"Maybe she won't see me," you think, closing your eyes, willing yourself invisible. Slowly opening your eyes, you see her - much to your dismay - waving at you furiously. As she walks over, you feel your stomach drop, and, just as you want to retch at the thought of talking to her...
"Hey! How are you doing? It's so nice to see you!" The words escape your lips before you even have time to think. Suddenly, you find yourself deep in conversation with someone you can hardly stand and all you can think is: "How did that just happen?"
Okay, so maybe your aversion to undesirables isn't quite that severe. But we all have those people in our lives: the people we'd rather not associate with, but just can't seem to get rid of ? probably because they don't know our true feelings. So why do we pretend to like these people? Why not just tell them politely ? or not so politely ? to get lost?
Freshman Alex Madva admitted that he, like many of us, isn't always completely open about his feelings. "I definitely pretend ? I don't have the guts to hurt people's feelings," he said.
Freshman Nick Salvado agreed. "I can be fake out of kindness to people ? I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings," he said.
Lauren, a freshman who asked only to be identified by her first name, felt similarly. "I'm definitely more likely to be nice to someone ? I wouldn't have the guts to go up to someone and be like, 'I hate you,'" she said. "I know people who are brutally honest with people to the point of hurting their feelings, and they think that that's better, but I don't."
In this context, Lauren didn't think that "fake" was quite the right word - it carries more of a negative connotation than the action implies. "Sometimes it's not a matter of being fake, it's a matter of being mature and being able to deal with people."
To be real
Life wasn't always so complicated, according to some students, who point out that children tend not to worry about hurting the feelings of people they don't like. Most students agreed that people begin stifling their dislike for others during those turbulent pubescent years - all in the interest of keeping up newly acquired social graces.
"Little kids are more likely just to blurt stuff out, but as you get older, you realize it's just not appropriate," Lauren said.
"It definitely starts in middle school, because [that's] when you begin to really want to conform," Madva explained.
In middle school, kids also tend to feel self-conscious because of the changing nature of their new relationships. Child development Professor David Elkind, in his book All Grown Up and No Place To Go, addressed this phenomenon. "[In young adolescence] peer group acceptance becomes all important when you are rejecting your familial base of security and acceptance... because young adolescents are relatively inexperienced in these more intimate relationships, they often get hurt. They discover that some of the young men and women whom they regarded as trusted friends could turn on them or exploit the relationship," he wrote.
"Middle school is definitely the most awkward transition period," sophomore Angela Lepore said. "You're just trying to fit in with everyone else, so you don't want to make any enemies by telling people that you don't like them. But that stage lasts a long time," she said with a laugh.
Lepore's roommate, sophomore Erika Robbins, agreed. "I'm definitely still in that stage. I'm only starting to become more comfortable with myself," she said.
Freshman Andrew Rivnak feels that students in his class monitor their behavior more carefully than do upperclassmen. He believes that this will change once his classmates become more accustomed to living at school. "I think if you give it time, people will be more open," he said.
Both Lepore and Robbins agreed that most people probably outgrow "fakeness" with age. The only question: At what age?
"I feel like a big reason why we don't want to offend people is because we're still at a point in our lives when we want to have a big group of friends," Robbins said.
Lepore agreed. "When you get older, you're not really looking to make new friends ? you're just looking to strengthen friendships that you've made through the years," she said. Because of this, older people seem more likely to voice their opinions about others.
"Maybe when you become more comfortable with yourself and you don't care how people view you, you become more open about your feelings," Lepore said. "It also has a lot to do with your personality type. Some people are more reserved than others. They would never say certain things to people, no matter what age they were."
Reasons for fakeness
Lepore and Robbins have discussed the issue of "fakeness" together many times before. In their eyes, little can be gained by revealing distaste for someone.
"What's the point of being rude to someone? It's better to be neutral," Lepore said.
Robbins thinks that letting someone know how you feel doesn't simply affect the person ? it affects you, too. "I think it's a two-fold thing," she said. "I know for me, I'd feel really bad if someone knew that I didn't like them. And I think that for them, why does a person need to know that another person doesn't like them?"
"All it's going to do is make them feel bad that you don't like them, and make you feel bad that they know that you don't like them," Lepore said, elaborating on her roommate's thoughts. "It also has a negative effect on how people view you. You get that reputation of being a bitch."
Madya also thinks that feigning fondness is not always a bad thing. "It's funny because you always think that it's bad to be fake," he said. "But everyone does it. I've never met anyone who was totally straightforward about how they felt all the time ? [they] would be an a--hole."
But Robbins also acknowledges the value of unqualified honesty. "As much as I hate it when someone tells me that they don't like me, when someone is that honest, you have to respect them. It sucks, but at least you know where you stand with them," she said.
Lepore believed that societal standards cause this behavior. "Just from society, I think that's why we hold in our feelings if we don't like someone," she said. "In our society, that kind of honesty is considered rude."
Madva pointed out that many people will act fake not just to spare the feelings of others, but also for more self-serving, ulterior motives. "I think there can be a lot of reasons why people would act fake. Number one, you don't want to hurt anyone's feelings," he said. "Number two, a lot of times people are nice to other people just to get stuff. Essentially, they are using them to get play or alcohol or whatever."
On the flip side, Rivnak considers himself more up front than most people. "I'm pretty straightforward, I think," he said. However, his friends called him out, questioning the validity of the statement. Rivnak reluctantly admitted that he hasn't been completely honest with some of the people he's met at Tufts.
"College is a huge connection, and, especially if you're a freshman, you don't want to segregate yourself from anyone," he said, jumping to his own defense.
But who's to say that a little artificiality here and there is such a bad thing? Maybe people just need a break from the all-too-often-harsh reality of today's world. Besides, as Salvado points out, it's not so bad having a few "fake" friends. For him, fakeness is a necessary part of everyday life.
"I don't see the harm in fake people, as long as they're not your close friends. And your close friends probably aren't going to be fake to you anyway," he said. "It's kind of nice to have [fake people] around because they are nice to you on the surface."
