I freely admit that I'm the type of person who aims to be liked. Well, most of us want to be liked, but I make a job of it. At parties or group get-togethers, I try to razzle, dazzle them. I tell big, funny stories, I self-deprecate, I make fun of politics and society. I do my best to be the funny gal on the scene. I really want people to like me. Yes, I'm at an advantage because I am a total extrovert. As someone once put it, I "absorb energy from my interactions with others" (whereas an introvert will lose energy from those same interactions). I suppose it's the Leo in me, but I love a group of people, and I love to be right smack dab in the center of it.
I've started to notice, however, that my attempts to be a three-ring Lauren in order to win friends and influence people doesn't always work. In fact, I'm starting to feel that some of the "big"ness of my personality actually turns some people off. And, really nice people at that.
You know how, in high school, or at work, or wherever, if the snotty popular kids didn't like you, you could pretend it didn't matter because they were the ones with the superiority complex, so who cares (even though you kinda did)? Trust me, it is way worse when you desperately want someone to like you, not because they are pretty, rich and popular, but because they are a genuine, down-to-earth and likeable person you could actually see being friends with. Not to mention the fact that they like all your mutual friends. Aaaargh!
So I've decided to start toning things down a bit, scaling back. Let someone else have the limelight for awhile, let someone else tell the jokes and outlandish stories that make the group laugh. I'll let someone else be the Leo for a change.
Roooaaar....*sniff*
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