That’s Men: Beware of rosy role models and facile facades

At this point in our psychological and social history, we are fairly used to the idea that what you see is not what you get. The tough and aggressive boss may be a frightened little boy inside; the quiet woman may have a core of steel; and the saint may be a sinner.

I’ve been thinking lately about facades because lots of us are trying to improve our view of ourselves by implementing our various New Year’s resolutions. As we know, most of us will fail, many by the time you read this article, and this no doubt will worsen our image in our own eyes. A few will succeed and congratulations to them.

But maybe the facades we really need to watch out for are the ones constructed for us by the wider society, eg as you get older, people sometimes assume that you're also getting wiser. Nothing could be further from the truth. In my case, at any rate, getting older just means that I've accumulated more information in the same way that Google accumulates more information every day. But that doesn't make me wiser just as information doesn't make Google wiser.

The fallen hero
We like people to live up to the facades we create for them. Take role models. A man becomes a success, let's say in entertainment or sports. He is the same person inside as he was before he became a success. We, however, only see him being successful in public. Then he gets caught having an affair, using drugs or drink-driving.

Notice how often, in these cases, we don’t only condemn him for the thing he did – what really makes us mad is that he has “failed to live up to his image as a role model for young people”.

In normal, day-to-day living, I suspect, the most difficult facade is that of the strong person who can help everybody else solve their problems. As demands on the strong person accumulate, the vulnerable person inside notices that nobody else is coming to the rescue. Who’s going to help me, the vulnerable person wonders?

Family and friends continue to enjoy the convenience of relying on the strong person who is always there for them and demands nothing in return. And very often the strong person finds it impossible to step out of the script and to quit being a quiet hero. If and when the whole act collapses, nobody is more surprised than those who should have noticed in the first place.

A potentially useful facade is that of the quiet, shy person who is seen as a deep thinker, too busy reflecting on things to get carried away by facile chatter. Shy people often suffer from the misapprehension that other people can see their shyness, can see through them, so to speak.

When a chance remark such as “still waters run deep” reveals how they are really seen, the realisation can come as a huge relief. If they buy into the facade themselves then they can lose the spontaneity that comes with maintaining the “deep” image but that’s probably preferable to the pain of shyness.

Facades vary in their degree of usefulness or toxicity. The facade of the wise person is fairly harmless. If you believe in it yourself, you may not be a lot of fun to be around, though – learning and play seem to be related and if you know everything, you don’t need to play anymore.

Signing up to the facade of yourself as the strong one can lead you to place relentless demands on yourself and may be the most harmful of those I’ve mentioned. And the “still waters run deep” facade can give the shy person a respected role.

Old Will Shakespeare was right: all the world’s a stage, indeed. And you and I are players just like the rest. Remember that the next time some “role model” is being stripped and flayed in front of a sensation-hungry public.

pomorain@yahoo.com

Padraig O'Morain is a counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.