Many people walk around with a “baseline of fakeness” and do not even realize it. Their default setting in social life is polite cheerfulness, surface level positivity, and a quick pivot away from anything that sounds heavy, sad, or complicated. For them, anything less than “happy” feels uncomfortable to hear and even more uncomfortable to respond to.
This is not always malicious. Most of the time it is a mix of habit, fear, discomfort, and cultural training. But it has real consequences for intimacy, trust, and mental health.
Below is a look at why this happens, what it looks like in daily life, and how to navigate it without either becoming fake yourself or oversharing in the wrong places.
What does a “baseline of fakeness” actually mean?
A baseline of fakeness is not about lying constantly. It is more subtle:
- Smiling automatically, even when you feel terrible inside
- Saying “I’m good” every time someone asks how you are, no matter what
- Giving quick “All good!” or “No worries!” responses even when there clearly are worries
- Using jokes or deflections whenever a conversation gets real
The key sign: the person feels uneasy when the emotional tone drops below “light and positive.” Sadness, frustration, confusion, or even neutral honesty like “I am tired today” feels wrong to them, almost like breaking a social rule.
So they keep everything just above the waterline, where no one has to swim in anything too deep.
Why anything less than happy feels uncomfortable
There are a lot of reasons people develop this pattern. Often, several are stacked together.
1. They were taught that “negative emotions” are bad manners
Many people grow up with messages like:
- “Stop crying, you are making a scene.”
- “We do not talk about that.”
- “Nobody wants to hear your problems.”
They learn that discomfort equals drama, and drama equals being rejected or shamed. By adulthood, they treat real emotion like a social violation.
Result: they feel guilty or anxious when someone is not fine, so they try to prop the mood back up quickly.
2. They do not have the skills to respond
A lot of people were never taught how to listen, how to validate, or how to sit with another person’s pain without fixing it.
When you say:
- “Work has been really hard lately.”
or - “I have been feeling lonely.”
they do not think, “How can I support you?”
They think, “Oh no, now I am responsible for this and I do not know what to do.”
Their discomfort shows up as:
- Changing the subject
- Making a quick joke
- Saying “It will be fine!” without actually listening
It looks fake, but underneath is fear and lack of practice.
3. They protect their own emotional dam
If they let your honesty in, it might trigger their own unprocessed stuff.
They may be holding back:
- Their own tiredness
- Their own resentment or grief
- Their own sense that something in their life is off
If you start to be real, it presses on the cracks in their own emotional dam. The easiest defense is to push your honesty back under the surface.
So they cling to a baseline of “Everything is great!” as a way to keep themselves from cracking open.
4. Culture rewards “good vibes only”
Workplaces, social media, and some friend groups reward positivity, productivity, and “good energy.”
People learn:
- If you are upbeat, you are easy to be around.
- If you are honest and complicated, you are “too much.”
In that environment, a polite fake self feels safer than a truthful human self.
How this shows up in everyday conversations
Here are a few common patterns.
The quick shutdown
You: “Honestly, I have been struggling with motivation lately.”
Them: “Ah, we all do! Anyway, did you see that new show…?”
The person hears your truth, but their reflex is to steer away. The topic shifts before any real connection can form.
The forced silver lining
You: “I am still really upset about that argument with my sister.”
Them: “Well at least you have family. Some people have no one.”
They are not trying to be cruel. They just do not know how to stay with your feeling as it is, so they rush to a positive angle.
The positivity mask
You: “Hey, how are you?”
Them (every single time): “Fantastic! Amazing! Loving life!”
Maybe they really are sometimes. But when the answer is always turned up to maximum, it starts to feel like a costume, not a check in.
What this does to connection
A baseline of fakeness may keep things smooth, but it also keeps them shallow.
- Real you never gets seen
If people only tolerate your happy version, you eventually stop bringing anything else. You become a character in your own life instead of a real person in your relationships. - Trust stays low
We instinctively know when the emotional air is filtered. If you can only share “approved” emotions, you do not fully trust the other person, and you do not feel fully trusted either. - Loneliness increases in crowded rooms
You can be surrounded by friends and still feel alone if every conversation is limited to light jokes, achievements, and “things are great.” - Honest people feel “too intense”
If the group norm is constant chill positivity, anyone who speaks plainly about struggle starts to feel like they are breaking some unspoken rule, even when they are simply being human.
How to deal with people who live at this baseline
If you are more honest and emotionally open, dealing with these dynamics can be frustrating. Here are a few ways to navigate them.
1. Adjust expectations
Not everyone is a safe person for depth. Some people are “weather friends” who are good for light chats and good vibes, not for serious processing. That does not make them evil, just limited.
You do not need to drag them deeper than they can go.
You do need to stop expecting deep support from shallow containers.
2. Test slowly instead of dropping everything at once
Instead of unloading your whole heart, try small honest statements:
- “I am a bit worn out today, to be honest.”
- “I have had a lot on my mind lately.”
See how they respond:
- If they ask a follow up question or stay with you, they might be capable of more.
- If they dodge or flip back to light topics, they are probably not your person for heavier conversations.
This is not about judging them. It is about sorting where to invest emotional energy.
3. Build a circle where honesty is normal
You need at least a few people in your life where:
- “How are you?” is a real question
- “Not great today” is an acceptable answer
- You can talk about stress or sadness without being treated as a burden
This could be:
- One or two close friends
- A sibling or partner
- A therapist or coach
- A support group or community
Once you experience that kind of space, the baseline fakeness in other settings becomes easier to see for what it is, instead of taking it personally.
4. Stay honest without oversharing
You do not have to match other people’s fakeness, but you also do not have to say everything to everyone.
Simple, grounded honesty works well:
- “Thanks for asking. I am managing, but it has been a long week.”
- “I am happy to hang out, but I am a bit low energy today.”
You are not pretending everything is amazing, yet you are not dumping your entire emotional backpack on a casual acquaintance.
If you recognize this baseline in yourself
A lot of people read about this and realize, “That is me.”
If you notice that anything below “happy” makes you panic or shut down, it does not mean you are a bad person. It probably means you learned early on that real emotion was unsafe.
You can start to shift by:
- Practicing saying “I am a bit tired” instead of “All good!” when that is true
- Letting yourself feel your own emotions in private instead of always switching them off
- Learning simple listening skills so you do not feel helpless when others share honestly
- Being curious instead of scared when conversations get real
Tiny acts of honesty add up. Over time you build a new baseline, not of fakeness, but of grounded, simple truth.
The bottom line
There really are many people whose social baseline is polite fakeness, where anything less than happy feels wrong to say and awkward to hear. It is a product of culture, upbringing, and unpracticed emotional skills, not pure bad intent.
You cannot force others to be more real, but you can:
- Notice who can handle honesty and who cannot
- Stop expecting deep connection from people who only live on the surface
- Practice bringing a little more truth into your own words
The goal is not to live in constant heaviness. The goal is to live in reality, where joy and sadness, confidence and doubt, energy and exhaustion all have a place in the conversation.
