Human Nature: Is everyone two-faced?

"They say why, why?

Tell them that it's human nature.

Why? Why?

Does he do me that way?"

Human Nature by Michael Jackson

Yesterday, I went out for drinks with a young woman I used to work with.  We both worked together at a company that was a nest of vipers.  Performance was not judged based on actual results but on popularity.  Unfortunately this led to a very duplicitous environment riddled with gossip and frenemies.  Needless to say, she's miserable.

I don't know why I did it to myself.  I think the reason I decided to get drinks with her was because I really liked her as a person. Because like me, I got the feeling that she's a student of humankind, and has seen some real ugliness. Unfortunately I realized she's becoming increasingly cynical and mean.  It's easy to get desensitized and defensive when dealing with two-faced people, and in turn become jaded and two-faced.

I wanted to understand why listening to her talk with false objectivity and yet audible disdain about everyone bothered me so.  Maybe it's because I saw some of my own behavior reflected in her.  Towards the end of my tenure at that job I was alot like this.  Wanting to be able to trust someone with what I was going through, but unable to trust anyone after having been burned many times. My mom always said that if there's something that bothers you about someone else, it's usually a reflection of something you don't like about yourself.

Are we all two-faced in some way? Maybe in varying degrees.

Why
The desire to protect our self-image is usually behind any of humankind's many issues.  We want to feel good about ourselves. Most of us secretly admire ourselves and when others don't, we feel threatened.  Usually when we feel threatened we react. Sometimes through our own fault, our actions condemn us in our own eyes, and the initial reaction is to project those failings onto other people. Some react by being openly aggressive, others are completely passive and become martyrs, and still others have a more covert reaction.

I've found duplicity to be especially rampant anywhere the stakes seem to be high, but open aggression is frowned upon like work, organizations/schools, and politics.  Self-image and the image projected to others is especially important when money or prestige is at stake.

How
We all find things that we don't like about the people in our lives, and many times we don't talk to those people about it.  Instead we confer with one another, and confirm.  Let's face it, talking to people about things we don't like about them or their behavior is uncomfortable. 

So the discomfort of talking behind someone's back proves to be less stressful than talking to said person, and maybe having to amend our original point of view.  Sometimes if we're really honest with ourselves, we would realize that we have a part to play in whatever situation is happening.  So we choose the easy road, and duplicity seems like a win-win.

It preserves self image because we can express their negative feelings towards other people while still being cordial or nice to the person we talk about.  Expressing those negative feelings makes us feel justified in our own assessment of things, and provides a release.  Being nice to said person makes us feel like a nice person, and helps to camouflage our questionable behavior.   

It also affords us the most options.  Potentially making an enemy of someone when you never know when you'll need them is a risk that we're unwilling to take. 

I left feeling down, but not until I offered to give her resume to an HR representative where I currently am, in the hopes that she'll be able to escape.  Granted, it's no cakewalk here either, but I have to say it's better than there.