It was a Saturday afternoon, and I was having a crap massage. I’ve had many a massage in my life (predominantly to help with my endometriosis flare ups) and invariably, many of them have been crap. And it’s always for one specific reason: I’m trying too hard to be likeable. I'm more concerned that the masseuse should warm to me, should think I'm agreeable, should leave our 60 minutes together thinking, “I wish I had more clients like her,” than whether I am enjoying the experience myself. The experience that I have paid for.
And it doesn't end with massages. I've only ever felt safe if I feel I am behaving in a ‘likeable’ manner. Whether that’s toward a potential employer, rewriting emails to the payroll department over-and-over until I’m satisfied that they don’t sound pushy or ungrateful – even though they’re three months late paying me – a mum at a sensory class (who I try to engage in ‘pleasant’ conversation as I wrestle a nappy back onto my eight-month-old), a server at a restaurant, my doctor during an intimate exam or, more recently, the teacher at my antenatal course, who I was so concerned should like me, that I directed all of my energy toward that aim. Of course, I came away with very little actual advice about actually keeping my baby alive once she was here.
In fact, even while giving birth, I couldn’t escape the innate need to be liked by the staff. I tried to engage the various midwives, consultants and anaesthetists in witty conversation between each laboured breath, I apologised profusely for not being able to get my own water (due to a shed-load of epidural running through my spine) and kept insisting I didn’t need anything, even though I could think of about 10 things that I needed from minute-to-minute during my 21-hour labour.
And though my pursuit of endless likability felt entirely consuming, and often embarrassingly personal to me, I’m not alone. Women are taught from a young age that we need to be cheerful and agreeable – and if we let this demeanour slip at any point, we are graciously reminded by thoughtful male strangers who approach us, unwarranted, on the street, telling us to ‘smile’ more.
It’s not just ‘regular’ women who often fall victim to the endless – and energy zapping – need to be liked. Only a few weeks ago, director Sofia Coppola explained to The New Yorker that her Apple TV+ project with actor Florence Pugh had been pulled due to their female lead character being deemed ‘unlikeable’ by a clutch of male execs. “The idea of an unlikeable woman wasn’t their thing. But that’s what I’m saying about who’s in charge,” she said, going on to note that there are plenty of male protagonists at the heart of successful shows who are unlikeable.
Life doesn't have to be a slog.
Sadly, it’s one of the oldest patriarchal tropes in the book: men in charge are bosses, women are just bossy. Men are professional and driven, women are cold. Men who disagree are ‘standing their ground’, while women are just being difficult. Women must make themselves small and agreeable – we are allowed to stay in the room, but only if we ingratiate ourselves to everyone else in it and sit quietly in the corner.
There is endless evidence for this, but an example that always sticks with me is one given by the inimitable Sheryl Sandberg in her book Lean In. She cites an experiment conducted at Columbia Business School, where they took the CV of a real-life female entrepreneur and made two identical copies, labelling one under the name of its true owner – Heidi Rosen – and the other attributed to a fictitious male called Howard. Half of a group of business school students read the first CV, and the other half the second. The students rated Heidi and Howard as equally competent, however, when it came to being likeable, Howard was judged to be agreeable and a good colleague, while Heidi was seen as aggressive, selfish and not someone who they’d like to work with.
In short, when women aren’t likeable, we aren’t safe – at work, on the streets and in our relationships. And though I felt enraged by this, I had accepted that I was destined to forever worry more about being liked than, well, most other things. Until I became a mum.
Let's talk #LobotomyCore.
It didn’t happen immediately. In the first few weeks of my daughter’s arrival, I said ‘yes’ to visitors that I should have said ‘no’ to; I regaled the various midwives who made our home appointments with upbeat stories and profuse thank yous for pricking my newborn’s heel multiple times when they couldn’t draw enough blood for one of their routine tests. But over the first months, something changed. Ingratiating myself to society suddenly required energy and headspace that I just did not have – so consumed was I with when the next feed should be, why my milk wasn’t flowing properly, if my daughter’s nap was too long, or too short. All the while, I was overtly aware of my own anxieties; my vulnerable body, my fluctuating hormones and moods.
I don’t want to romanticise the process, because it hasn’t been a seamless one. There was no lightbulb moment, switch flick or sudden parting of the clouds – there was just the very real, very raw, all-consuming aspects of parenthood, and space for very little else. Sometimes, during the gritty early morning hours of the morning while awake feeding my baby, I would replay events where I felt I wasn’t my ‘usual, likeable’ self and feel uneasy. I didn’t run downstairs to great the postman properly – even though I had my boobs out and was holding my crying child – I didn’t ask the 111 operator who they were, while waiting for them to let me know whether my daughter just had bad nappy rash or some sort of incurable disease (it was the former), and I’d given a rushed response to an old colleague’s Instagram DM. I would shudder slightly recalling these incidences, but the reality was that I simply hadn't had time to consider whether I was being likeable or not. And as time went on, I found that my world wasn’t crumbling because I wasn’t certain of being pleasant towards every single person I had crossed paths with that day.
In fact, there is an endless list of ways my life has improved through the art of learning how to be ‘unlikeable’. One small example would be that I’m able to order what I really want from a restaurant menu, rather than feeling I must go with the unsolicited recommendation of the staff. A more significant one is renegotiating a post-mat leave job because I wasn’t hampered by a desperate need for the editor to feel I was ‘easy to work with’.
I’m more present with my daughter, my husband, my friends and family. I can say ‘no’ to buying the shampoo the hairdresser recommends at the end of an appointment without panicking that she’ll bitch about me to her colleagues – and I don’t add “huge apologies” or “sorry to ask” to every email I send. I feel freer, lighter and happier. It’s cliché to say it, but learning to be unlikeable – and crucially, be okay with that – is the best thing I’ve ever done for myself. Do I prefer to be liked? Of course, it’s part of a natural survival instinct for most of us. Do I know it’s okay if I’m not? Yes, yes I do.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie once said: “we have a world full of women who are unable to exhale fully because they have for so long been conditioned to fold themselves into shapes to make themselves likeable.” So exhale with me, straighten up and instead ask yourself, what do I like?
