Stop Calling Yourself a “People Pleaser,” Please

Who exactly are you pleasing? Your ego?

Honestly guys, I’m so tired of people calling themselves “people pleasers” when they haven’t pleased a single soul since 2012. Why is it always the person with fragile self-worth and a lack of self-reflection who somehow thinks they are the pleaser?

Girl, boy — you for sure don’t please me. You annoy me. You disappoint me. And worst of all: you’re somehow able to call your lies, excuses, and all the trash-talk behind your friends’ backs a “psychological coping mechanism.”

Does this sound gaslight-y to you? It sure does to me.

The realization that many people who call themselves “people pleasers” aren’t, in fact, what they think they are hit me like a rock some weeks ago. Let me give you an example.

I’ve been friends with someone who constantly made special requests for our meet-ups, changed dates multiple times before actually committing, made mean comments about my new career path (“Ugh, really? I could NEVER do that”), didn’t get back to me for festival tickets — and was still 100% convinced they were the one who was pleasing!

Bitch, in what world? I compromised my schedule, I tried doing better, I didn’t push for us meeting, I gave you space. I did all the things I usually don’t have to force myself to do because I somehow felt I needed to cater to you so we could stay friends.

Then I realized: wait a second. Is it possible that people (not gonna say narcs lol) use pop-psychology terminology to make themselves invincible? I mean, what can you say to someone who calls themselves a pleaser? If you question that, you’re the “abuser”, aren’t you?

You make them feel uncomfortable when you call their commitment issues what they are: a problem. You make them feel uneasy around you when you tell them their flaky behavior hurt you — while all they can say is they were only trying to “please” you, and therefore got … scared.

Honestly, calling yourself a “people pleaser” when you’ve been emotionally MIA for years is wild. Who exactly are you pleasing? Your ego?

You speak up about their flakiness, the emotional unavailability — and somehow, that makes them feel attacked, because they know you’re right. Technically. So what do they do? They hide behind this self-proclaimed label of being a “pleaser”. They don’t take responsibility — they flip the script. That’s not care. That’s avoidance. That’s manipulation dressed up in soft lingo.

Fuck that. Fuck those fake-ass people. In fact, I even figured the dynamic is the opposite of what pleasers claim to be true. I tended to cater to people who called themselves people pleasers because I thought they were good people by saying so. How dangerous can a people pleaser be to my mental health?

In my mind, people pleasers were humans with childhood trauma who had to come up with that coping mechanism in order to survive — therefore: good people with a little damage, just like I have my own bag of damage to carry. That’s fine.

I gave them the benefit of the doubt and tried hard not to “bother” them. After all, they’ve had such a hard time in the past, haven’t they? They’re fragile, so I have to be careful, be quiet. I have to start tiptoeing around them, so they don’t abandon me.

And when they finally admitted their lies and fake-ass behavior, I somehow felt it was all my fault. Because I was too aggressive, or too pushy, or too demanding of the love and care that should feel natural in a relationship.

They turned their neglect into something rightful, something I deserved because I wasn’t perfect.

“Pleasers” twist their neglect into some kind of justified reaction — like their emotional absence or their dishonesty was a consequence of your flaws. And in their narrative, that made you the problem — not their inconsistency, not their distance, not their lies. So suddenly, it … made sense to them that they had to lie to you. That they had to make empty promises and talk about future plans they never intended to keep. That they had to keep you just far enough away to feel in control.

And the worst part? For a while, you believed it. You thought, Maybe I am too intense. Maybe I’m asking for more than I deserve. But nah. You were asking for basic human decency. And they couldn’t meet that — so they made it your fault.

I say: not anymore.

The funny thing is though, none of my true, committed friends call themselves people pleasers. It’s always the ones I had to shed in order to be my true self who used that term to further manipulate me and make me feel bad.

Next time someone talks about themselves as a pleaser — or even worse, an empath — I run. It’s a big, waving flag right in front of my face, and I’m not gonna look the other way ever again.