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Facades and how to deal with them. - 8/20/2008 12:45:46 PM   
stella41b


Posts: 4258
Joined: 10/16/2007
From: SW London (UK)
Status: offline 		I'm wondering here if anyone else here have faced problems when dealing with facades or fronts which they have put up being mistaken for their real feelings.

I'm talking about the times when we have reached out to help others, often to the detriment of ourselves, so that a friendly, helpful facade is put up to the world but then we regroup on our own or in private. Personally I find myself able to emotionally detach myself from various situations, which helped me get through my childhood, helped me years ago when I attempted to get into nursing, got me through sales, also as a TEFL teacher and also which I draw on in certain social situations. This is the way I am, inside I may be dying, facing some sort of major emotional crisis, but the smile is pretty much the same as are my actions. Pleasing people is something I greatly enjoy, sometimes more than I perhaps should.

I sometimes feel that this is more a submissive issue than a dominant one. Dominants often tend to be far more adept at being direct in their feelings and less likely to rely on facades. Indeed, I learn a lot from the dominants, both in real life and here online in how to take care of myself and express what it is inside me without feeling selfish or guilty.

But I'm not writing here about relationships or dynamics, as I feel facades don't belong in any relationship, especially here when honesty, openness and emotional transparency are of paramount importance. But what I'm writing about here are the various third parties, the social situations, parties, munches, where you can put on a brave and very happy face and others believe you are okay, perhaps even your partner, but where it sometimes comes out that there are buried feelings and maybe a bit of meltdown afterwards.

I'm just curious to see if others notice this and how do they deal with getting past the facade (people-pleaser front) through to the real self? I feel it's easier when there's intimacy or play but the social situations and 'life' I feel is another matter. How do such things as sub drop affect this? Is this an issue for anyone else? And if so, how do you work round it?

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RE: Facades and how to deal with them. - 8/20/2008 12:53:21 PM   
camille65


Posts: 5746
Joined: 7/11/2007
From: Austin Texas
Status: offline 		The people who I keep up a front with aren't people I want to let in. Thats really all I can say. As a teenager and young adult I had a tough time dropping the image but now its a bit of the opposite. There are those that I don't want to go past the image I present which is why I maintain it.

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RE: Facades and how to deal with them. - 8/20/2008 1:10:34 PM   
LaTigresse


Posts: 26123
Joined: 1/15/2006
Status: offline 		There have only been two people in my entire life that got to see everything behind the facade. I miss them very much.

Everyone else only gets to see bits and pieces. Not many want to see more.


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RE: Facades and how to deal with them. - 8/20/2008 1:17:57 PM   
Aileen1968


Posts: 6062
Joined: 12/12/2007
From: I miss Shore, New Jersey
Status: offline 		I'm one of those people that what you see is what you get.  I tend to be a little shy at first, but I don't put up any false fronts.  I have a dirty sense of humor.  I'm very sarcastic and I love to laugh.  I like to touch people physically when I'm with them.  It connects me to them.  I don't hide any of these things in any situation that I find myself in. 

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RE: Facades and how to deal with them. - 8/20/2008 1:27:55 PM   
KnightofMists


Posts: 7149
Joined: 7/29/2005
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: stella41b

I sometimes feel that this is more a submissive issue than a dominant one. Dominants often tend to be far more adept at being direct in their feelings and less likely to rely on facades. Indeed, I learn a lot from the dominants, both in real life and here online in how to take care of myself and express what it is inside me without feeling selfish or guilty.


This might be true for some Dominants.. .but.. an aspect for some people are trying to live up to that Tough Macho Dom.. that in of itself is a big fascade that some Dominants are known to take on.

quote:


But I'm not writing here about relationships or dynamics, as I feel facades don't belong in any relationship, especially here when honesty, openness and emotional transparency are of paramount importance. But what I'm writing about here are the various third parties, the social situations, parties, munches, where you can put on a brave and very happy face and others believe you are okay, perhaps even your partner, but where it sometimes comes out that there are buried feelings and maybe a bit of meltdown afterwards.


In general.. I believe that many.. of any orientation.. put forward or try to put forward a fascade of some sort in those social situations.  In those various social settings.. honestly.. it not often the best place to have that honest open emotional transparency... in fact it can do a person more damage than good.   I don't think it is so much of putting a fascade as demonstrating the appropriate manners and behaviors for the give situation.  Secondly... the behaviors and manners in these social situations are not the issue... it's the failure to deal with those other feelings and issues a person has in an appropriate and constructive manner.  If one is putting on a happy face.. when all they want to do is cry... well maybe they should get themself to a situation that is safe for them to cry!  The buried feelings and those meltdowns afterwards indicate to me a person who is making the wrong choices of what they should engage themself in.



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RE: Facades and how to deal with them. - 8/20/2008 1:36:08 PM   
Owner4SexSlave


Posts: 1311
Joined: 4/4/2007
Status: offline 		Some Facades really are not a bad thing.  I have put on a Facade when confronted with fearful or stressful situations.  Basically, where if my partner were to see me freaking out, it would only unsettle them even more.

There are times when a Dom needs to play the Fearless leader role.

There are times when I have been a complete emotional wreck inside, and I held put on the Facade of everything being ok.   No need to torture my friends and loved ones with my personal troubles at the time.

There are times when a Facade is not a bad thing.  I might calmly admit later on that I was pissing myself silly inside with fear.   It all depends upon how much of an anchor or solid rock I need to be for my partner. 

I tend to deal with the issues that I'm faced with.  Also, by me keeping an emotional Fascade it keeps me from breaking down and acting all illrational and crazy.

Now I'll drop the Facade for a few people, but it all depends.  Why I'm putting on a facade, and what reasons for it.

Plus, what if what I'm feeling or thinking at the time is really out to fucking lunch and I'm way off base.   So at times, it's best to be slow to speak or share thoughts.  Make certain that what I'm really thinking or feeling is really real.  

At times a Facade gives one a sense of personal space to deal with things.  Some people walk around wearing their Hearts on their sleeves.  I think facades can be good tools for emotional checks or while sorting things out.  

I'll break a Facade after I've figured something out, perhaps have sorted things out in my mind.   Perhaps I'll mention to somebody that I had a facade going on at the time, and that I was equally stressed, pissed off or fearful as they were.  However, as a DOM I'm responsible for holding things together in various situations.

Trust me!  If I hate somebody to death.  It's best that I keep a Facade going with them, else it might turn into a verbal elbows and Assholes exchange of words. 

Facades also allow for me to cool down and think.  Yes, I'm pretty vocal for the most part.  However, it all depends upon the situation and people involved.

All and All, I think long term Facades are not so good.  Not for a relationship itself.   I'm into short term Facades.  Trust me I like to show what's behind the facade.   It's just a short term coping mechanism of sorts for me.

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RE: Facades and how to deal with them. - 8/20/2008 1:48:38 PM   
Prinsexx


Posts: 4584
Joined: 8/27/2007
Status: offline 		I've got no boundaries least of all front.
I'm tthankful to bdsm protocol and etiquette, having the safety net if you like of a Master that at last knows the respinsibility of an s-type like me and what to do with it.
I find role dostance as they call it helps.
Lecturing from afar i can do on almost anyday. I'm at my best when i 'wing-it' rather than on script. It's rather like acting or performing. In my other personna as writer.performer i can do that easily enough as well.
Working up close with students with learning differences and/or with clients is not role play. I'm special at it (so they say) because of deep empathy skills which i was born with as an early communication process. I do think it's possibe to train a person to have deep-empathic understanding.....However if one has had to train to get empathy then having boundaries and being closed down is an easier place to be.
One of the reasons i avoid munchies and public 'play' is that i don't do play or socially required behaviour (ouside of protocol).
I love intuitive service. And i fell at ease with those that understand this. I have a default pattern which is to look within and blame myslf for others' issues in personal relationships. For example: if someone gets angry i will immediately soul search to see what i did wrong regardless of where the locus of anger lays.
I am skilful at deflection if i feel that that is the game that is being played.
Paradoxically physical pain gives me a boundary rather than diminishes where i feel myself to be. If i feel physical pain i will wthdraw into 'myself' in order to withstand more pain. Another masochist will understand what i mean by this.
Living as an empath, passing through others and also through and between realities like this is on an edge of incipient 'ego-loss' a great deal of the time. but it's what i know of me even though it's been a cruel long path towards finding out......


< Message edited by Prinsexx -- 8/20/2008 1:49:02 PM >

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RE: Facades and how to deal with them. - 8/20/2008 2:09:05 PM   
girlivy


Posts: 699
Joined: 7/6/2007
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Aileen1968

I'm one of those people that what you see is what you get.  I tend to be a little shy at first, but I don't put up any false fronts.  I have a dirty sense of humor.  I'm very sarcastic and I love to laugh.  I like to touch people physically when I'm with them.  It connects me to them.  I don't hide any of these things in any situation that I find myself in. 



Same here to a T, it is way to much work to put up a front, plus comes age, goes memory! Rather be hated for who I am, then to be loved for who I am not! :)  Not that I consider it a bad or good thing.... it's just a thing....

< Message edited by girlivy -- 8/20/2008 2:11:51 PM >

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RE: Facades and how to deal with them. - 8/20/2008 3:24:13 PM   
CallaFirestormBW


Posts: 3651
Joined: 6/29/2008
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: stella41b

I'm just curious to see if others notice this and how do they deal with getting past the facade (people-pleaser front) through to the real self? I feel it's easier when there's intimacy or play but the social situations and 'life' I feel is another matter. How do such things as sub drop affect this? Is this an issue for anyone else? And if so, how do you work round it?



In general, unless you catch me at work, what you see is what you get, and I don't waste time with masks. For the one that I do wear at work, it came about because I entered the environment -without- a mask, and was informed, very quickly, that the people that I associated with there did not want to see -me-... they only wanted a simulacrum of me who behaved in a particular, authorized way, and never appeared to stray from the corporate image. It took me a long time to build the mask, and now that I have been forced to put it on, it is unlikely that it will ever come off or that I will let any of 'me' leak from behind it in this environment. I tend to isolate when I am dealing with intense emotion that I can't display at work. The more erratic the emotion, the more widely I distance myself from the superficial acquaintances of my daily life. I don't see that changing.

Calla Firestorm


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RE: Facades and how to deal with them. - 8/20/2008 4:12:57 PM   
LuckyAlbatross


Posts: 19224
Joined: 10/25/2005
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: stella41b
Dominants often tend to be far more adept at being direct in their feelings and less likely to rely on facades. Indeed, I learn a lot from the dominants, both in real life and here online in how to take care of myself and express what it is inside me without feeling selfish or guilty.

Interesting.  My experience is exactly the opposite- subs are far more likely to openly express their feelings, while doms will do whatever they can to avoid being open about them.

Not saying that subs can't be manipulative jerks also, just that my experience is opposite to yours.

quote:

I'm just curious to see if others notice this and how do they deal with getting past the facade (people-pleaser front) through to the real self? I feel it's easier when there's intimacy or play but the social situations and 'life' I feel is another matter. How do such things as sub drop affect this? Is this an issue for anyone else? And if so, how do you work round it?

Patience, approval, slow insistence.  My way is like the Grand Canyon, never ending flowing water eventually erodes moutains.  It can get tiring, the fifth time you ask them a basic question and you still have to act like a safe cracker- but over time, progression occurs.  Show them over time that approval and security is not based on what they feel they should be, but who they are.

Oh and I have no problem with facades with anyone I'm not in an intimate relationship with.  Our world pretty much dictates them in order for us to survive at this point. 

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RE: Facades and how to deal with them. - 8/20/2008 5:02:35 PM   
LadyHibiscus


Posts: 27124
Joined: 8/15/2005
From: Island Of Misfit Toys
Status: offline 		I have my professional face, that I wear at the office, when dealing with clients, etc.  They get a caring expert, I shield myself from their issues while helping them solve them.  Simple enough!

I am a WSYWIG person generally, but even that is a shell that most people don't examine too closely.  I am open, forthright, friendly, and easygoing, none of that is feigned, but the "real" me?  Not for general consumption.

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RE: Facades and how to deal with them. - 8/20/2008 5:19:30 PM   
TysGalilah


Posts: 589
Joined: 11/21/2007
Status: offline 		 
 
I don't really mean for this to come out as negative as its going to sound but
 
  I have come to the conclusion that people in general don't really want to know the real person with real feelings and raw emotions.
  It's just too close to making them feel THEIR feelings if they have to listen to mine...or see my tears...or hear of pain.
 

 

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.."There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. " Edith Wharton

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RE: Facades and how to deal with them. - 8/20/2008 5:31:34 PM   
CallaFirestormBW


Posts: 3651
Joined: 6/29/2008
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: TysGalilah
 
I don't really mean for this to come out as negative as its going to sound but
 
  I have come to the conclusion that people in general don't really want to know the real person with real feelings and raw emotions.
  It's just too close to making them feel THEIR feelings if they have to listen to mine...or see my tears...or hear of pain.



I think that there are plenty of people who like seeing the real person and experiencing that person's raw emotions.... except in professional environments where drama interferes with workplace dynamics -and- with the exception of the individuals who use their "raw emotions" as their particular form of facade/weapon -- a drama hammer that gets pulled out and slammed around to make a stage out of every situation they are in and forcing their "emotions" into everyone's space, regardless of what is going on around them. To me, this is just as much a 'mask' as the person who suppresses all of their deep emotions and wears a smile to keep others from seeing what they're really feeling. If a group happens to have a large number of this type of individual, the whole group can end up worn out and burned out from the constant drama (and this is coming from someone who, in general, thrives on chaos and drama).

Calla Firestorm


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Said to me recently: "Look, I know you're the "voice of reason"... but dammit, I LIKE being unreasonable!!!!"

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RE: Facades and how to deal with them. - 8/20/2008 5:48:37 PM   
yourMissTress


Posts: 1665
Joined: 6/14/2005
From: Nashville, TN
Status: offline 		For the first 33 years of my life I was a facade, not to be a people pleaser, but to stay sane.  I was raised in a very dysfunctional family and taught that what happened inside my home was absolutely not brought outside of my home from the time I could walk and talk.  I also learned that to be vulnerable, to let anyone know my feelings, was to be weak and something to be punished severely.  Any feelings shown were eventually used against me.  So I became a vault, it was self preservation, and though it kept me alive and sane, it cost me dearly as an adult. 
 
It took a long time just to admit to the problem.  And I remain a work in progress.  I have difficulty expressing my emotions even with people closest to me, though I'm far better today than I was 5 years ago.  I hope to be even better 5 years from now.  There are times when it's greatly beneficial to me, such as when given bad news in public or playing poker, but for the most part, it's a hinderance in my personal relationships.
 
 When I recently discussed this with my current lovers, they sat looking at me with slacked jaws.  They couldn't believe that I thought I had a problem expressing myself.  They had no idea how much effort I have to put into it, constantly.  I need for my insides to match my outsides and the reverse.  I sometimes have very delayed reactions as I talk myself through it: "don't hold it in, let it show".  And other times I have to have a conversation with someone who just told me something really great and I looked at them stone faced, and help them understand that I'm not unhappy or angry with them at all, infact quite the opposite.

< Message edited by yourMissTress -- 8/20/2008 6:04:45 PM >

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"If you have to tell people that you are a lady, you are not." My Grandmother


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RE: Facades and how to deal with them. - 8/20/2008 5:51:37 PM   
Prinsexx


Posts: 4584
Joined: 8/27/2007
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: CallaFirestormBW

quote:

ORIGINAL: TysGalilah
 
I don't really mean for this to come out as negative as its going to sound but
 
  I have come to the conclusion that people in general don't really want to know the real person with real feelings and raw emotions.
  It's just too close to making them feel THEIR feelings if they have to listen to mine...or see my tears...or hear of pain.



I think that there are plenty of people who like seeing the real person and experiencing that person's raw emotions.... except in professional environments where drama interferes with workplace dynamics -
Calla Firestorm


I have spent most of my life attempting to bridge the gap between the real taw me and any facade or mask i felt i had to put in place in a work environment.
i hated the first job i ever had in an office and swore that might have to be the first and last. I hated the jobs i had to do tyo pay for my way through college and University because they were menial and repetitive but at least i experienced less mask and more working class salt-of-the-earth relationships.
I used education, within which i excelled, to get me qualified enough to be able just to be me, in artistic, creative and educational endeavors. I am pretty mush free to wear what i want, to choose the hours i want and to adapt techniques whenever i want in both public and private practice. I am blessed as this enables me to be a better and getter intuitive. I also know some can find this real 'me' very irritating. On the Myers-briggs and any of its adaptations i come out as within 2% of the population. i am one of those extroverted intuitives, who, when asked how do i know this, will look the querstioner directly in the eyes and say; i just do and then go back to being a diva.
For me there is no contradiction between this me and slave me. To be so free, 9and there isn't a day goes by when i do not bless the work i do) in my work is balanced beautifully against the bonds that bind me as a slave. Within slavery there is now a timetable, a protocol and i do not have to create the way forward. It is thankfully being created for me.



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Metawhore.... the sound of a metaphore when gagged
Free woman
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To my stalker:
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RE: Facades and how to deal with them. - 8/20/2008 6:03:40 PM   
Jeffff


Posts: 12600
Joined: 7/7/2007
Status: offline 		I think we all have a facade. I think it takes a very very close relationship to get beyond it. I also think that is often a good thing. I am pretty much the same here as in person. People often look at me and say. " I can't belive you said that!"
I  have sometimes pointed out, it is not what I say that should bother you, it is the things I don't say...:)

Jeff

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RE: Facades and how to deal with them. - 8/20/2008 7:49:32 PM   
marieToo


Posts: 3595
Joined: 5/21/2006
From: Jersey
Status: offline 		I don't put up facades or a false front of any kind, but I do keep a wall between myself and most people.  In other words, I don't behave in a way that's misleading of who I am, I just hold back on showing all of myself.  Occassionly someone very sharp will cut right through the guard and read me like a book, but that's pretty rare.  I'm very selective about who I let in all the way, but once I do, I am very open in showing who I am, and just being myself. 

I don't think this has anything to do with having a submissive pursuasion, I just think it's an individual thing.

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RE: Facades and how to deal with them. - 8/20/2008 7:53:10 PM   
Jeffff


Posts: 12600
Joined: 7/7/2007
Status: offline 		but isn't omission a facade?

Jeff

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RE: Facades and how to deal with them. - 8/20/2008 7:59:02 PM   
Quivver


Posts: 1953
Joined: 11/27/2004
Status: offline 		Years ago I was an open book.  I saw facades in others, yet found it difficult to rein myself in. 
A few hard years blew by and taught me that lesson well. 
Now, I wear that `face` all the time and rarely take it off even with those I'm most transparent to. 
Thankfully there is one or two who know and accept what's behind my mask. 


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RE: Facades and how to deal with them. - 8/20/2008 8:10:48 PM   
ExSteelAgain


Posts: 1803
Joined: 7/2/2006
From: Georgia
Status: offline 		Some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. But don't you think it is a matter of degree? We all have some kind of facade. I mean we learn to dress certain ways to state an obvious, physical one. We learn social etiquette. We learn not to say certain things. Facades could be good manners. Depends.

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