World-Class People Pleasing

Moving out of the passenger seat after thirty years of quiet desperation.

For six months I lived in my girlfriend’s house alone to take care of her dogs. That feeling when I got home after a day’s work, with an extra hour commute on top, having woken up one hour earlier than I normally needed to and have the smell of the dogs’ “mess” welcomed me when I opened the door. All of me wanted to leave, to go back to my life, but I never gave myself the choice. No matter how much anger I felt, no matter how much resentment was building, in my head I just had to do it.

I couldn’t face my own situation, I didn’t know how. So I directed it all toward the dogs. They weren’t to blame, they were just being dogs. I had left them alone for hours and hours while I was working. They would be so happy to see me with their tails wagging, but I had to put it somewhere. I would shout until I tired myself out. Then I would ignore them and go clean it, refusing them the attention they so wanted. All this for a woman I didn’t love. She was abroad doing an internship. I was a world-class people pleaser.

That was my one “long-term” relationship to this day, it lasted one year and six months. It shouldn’t have lasted more than a few months in all honesty. I remember what it felt like wanting to fit in, wanting to be “normal.” And that included being in a relationship. It was never about what I really wanted, I had no idea what that was, it was about fitting in.

It was about pleasing everyone around me, showing them I was one of them. That was before I met her, because after the relationship started it became all about her, and pleasing her, all her needs and wants. What I felt or wanted didn’t matter because I had achieved what I thought I always wanted, I was in a relationship, I had made it. And in order not to lose it I was willing to sacrifice almost everything.

One year into the relationship she received an offer for a 6 month internship abroad. She wanted to take it but she had three dogs which she wouldn’t be able to take with her, so of course I offered to move in to her house to take care of her dogs while she was away. No second thoughts, no consideration for myself or what that decision would actually entail. Thankfully the distance between us helped me understand I didn’t love her, that the relationship didn’t feel right. We broke up when she returned from her internship.

After the breakup, I went back to living my life, but I was soon hit with the feeling that something was missing. I mistook emptiness for a lack of novelty and excitement. So, I moved to London, a city I thought could give me what I was looking for.

But then COVID hit. I was alone in a country I didn’t know, surrounded by eight million strangers. As the situation made my intrusive thoughts grow by the day, I discovered weed could silence them. It pushed the discomfort away, but that silence soon became a crutch I relied on for four years.

Over that period I had a series of much shorter relationships. Very common theme across all of them. We would go on multiple dates where I would do my utmost best to be the person I thought they would like. It never worked. We would stop seeing each other after a few months.

For almost thirty years I lived in the passenger seat of my own life. Since the idea that I could have any sort of power over my thoughts or emotions never crossed my mind, I was simply thrown around by their whims.

Today marks exactly one year since I decided to take the driver’s seat and start the never-ending process of self-work. So, what happened on December 26th, 2024? On that day I watched a podcast episode that was simply the final break after years of pretending I was fine, after years of quiet desperation. I had spent four years smoking myself into a stasis, not moving forward or backwards. I could no longer ignore my own thoughts, my desire for change.

Gathering all the willpower I had, against all fibers in my body, after I finished watching that episode, I did my first ever journaling session, I registered for an annual membership with a meditation app and I decided to stop smoking weed.

So much happened over the next few weeks. It required everything I had to do it day after day, for any other choice - watching a show, playing games, scrolling through my phone - always felt more appetizing. But with each passing day, the benefits were becoming clearer and clearer. I felt like I was slowly waking up from this dream that my life had been up to that point.

I had lived my whole life, up to that point, in a completely unconscious way, until the day came where lo and behold, I could finally see it clearly as day, I was a people pleaser, a world-class one. Having gained awareness, I could see why I was single. Why no relationship had ever worked. Why I kept repeatedly doing things I didn’t actually like. Why I kept hiding parts of myself from others.

At this point I decided to seek help from a therapist. With each and every journaling session, I was uncovering what I considered to be problems to solve. People pleasing was one of many. The deeper I dug, the more layers I uncovered. I realized I needed help.

To add wood to the fire, I decided to give relationships another try, though this time in a much more conscious way. The first one was a complete blunder. I made the exact same mistakes. But, now I had awareness. It helped me understand something incredibly important that I hadn’t connected with up to that point. Awareness alone was not enough.

While it carries a lot of the weight, something else is also required, and that is intention and action. So, with all the fear and anxiety the decision came with, I decided to start showing up more as myself, to anyone and everyone. But more than that, to try to stop people pleasing someone I had just met. That was definitely not easy. In my mind I felt like I was climbing this massive mountain.

To just say a simple thing about myself like “I journal” carried an enormous internal conflict. I would have to contend with my own intrusive thoughts every single time. For them, such a simple sentence came with so much societal prejudice. They kept trying to make me believe she would walk away if I said it. But, after putting a great deal of willpower, and going against every fiber in my body, I would say it.

And, to my surprise, people wouldn’t walk away. They actually seemed to like me more. So the continuous reinforcement training began. I kept contending and I kept getting rewarded with people’s incredibly positive reaction.

Of course, that didn’t happen with every single person I met. But whenever it wasn’t a positive reaction, it also wasn’t a negative one. They didn’t instantly start hating me, they simply were not interested.

This led me to two very interesting realizations, which combined with the effort I was already doing, helped me greatly improve on my people pleasing nature.

The first one: if there are parts of me others won’t like, and they are going to walk way when they find out about them, being a somewhat efficiency-oriented person, I preferred to get it out of the way sooner rather than later.

The second: I hadn’t liked everyone I’d met, so why was I holding on to this feeling that everyone had to like me? That I had to please everyone.

One year has passed since I’ve been on this journey, and so much of my life has changed. Through so many frustrations and realizations, I’ve accepted that my growth isn’t a climb toward a final peak, but a continuous climb. I no longer look for the summit, I now know such a thing doesn’t exist. Instead, I look for the next plateau where the path levels out just long enough for me to catch my breath before the climb continues.

One of the biggest transformations has been my relationship with people pleasing. I no longer see it as a problem, neither of my quirks are. They are all part of who I am. Though I’m still working on accepting them all and learning how to balance the scales.