Being one’s self and the opinion of others.

I think there is an extent to which being socially unaware leads to a fundamental mis-expression of who someone is because of their blindness to the implications of their speech/behaviour.

For example, someone who is unaware of when to stop talking in general or about a particular subject may come off as inconsiderate to others. However, they may consider themselves to be considerate because they are doing the work of talking about a particular subject as much as they can. This subtle oversight, in my opinion, leads to a fundamental miscommunication of who they really are. 

This very thing could unfortunately happen in the name of being ‘who you are’. Anxieties which would otherwise signal the very thing which is responsible for the subtle miscommunication (aka I am talking too much) is overridden with the compensatory ideal (aka just be yourself). In this situation, that idea is counterproductive to bridging the gap between social expectations and expression.

In this sense it is a dance, a sort of back and forth, in which an attempt to express the self in a way which is as true to the beholder as it is to the audience.

In the case of the self-identified considerate person, should they get the inkling somehow that people are no longer listening as much or responding as enthusiastically, this may be a sign that they are not being as considerate as they perceive themselves to be. And this could motivate a minor adjustment so that to uphold the desired considerateness some less talking is required.

On the flip side, the same response from people could just as easily be interpreted as lack of care or interest in the issue at hand. In some cases, this could actually validate the act of advocacy whereby not enough people caring or being interested in a certain issue merits warriors to spread the word at their own expense.

On the flip-flip-side, following the interpretation that people lack care or interest in the subject at hand could exactly be a cue to stop talking about that subject so much. If the fundamental assumption is that we cannot control what people care about or are interested in, or at the very least we don’t make it our business, this assumption will rise above the unconscious and show itself in the response to disinterest, for example.

In other words, no particular act or response or conversation carries the entire weight of the expressed self as received by an audience; rather it is the collection of fundamental assumptions about the audience which over time reveal themselves in a variety of ways. 

Due to cognitive biases such as the recency bias, first impressions have a tendency to impose a lot more weight on a smaller set of interactions. This can be the audience’s assessment of the performer’s fundamental assumptions to be skewed in a particular direction. 

It is in this domain that being reserved or conversation in socialization behaviours can be positive in reducing the odds of a ‘bad’ or misrepresentative first impression.

So in the end, the point of self expression is to be one’s self; but for this expression to be accurately received by the audience, certain fundamental assumptions must be in line with the audience’s own and reveal themselves as such.