[ID: A series of screenshots and texts from multiple sources with the following: Ten (10) screenshots of Jenny Slate in Stage Fright saying: my friend was like, âWhatâs the deal? Like, do you really believe that youâre not funny?â And I was like, âNo, itâs not that I think Iâm not funny. Itâs that right before I go on stage, I am, like, presented with this⊠essential question, which is, like⊠Will they⊠Will they⊠like me?â But⊠I donât earn the love unless I give something beautiful that goes out.
Text from Ugly, Bitter, and True by Suzanne Rivecca that reads: The San Francisco therapist kept telling me I shouldnât be terrified of creative experimentation. âI donât know whatâs going to come out of me,â I told her. âIt has to be perfect. It has to be irreproachable in every way.â âWhy?â she said. âTo make up for it,â I said. âTo make up for the fact that itâs me.â
Three (3) screenshots of John Mulaney on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert saying: From an early age, I tried to be funny for the adults. I mean, my mom said, âwhen you were a baby, you used to poke your head out of blankets.â And she said, âit was like you knew how to be cute.â She didnât say it, like, flatteringly. She said, âit was weird, it was like you knew what you were doing.â I think I thought, and feel, still, that I have to provide that in order for people to like me⊠Like, the idea of would they like me just as me, without poking out of the blanket, metaphorically, is aâis a real thought or uh, concern.Â
Four images of text from Why Not Me? By Mindy Kaling that reads: In seventh grade I started at a new school. On the first day, I was so anxious to make friends, I brought a family-size bag of Skittles to homeroom so I could pass them out and entice my new classmates to talk to me. âDo you like Skittles?â I asked. Kids would nod, cautiously. âHere, take some. Iâm Mindy!â I said, trying to rope them into conversation. It didnât work very well. Even back then the kids thought this was suspicious behavior, like I was covering for something unseemly they couldnât quite pinpoint. Still, I persisted, striking up conversations like a middle school Hare Krishna, and cornering kids with aggressively banal chitchat. âThatâs so funny you like the color blue. I like turquoise. Weâre so similar.â I did this until my art teacher, Mr. Posner, pulled me aside.
Mr Posner was soft-spoken and wouldnât let us talk about the movie Silence of the Lambs, because it contained violence against women. I hated him. âYou donât have to give people candy to like you Mindy,â he said. âThey will like you ⊠for you.â I nodded meaningfully, knowing he wanted to see that my mind had been blown by his awesome humanity. Then he took my Skittles and I thought, What a load of garbage. At twelve years old, I had experienced enough to have zero faith in the power of my looks or personality to reel in the friends I wanted to badly. I needed my Skittles. The next day I brought in more, and Mr. Posner called my parents. The Skittles stopped, and I wished that Mr. Posner was trapped in the bottom of a well, and later killed, like in Silence of the Lambs. My parents encouraged me to play field hockey, where I eventually did end up making a few friends. I remember that time as one of the most stressful periods of my life. Every kid wants approval, but my desire to be well liked was central to my personality.
As I got older, I got craftier and less obvious, but Iâve always put a lot of energy and effort into people liking me. Thatâs why Iâve never understood the compliment âeffortless.â People love to say: âShe just walked into the party, charming people with her effortless beauty.â I donât understand that at all. Whatâs so wrong with effort, anyway? It means you care. What about the girl who âwalked into the party, her determination to please apparent on her eager faceâ? Sure, she might seem a little crazy, and, yes, maybe everything she says sounds like conversation starters she found on a website, but at least sheâs trying. Letâs give her a shot!
And these days, I find Iâm caring less and less about what people think of me. Maybe itâs my age, maybe itâs my security in my career, maybe itâs because Iâm skrilla flush with that dollah-dollah-bill-yâall, but if I had to identify my overall feeling these days, itâs much more âEh, screw it. Hereâs how I really feel.â The truth is, itâs hard to get people to like you, but itâs even harder to keep people liking you. Youâd have to bring in Skittles every single day. The result of my not caring so much about what I say allows me to care more about how I say it. I think it makes my writing more personal and more enjoyable. /End ID]
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