Those who have aspects of themselves they're ashamed of do their best to hide it.
Whether it is a person lacking confidence in performing certain tasks in front of others or an individual who has personality shortcomings, they do their best to put their best face forward to avoid judgment.
Not everyone succeeds, however, as keen observers can see right through the charade and are sometimes compelled to call them out on it.
Curious to hear from those who are very perceptive, Redditor workingjuggler18 asked:
"What's the clearest example of 'I'm insecure and I'm trying to make up for it' you've ever seen?'
They may be vulnerable, but insecure people can be annoying as all heck.
Manly Men
"That guy who poses, taking as much space as possible in public transports. Starting to lift out of nowhere in the living room with guests. Blasting music when walking."
– Primary_Driver0
Intimidation Tactic
"Putting others down. I used to get offended, but now I'm just embarrassed for these people."
– Korollins
"I avoid people whose whole identity is built upon putting others down. You just know as soon as your back is turned, they’re putting you down too."
– TeeTheT-Rex
Turn Down The Volume
"People who speak very loudly and try to overpower others when they are questioned."
– Electronic-Pool-7458
"As a soft spoken person, this gets incredibly old very, very quickly. Just in simple conversations, if I'm asked a question or maybe the group itself is having an open discussion, and others interrupt and talk over each other, I get bored."
"Maybe I'm aware of it only because I'm in that boat, but I like to be conscious of everyone included. It's very much appreciated the people who will stop someone from talking over me to finish hearing what I began to say to them."
– youre_welcome37
That Don't Impress Me Much
"Talking about how much money they have. Dated a guy like that. It was exhausting, he kept bringing it up like he thought that would impress me, it didn't."
– speak-moistly-to-me
"I worked with someone like that."
"We heard all about how much money she earned, how much money she had in the bank, what she spends her money on, what she’s planning to buy. One conversation was about her depositing approximately 75k in cheques."
"She lives in a rented council flat, leases her car, and even though she’s eligible to retire, she says she can’t afford it….."
– Prudent_Way2067
Look At Me
"Trying to draw attention to yourself is usually based on insecurity as is overbearing behavior."
– Heavy_Direction1547
"See this one makes me nervous about myself because i have pretty rough ADD and LOVE to talk to people about just shy of anything but i can’t tell when it’s overbearing. Makes me worried im the guy who comes across as insecure and needing attention when i just want anyone like literally anyone to listen to me talk about CS2 skins or smth."
– Emergency-Tax-3689
Talkative Boss
"My boss. She's nice in general, but for those who make her feel threatened/insecure, she always has to find ways to put them down. It's very very subtle though. It's usually tiny comments or purposely avoiding doing/saying anything that gives the other person credit or attaboys, while giving them to other people who aren't in her 'I'm threatened by you' category."
"She always has to make herself bigger in every exchange, and it just gets so old. She's a constant talker, non freaking stop. She plows through our team meetings and hardly ever stops to give the team a chance to ask questions, usual running her mouth for 29 minutes straight of a 30 minute meeting."
– MissScarlettOHara
Deceiving people isn't always an effective tactic, let alone kind.
Fake Wisdom
"Lying about knowledge they don’t have. I find it much more charming and intelligent if someone is able to say: 'I don’t know' or 'I’m not sure' than stating things like they’re facts and finding out it’s not true.
Edit: We can’t know everything. And that’s ok. We’re only human, after all. It isn’t weak to admit this, it’s truthful. And we’re able to learn from this, if the topic and answer matter to you."
– blurred-decision
"My cousin married a guy like that years ago. He is a forensic accountant, but somehow is also the leading expert in long covid, childhood cancers, Canadian Healthcare systems (as a lifelong American), hurricane patterns and safety, motorcycles, and pregnancy, and all religions."
"He would rather eat glass than admit someone knows more about a subject than himself."
– RJean83
Calling B.S.
"Similarly, compulsively lying to cover up minor mistakes. I'm one of three team leads at my job, and one if the others is always like this, any time she misunderstands something or forgets something she was told she immediately says it was 'a miscommunication.'"
"It wasn't a miscommunication, you were asked to sweep up an area, you said you would, and then you didn't. Or the other day, she was putting together shipping packets for the first time, which involves matching order numbers between shipping labels and pack slips. She was looking at the wrong spot on the pack slips and was confused that the numbers weren't matching, so she put in a ticket with IT."
"Only after opening the ticket did she realize she'd just been looking at the wrong number, an easy enough mistake to make when doing something for the first time. Did she send a follow-up email saying that there was no actual issue and that she'd just looked at the wrong field? No, she sent one saying that it must have been a glitch on our end. It's working fine now! "
"Except it's literally impossible for it to have been a glitch 'on our end,' the files aren't generated on our end; we just print them; IT can look at the exact files you printed out and see that the order numbers match. Just tell them you were temporarily confused when doing something for the first time! They'll understand! But I guarantee you that you didn't save any face by bullsh**ting about 'Tee hee, it must have been a glitch!' because they'll KNOW it was bullsh*t."
– Lachwen
A Tired Charade
"A former friend of mine I'd known since childhood. He was a pathological liar, which I got used to pretty fast. He was a decent enough kid, just felt the need to make stuff up for attention. In college, though, his insecurity really started to come out. He watched the show Sherlock and decided that acting like a psychopath genius was the way to go."
"I eventually had to stop talking to him because he became a full-on emotional abuser and tried to gaslight me into thinking that my antidepressants warped my perception of the world around me. I knew the entire time that he was just trying to be cool. We'd have these conversations where he'd say everyone else was just sheep but we got it. It was fun to pretend, but after a while it was clear he wasn't playing around anymore--and that I'd become one of the sheep."
– an_ineffable_plan
People who overcompensate are just asking for it.
Too Controlling
"Micromanagement and maintaining control at whatever cost."
"And calling yourself, 'alpha.'"
– Mysterious-Tackle-79
Cocky Boyfriend
"I dated a guy who insisted on buying frozen peas and diced carrot (I pay) at the store, and when I told him I don’t see how I can include it in my recipe he said 'well you gotta learn how to eat them so you’ll save money.'"
"I’m Asian and he’s white. He then try to make sushi with hot rice, seaweed and diced carrot and peas in my apartment and had a major fail. Then he tried to lecture me about how I should put rice in glass containers and put soy sauce in the fridge."
"I finally couldn’t take it anymore and told him this is my house, and he can’t tell me what to do. He then tells me I’m just being defensive because he’s older than me, and I’m projecting my family issues on him. Well that relationship didn’t last for 2 weeks."
"He also was talking sh*t about my country. My country isn’t the best but he was just making sh*t up so I tried to explain to him how things actually works. He cut me off and said, 'Do you know 1982?' I was like what? He’s like it’s a book about authoritarianism blah blah, and I asked 'do you mean 1984?' And tried to discuss the book with him since I read the whole book. Turns out he has never read the book."
– gg5588e
Full Transparency
"People who say 'I'm just being honest' and then proceed to use that as a reason to say awful things about other people to make themselves feel superior."
– Few_Zebra_6919
The Thing About "Brutal Honesty"
"The ones who call themselves brutally honest are almost always the ones who can least handle criticism, brutal or not in my experience."
– CityofOrphans
Not Dating Material
"There's one guy at my work who keeps talking about women he's seeing, how they like him and how he always breaks up with them because of their (very normal) feelings that he deems to be 'insane.' To me it's obvious he's scared to take a look at his own emotional self and figure out what's making him keep looking for love and then sabotaging it when he's getting what he sought."
– MynameisntLinda
Royal Pain
"People calling themselves 'Kings and Queens' always seemed like they might be trying to project themselves as superior because of an insecurity of some type."
– anon
You never know about a person and what they're going through that dictate their actions.
I've learned that some of the most arrogant people are those who are struggling with something.
Instead of combating rude behavior exhibited from these individuals, remember that behind closed doors, their reality may be different from the illusion they're creating.
Don't let their problem become your problem.
I should know. I'm ashamed to admit that I've been one of those very insecure people and did everything I could at the time to suppress my shame by annoying those around me.