obviously if you are one person with one group of friends and another person with a different group of friends then you are probably not being honest with one of those 2 groups of people.

If the person is actually putting on fake masks of who they are then they are only hurting themselves. Rather than being who they are and fitting in where they ACTUALLY fit in they are forcing themselves to be someone they are not and in the end likely won't be happy doing that.

I HATE it. This can be referred to as downright hypocrisy. Just look at my father: he almost bends over backwards when we have guests (family, friends or even friends of ours) to help them but when it comes to US...

This hypocrisy is ugly. If you can not live without your mask to hide your true self in public, then stay in The closet (for lack of a better expression). 

geeogree : there is an ocean of difference between acting differently and being different. I will not dress and act The same in a formal setting but I will nevertheless be "myself". Of course, I *may* have to contain my political opinions but I will NOT agree with someone who utters complete nonsense.

Razor-987 : It is quite normal. I learned to do The same when talking; I do not use The same kind of French when talking with my family than when I am talking to people either from outside Canada or whose first language is NOT French.

janus : fair enough. I think my post was sort of a clarification of the difference then. I think everyone has this trait to a small degree but the true hypocrites who do this in extreme ways are extremely frustrating to deal with.

I actually find this happens in work environments a lot.

gamerforlifeforever2 : When I'm around people I don't know well, I don't really have a different personality but I'm usually a lot less open with what I say.

Razor-987 : Most of the people like this I've met do have harm in their different personalities, such as the one I mentioned in my first post.

geeogree : I agree, and I'm mainly talking about the extreme kind. Answers in this thread don't have to be about only the extreme kind though.

PacmanandMariofan : Yeah, that's mainly what I meant when I said that I have a different personality around others. I'm not quite as open as I am with family and friends. I guess you could say I'm a little shy, but I'm still willing to be social with that person and get to know them better.

gamerforlifeforever2 : Same here. I'm usually that way so I can get to know those people better first before talking to them. That way I know if they are bad influences and I shouldn't be talking to them. Other than that I try not to mask my personality.

geeogree : I heard it was especially terrible among women. I have never lived around that many of them to attest it, but according to my mother (a former auxilary nurse working with almost no men) gossiping was very strong.

gamerforlifeforever2 : it is not a matter of being shy. You do not know the person; why would you open up to him / her right away if you do not know how he / she will react?

SuperCrash64 :

Nice observation.

Yeah, I think I would act the way you have described.

Whenever these threads come up, I'm never sure how much I want to reveal. I like the masks, and thick, black armor I wear around pretty much everywhere. I like to appear like someone who is pretty sure of his answers, and couldn't be moved by anyone else.

A good friend of mine gave me a pretty spot on personality analysis once.

I know I'm a Sigma. And I'm also Yang Earth. Getting to the other side of me, is one thing. And a hard thing. I'd talk about myself a lot, but that would probably make people think I was trying to make myself sound good. If I have any worthy traits, let them speak for themselves and my allies reminiscent them.

Praise from your own lips is worthless.

PacmanandMariofan :

A lot of people use personality masks because hey don't fit in an ingroup, or they wish to avoid being forced into the group norm. It's often a defense thing really, or it's a personality forged to maintain alpha status in the general facility. I use it for both really. Not in a manipulative way, but. . . it has it's purposes.

One thing that I would like to add with what-

geeogree : - said. Is that yeah-

It's very common in the workplace.

When I walk out of my car, or my dad's truck on the job, I already have my long blue coat, my work hat, and my sunglasses. I interact with the other employees as little as possible, and keep a tough posture on all day. Why? Cuase ethically, I don't fit in. And in order to keep them from challenging my ideas too often, I attempt to beam off this feeling of inpenatriveness. It works well really, and while I'm not afraid of defending any of my beliefs. . . why argue with fools?

Warning, more "mature" content coming;

It's unfortunate, but inappropriate sex jokes, and laughing at one another's farts is very common with them. So is talking about what the last person's s*** looks like in the port o potty, and talking about having sex with your new girlfriend last night.

Having to much and too good of sex is of course, a good reason to be tired at work the next day.

Needless to say, I don't want anything to do with my coworker's BS to put it bluntly, and they don't need to see the human side of me. So. I wear a personality mask and make myself out to be a lot tougher than I actually am. One day it did pay off when they took one of their "jokes" to far. . .

In end, you really KNOW someone when they can be honest with you, and without fear of you lashing out, or distrusting them over their beliefs. That's at the core of some of the best friendships (though things in common elsewhere are important too). That's when you get to see the real version of someone.

I strive to be like as much as I can, or create a life where I can be the real me. Until then? As long as I'm surrounded by idiots, or people I can't trust. . .

Keep putting on that mask.

Or sunglasses. BJ

I don't know if I'd say I have this type of personality flip situation. I will say that I tend to be a lot more understanding to people I know than people I don't know.

I'm really nice to just about everyone, both online (sometimes I get made fun of for being too nice on PlayStation Network), and offline. The way I approach negative situations is usually by just ignoring them altogether. There isn't a point for me to change who I am just because of a certain situation.

The one thing that I know I do, is if I don't believe what you're telling me when I first meet you - I will pretty much ignore you for the rest of however long I ignore you. I absolutely dislike excessive dishonesty - and if you can't be honest in the first impression - you'll probably never be honest.

Now, I did know somebody from high school (well, a lot of somebodies, but we'll use this guy as an example) where he didn't even care if you knew he was two faced. To your face, he'd be your best friend, especially when there wasn't any girls around. Yet, as soon as there were girls around, or if you aren't around, he would change his personality like clothes. It was crazy, and I'm sure we've all witnessed it ourselves.

A good key thing I always live by is: Personality is what you do when people are watching. Character is what you do when nobody is watching.

I try to get my character as close to my personality as possible.

Skilledtree :  You made some nice points! I know some people that are different around girls, but they're usually the opposite of the example you described XD They're jerks without girls around, but with girls around they're suspiciously nice. I admit that sometimes my personality slightly changes with girls around, but I'm trying to get out of that habit. Thankfully I haven't done that for any of the girls I'm friends with, or my friendship with them wouldn't feel genuine.

I really like what you said about being honest in your first impression. First impressions are always the most important, so if you're showing a different personality in your first impression than you do later, people will most likely think you're faking it (edit: at first, but then they'd trust you a lot more later on). I've retained my current personality ever since I started developing it, so most people have quite a bit of trust for me.

Skilledtree : Good, I like authentic people . I am like that too; I hate gossiping so why would I do it myself?

PacmanandMariofan : I would not necessarily agree. True, the first impression is the most lasting one, but depending on how you meet someone with whom you had a bad first impression you might be able to redeem yourself. I once did that exchange trip for NINE months, and during one group activity people told me (on paper) what they hated about me, and it was unanimous. I had to change and I did; my relationship with them improved tremendously.

janus: Nice! What I meant to put in my post is that people would most likely think you're faking it at first, not permanently. But then later on they'd likely believe you and trust you a lot more than before. Sorry about that, I guess I need to slow down my typing XD

I'll even edit that post now

I’m not sure if the situation you mentioned is what one would necessarily call a difference in personality… It has been explained to me at one time that it’s more a matter of roles and changing one’s behavior to suit those roles (much like what Juliet said). You wouldn’t act around your supervisor the same way that you act around your peers, since it would be completely inappropriate and potentially get you fired from your company. In fact, some people frequently find themselves in hot water because they don’t realize they need to change their behavior. It’s something that society does expect, and there’s no way around it until you reach the top of the financial or social ladder, where you get to help decide how to change/run the society, but even then, there are still some rules that still have to be followed or you’ll get frowned upon by normal society. (One simply does not go around without their pants on for no good reason. Sort of a joke, but not really.)

As for the person you mentioned with “multiple personality masks,” sometimes, until a person has matured a bit more and formed their own opinions, they’re just trying to test the waters by behaving differently until they find something that works for them. Depending on their criteria for themselves (maybe they want to be more popular with the class, appear smarter, or just want to survive and make it through the day without being bullied, etc.), they may change their behavior accordingly. Of course, there will be the people that don’t care about any of that and act the same way around all their friends, regardless of who it is. However, those people are still going to act differently around their significant other (boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse), because by that point, their roles have changed.

For me, unless a person does something completely different from their normal scope of behavior, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. In my eyes, everything that person does is part of a whole, which is their “true personality.” There are gray areas in this world that can’t be defined as black/white or good/bad, and this just happens to be one of those things in that realm.

It’s hard to say how people will act in any given situation but the history of their behaviors will more or less give you a general idea of what’s normal for them or not. If you have a reasonable friend (that’s always been nice and polite around the teachers and everything) that suddenly stands up one day and starts throwing stuff and screams obscenities at the teacher, wouldn’t you pull them aside later and ask them what’s going on, if someone put them up to it and why? Similarly, if you know that person with “multiple personality masks” normally changes with all his classes, wouldn’t you find it more of a concern if he suddenly stopped doing that one day and changed to be funny and nice with everyone but also started withdrawing from everyone as well? You might even feel compelled to go and talk to him to ask if he’s okay, in case he’s contemplating suicide from despair at not being able to “figure out who he is.”

There are plenty of people in the world that have to keep changing the way they act (isn’t that why it’s called an act?) due to all the hats they wear in a day, so it really shouldn’t come as a surprise if you meet one of those people that just happens to stand out a bit more than others in that respect. It’s even more complicated when we talk about how people behave online vs. offline, but I figure everything people do is an extension of their true self, so it shouldn’t matter too much if they appear to be different online than offline. If someone is mean to you online while they’re showing off to their online friends, but nice to you offline when you’re alone with them, then that’s their true personality. Don’t be surprised if they’re mean to you one day offline, too. I’ll be bold here and say that people that are capable of being trolls online are fully capable of being trolls offline, too, whether or not it appears that way. If they say, “oh, I only troll people when I’m online,” well then… sorry to let them know, but the internet exists in the real world, so they’re actually still trolling in the real world. Many years of online activities has taught me that people will be people and rare is the person that acts/talks the same way online AND offline.

If it still bothers you that the person with “multiple personality masks” is acting differently in every class and doing that a little too obviously, perhaps you can go and talk to them about it (assuming you don’t mind that they might ignore you or even deny it). Sometimes, they don’t even realize they’re doing that themselves, or that others have noticed (which they’ll think is worse and it wakes them up). That, or you can do as the others do. A lot of people will just simply note that the person is very obvious with their “multiple personality masks” and move on with their lives without telling that person they’ve noticed that the “masks” may be standing out a bit too much. Often, since most people think it’s only natural to act differently given their various roles, they won’t think having “multiple personality masks” is really strange or anything, so they won’t question the person’s behaviors until those behaviors start affecting friendships and relationships. I figure you’re posting your observation here because you’ve also decided to quietly make a note of it, but unlike the majority, you have decided to take action to figure out what’s going on with this guy. All this and more should be covered in class if/when you decide to study psychology and/or psychiatry.

Wishing you good luck with your classes. ^^ High school can be demanding but I’m sure you’ll do just fine. You’ll find people with “personality masks” in college and in all walks of life everywhere you go, because it's pretty much a normal part of life.

Yuna1000 : I didn't think of personality masks that way before, thanks for pointing that out If I were to talk to the person I mentioned in this thread, I wouldn't have too much to worry about since he ignores me anyway. A lot of people that ignore me seem to not be ignoring me to be mean but to make sure that they don't end up teasing/bullying me.

I just realized I can seem to have personality masks in school too, since in my JROTC class I have to be serious most of the time. I'm not a serious person so some people that know me from other classes might think I'm trying to hide my regular personality in there. Thankfully I'm not trying to, I'm just doing my job

Thank you for wishing me luck with school, I might need it later on