When I notice that people are being ingratiating towards me, it actually improves my opinion of them, usually. It seems with some people, this sort of behavior has the opposite effect.
This fact has puzzled me since grade school. The more I tried to please my peers, the more some of them would treat me like shit.
When people behave this way towards me, I usually treat them nicer. It’s cool to think someone has a high enough opinion of me that they would try to gain my favor. Or, pity them, because they may have low self-esteem. Even if I feel they are just using me, it feels good to know that I have something in possession, abstract or literal, that they do not have and I have some degree of power
over them.
Now, I admit while I might treat such a person nicely on surface…it won’t make me genuinely like them, unless they have something else going on for them. And it won’t make me respect them all that much, I need a challenge. But very seldomly I have reacted negatively to this sort of behavior.
Being polite and civil is one thing. Being “ingratiating” can seem false and manipulative. More than once I’ve told a subordinate at work (with a smile and laugh) “Oh, stop sucking up. I hate sucking up.”
Because it makes the person appear as pathetic as the OP sounds.
Also, I don’t need an obsequious little sycophant following me around like a lap dog. If I’m wrong about something, I want someone who has the balls and intelligence to convince me their way is better. By engaging in disingenuous ingratiating behavior, you are sending signals that you are beneath me. Or that you think I’m an idiot who needs constant validation. Either way, I don’t want to surround myself with people like that.
Hmmmm…maybe I’m using the wrong word. I’m talking about an eagerness to please and pursuing intimacy prematurely. In a social or dating context, not so much of a work context.
While it can sometimes be a fine line between being “polite and civil” and ingratiating, I have found the hard way that excessive “charm” is often a red flag for an agenda. I had been egregiously naive about this for many, many years. When it finally sank in, I went as far as to decide that “personality” and character were inversely proportional. That isn’t true either, but I had been badly disillusioned by “charm” at that point.
Like MeanOldLady said, it’s still bullshit. By giving up all your own desires to do what someone else wants, you’re not really letting them know who you are. You’re also showing them that they’re more valuable than you are, so why wouldn’t they then treat you like that? So, they get they idea that you’re both phony and worthless. Why would they like someone like that?
In the words of Ferris Bueller, “… you can’t respect someone who kisses your ass. It just doesn’t work.”
I came here to say sometime snobbery is often a factor.
Some people’s moral code includes such things as “if they aren’t as capable/knowledgable/educated/sucessful/rich/popular/whatever as me then they are actually worth less as a human being than I am. Therefore I can treat /they deserved to be treated like shit”. Not pretty but there it is.
Why do some people dislike expedient flattery? What a fantastic question! You’re always so insightful----I wish I were gifted like you. Have you lost weight?
I’m having trouble figuring how these two statements go together. If you don’t actually like them, and you don’t respect them, how good can your opinion of them be? And how low must your opinion of them have been before it that’s an improvement? :eek: Sounds more like it improves your opinion of you–to be admired, or superior to someone else, or to have something someone wants.
Me, I hate a fucking suck-up. It’s just so damn phony, and if you want something, it’s going to save a lot of my time and yours if you’d just spit it out already.
I’m not sure if I understand what you mean by socially (i.e. non-romantically), but I’m going to assume you mean that certain type of person who goes far beyond friendly and extroverted and is supremely nice to everyone and tries to ingratiate themselves with everyone they interact it. It comes off as fake and I don`t know what you’re really thinking. It seems patronizing to me. It reminds me of a perky kindergarten or first grade teacher trying to make all her students feel special, and I don’t like being around people who treat their peers like small children.
If you’re talking about a romantic situation it’s much different, as I assume this person is only behaving that way toward me. In that case it’s just sort of pathetic and unattractive. Romantic relationships are supposed to be somewhat equal and when one person is vastly more interested than the other it’s always a turnoff. If we were both equally into each other, it wouldn’t be “ingratiating behavior”. We would just be two people infatuated with one another and trying really hard to please one another. When one person does it all on her own, I never get the chance to get there myself.
Yep. It has the taint that you’re being buttered up through disingenuous flattery. It’s kind of patronizing, so it feels false, and makes it seem like they might be looking to use them in some way by trying to appeal to their vanity (even if you have no intention, that’s how it’s usually perceived).
That makes me feel uncomfortable because I’m always afraid they’ll expect me to act that same way in return and will resent it if I don’t.
For instance, on several occasions my neighbour has cut my front lawn for me while my wife and I are at work. I really wish he wouldn’t; it’s no trouble for me to do it myself and I have no interest in doing him a favour in return. So now I just feel guilty (but not guilty enough to volunteer to do work on his house).
I don’t like it because it means that they are either:
[ul]
[li]Being dishonest and manipulative towards me.[/li]
I am participating in their exploitation and humiliation by a third party. For example, I recall reading about a woman being fired by Safeway because she was in so much pain from a work related injury that she couldn’t force a smile.[/ul]
The dishonesty and manipulation is the deal-breaker for me too. Maybe they think they’re better than me and can play me, or maybe they think they’re worse than me and need to suck up to me, but either way, I don’t like it.
Yeah, think I heard about that. Her cousin was a militant Atkins dietitian who was fired from McDonald’s for refusing to say “would you like fries with that?”
I don’t like it, but not because I think it’s inherently dishonest or manipulative; in fact, I think it can be honest. The reason I dislike it is because it creates an imbalance in a relationship. Take a romantic relationship, in so doing it takes a relationship that should be more or less equal and essentially puts one person above the other.
Or take a boss-employee relationship, and it destroys the dynamic there as well. There may be an implicit hierarchy there, but the relationship is based on a salary-for-labor aspect which should be more or less equal. As an employee, though my boss may give me instructions as part of that hierarchy, I refuse to be anything other than an equal in any other terms.