Being yourself vs changing for the better

In My Humble Opinion
1

Over the years I’ve grown up with two friends, “Tom” and “Greg”. Tom Greg and I are all fairly similar- we have similar interests, work ethic, and are generally thought of as nerds to varying degrees. Each of us has our own quirks, and I’ll be the first to say we drive each other up the wall sometimes- Tom makes plans at the last minute and I like to plan way ahead. Greg utters non sequiturs while I try and put a lot of thought and tact in my words. And so forth. While we will sometimes get more annoyed than usual, we’ve gotten pretty used to each other’s ways of doing things.

Admittedly, of all 3 of us, Greg seems to have the most problems. Despite being the most independent (he owns a condo, Tom lives with his in-laws, and I rent) I always knew his mannerisms were…off. The closest I can place it would be Aspergers- a lot of things that are pretty obvious to other people will fly right over his head, he’s the last person in the room to pick up on other people’s body language, and he tends to be the guy in the restaurant that laughs just a little too loud. Greg has been like this for as long as I can remember. Typically when people start getting annoyed with him he’ll start to keep a low profile, and we won’t hear from him for some time. Similarly, when we try and help him be a little less spastic and melodramatic, he tends to get defensive. Tom and I admittedly have gotten so used to it we don’t really notice it anymore.

Earlier this year Greg’s mother intoduced him to her friend’s daughter, and they hit it off. Greg is 26, and to my knowlege never had a girlfriend. Here’s where the drama started- gradually we started noticing Greg acting differently. His characteristic halting, sputtering speech pattern started getting a little more calm and measured. He wasn’t the loudest person in the room any more. His body language became more restrained. It was like he had swallowed a bunch of Ritalin or something (don’t know if Ritalin will do that to someone like him).

I was happy for him, as was my girlfriend. Greg’s girlfriend seemed like a positive influence. But one evening, while Tom and I were on our way to get something to eat, Greg called (Tom put him on speakerphone). Greg was drunk, and rambling about all the changes he was making. He was saying how they were VERY very hard to do- it took all his concentration not to yelp with excitement or whine or groan exaggeratedly. Tom was really concerned, and somehow got it into his head that Greg’s girlfriend was brainwashing him or something. I, however, could understand how hard it must be for Greg because he’s always been the same guy for 10+ years and suddenly he’s trying to break old habits.

After Greg finished his drunken rambling Tom insisted we have some kind of friend ‘intervention’ :rolleyes: . This lead to a huge argument between Tom and I. Tom was convinced Greg’s girlfriend was trying to shape him into something he’s not. Tom could accept him for who he was, I could accept him, why couldn’t she? It spun into this very intense debate between being true to yourself but also willing to improve yourself, and also arguing what qualities can be changed. Tom was very worried that Greg would spin himself in circles trying to please his girlfriend by being some idealized boyfriend to him. But I saw it differently- Tom was a very lonely guy. Sure he had his nice Condo, but never hosted any parties and didn’t have any friends beyond us. In the rambling he had over the phone, he said he had gotten ‘fed up’ with his old self, that he spent a lot of his life hating who he was and being trapped by not knowing how to really change it. It seemed like his girlfriend must have been able to have some influence on him :wink:

But being kind of in the middle of it, I was kind of torn about the issue. If you don’t be true to yourself, you’ll never be able to stand up for who you are. But if you’re too stubborn, you become deaf to any real help and guidance. What do you think?

2

Here is the most important things I teach my kids: everybody’s different. Everybody has good and bad things about them - it’s just the way we were made. BUT we don’t have to stay like that. If there’s something about ourselves we aren’t happy with we can change it. I think that’s the key - are these things Greg’s happy to change? He might have just been in a drunken rant because of how hard it is. Or it could indeed have been a plea for help. But you’ve gotta talk to him to find out.

3

Before I realized just how far down the rabbit hole my wife had gotten with another guy, when she first said she thought we needed to divorce, we talked a lot about why.

Part of that involved her writing a letter discussing all the things that she thought I needed to do to change, and they all basically boiled down to growing up, and stepping more fully into the adult world, for all the good and the bad. I also needed to open up emotionally, and not let myself smother any sense of unhappiness, anger, or upsettedness.

And she was right. Not just for the “us” aspect of it, but for me and for my kids. My kids needed to see me be a functional grown up.

Now, even with the marriage all but irreparably broken, I am still working on these things. They are hard, and sometimes (especially when letting myself be emotional about things) it hardly seems worth it.

But it totally is.

If he WANTS to change, then good for him. More power to him. I’m glad he found someone who could help him in that regard.

4

The girlfriend is not brainwashing him. He’s doing it to himself.

Greg is trying to change his personality to suit her…or what he thinks she wants. Which is not good, because eventually his true self will have to emerge.

In his drunkenness, he may have realized this act cannot continue forever and that he’s due for an identity crisis.

Greg needs someone he can feel comfortable around, like he does with you and Tom. If he’s farting out loud and picking his nose, then yes, he needs to work on those things if he wants a relationship. But he shouldn’t have to change his voice, his laugh, or his sense of humor (within reason) to be with someone. Those are essential parts of his personality.

People with Asperger’s can actually be good mimicks of “normal” human behavior (especially female Aspies), but it’s just a mask. And like with any mask, it starts to get burdensome wearing it all the time. Greg deserves to have a relationship where he can be his ole crazy self just like anyone else.

5

You’ve never seen Wayne’s World 2? That’s what happens when somebody starts getting laid.

6

So he hated that he was annoying and weird, and now he hates that he has to put so much effort into controlling some of his off-putting quirks. Which does he hate more?

7

I agree that you need to talk to Greg to find out if he’s happy with these changes he’s trying to make. If he is, even if it’s hard, then I’d stand by him an encourage him. If he isn’t, then yeah, he needs to understand that while it’s hard to find someone you can be “yourself” with, it’s really wonderfully rewarding.

How would he feel if they broke up? (Besides devastated, of course.) Would he relax and go back to his old mannerisms with a sigh of relief, or would he continue to make the changes he’s made and work to further them until they become natural to him?

People can change, but it generally only sticks long term if they want to change at least as much as someone else wants them to change. Figuring out if that is the case can be a challenge.

8

You and Tom hit on a really controversial topic. Yes, Greg is free to be exactly who he is, but if he wants things out of life, he might have to make adjustments to get them. If he naturally does things that women won’t tolerate, he might have to learn to tone those things down if he wants to be in a relationship. It’s really hard to say if his girlfriend is being too controlling or trying to make him into something he’s not; a lot of guys act a lot differently in their “natural” state than they do once they meet a woman, and it’s hard to say how much is too much.

9

I don’t know that this conclusion necessarily follows from the facts as presented. It doesn’t sound like Greg is very comfortable with himself as he is. Maybe he truly is motivated to try to improve his social skills.

Don’t people in happy long-term relationships often say that they’re a better person because of being with their partner? I know I am.

Also, on preview, what Whynot said.

10

Being in love and wanting to maintain that relationship can cause you to make some pretty positive changes in the behavior that damages that relationship. If you are honest with yourself and recognize what it is you need to change.

It isn’t brain washing, it is the hope of being a better person. As long as she isn’t controlling his behavior, stalking him whenever he’s not with her, making threats to leave him if he doesn’t act differently or criticizing his every action, he’s fine and he’ll be better off in the end.

11

But doesn’t this “love-induced personal growth” usually happen after being with someone for a long time and the individuals in the relationship naturally shape one another? It sounds like from the OP that Greg hasn’t been in a relationship with this person for very long and that she doesn’t really know how he truly is.

But upon looking back at the OP, he notes that the changes have occurred gradually. So maybe he is genuinely being shapened by being in this relationship. Still, I feel sorry for the guy. It sounds like the relationship is tiring him out. I have absolutely no expertise in this arena, but that doesn’t sound right to me.

12

One possible, WAG-level interpretation, that may be totally off base:

Greg’s mannerisms are the kind of things that a lot of little kids do, but most people outgrow them or learn to control them or break those habits and establish better, more mature ones before they’re out of childhood. This didn’t happen for Greg, for whatever reason, so the older he’s gotten, the more ingrained these habits and behaviors have become, and the harder they are to control. But even though it’s difficult, it’s worth learning, however belatedly, to act like a grownup, especially when motivated by grown-up perks like relationships.
Like I said, I may be totally off base; this may not fit Greg at all. But as a general philosophical point, “changing for the better” is a good thing, and “being yourself” can just be a weaselly excuse not to.

13

No. Sometimes, especially if you haven’t had a lot of relationships or are socially inept, you run smack into some of your less pleasant habits and how they adversely affect your relationship. For example, I was a very bitter and sarcastic person when I hooked up with my ex-wife. The cynical and sharp retort was rather quick to my tongue. I didn’t even think about how damaging it was because I had friends who were themselves prone to occasional really nasty statements out of the blue, and they never said much about my tongue. So when I made some bitter jokes or cynical statements and my then new girlfriend reacted with shock or surprise, it was kind of a cold blast of water in my face that woke me up to “wow, this doesn’t come across very well, does it!”, and I stopped doing it in very short order.

So George is around a woman he wants to keep, and her friends, and some of his actions are not coming off well. He sees this, and he now understands that he needs to change how he presents himself, not just to her, but to a different group of people beyond the old friends who tolerated his oddities.

It’d be kind of like if you had chronic halitosis (bad breath) and had spent your life with a small group of friends who no longer smelled it, or at least never said anything about it anymore. Suddenly you’re meeting new people, all of whom react poorly to your breath. You see that your options are limited because of one thing that you maybe hadn’t noticed, or never saw as a problem. It is a wake up call that hey, maybe I should do something about this!

The other option is that you can withdraw, sulking because they’re picking on you for something you can’t (or won’t) change and tell yourself that there’s nothing wrong with you, it’s all them.

14

There’s no reason you can’t do both. He should settle into that pattern as he gets more comfortable with her. If it’s really bothering him, he can lighten up a bit and see what happens. I do know that most people try to move too fast when changing like this.

15

True enough. You can’t change your world overnight.