@thesotiris 14 September 2025 more from that month

Be Hard to Impress: Respect others, but don't supplicate at the expense of your dignity

There’s a type of person who tends to hold you verbally hostage, never pausing to take a breath lest you take the chance to speak. They have no interest in listening to you as they go on and on detailing the simplest story about them (a story they probably made up or grossly exaggerated), or as they keep finding ways to insert into the conversation their overhyped achievements. They obsessively describe the most trivial things with such undue over-enthusiasm and wide-eyed faux excitement that it’s exhausting just hearing them, let alone keeping up with what they’re babbling about. As you stay paralyzed in their Catch 22-dilemma of either listening to them for all eternity or simply walking away to come across as rude, you hopelessly try to match their unnecessarily energetic performance, a futile act that drains you… And all for what? Trying to be polite to people who have so little regard for you that they don’t even let you speak, let alone show interest in you?

With these babblers, you are faced with emotional blackmail: You feel coerced to respond with the same (if not more) enthusiasm about the things they pretend to be so enthusiastic about; otherwise, they hold you in passive-aggressive discontent. They expect you to nod and exclaim with every beat of their stories, made-up fables they present with deluded mania and unwarranted zeal, the purpose of which is to get you to submit to their frame of narration, thus **conditioning you to kowtow to their domineering demeanour**. This is what it boils down to. After they waste your time bragging and talking about themselves, they will feel offended (and show it to you with obvious passive aggression) if you don’t grant them the ultimate submission: show them that you’re somehow impressed with their stories about themselves, the stuff they brag about, and with them in general. If you just **keep your cool, stoic composure**, refusing to undergo this **humiliation ceremony**, they will deem you the bad guy of the story. Their passive aggression will be evident for everyone else to see, designed to create implied impressions that you are unwanted and singled out. They will talk behind your back, labelling you weird, insinuating that there’s something wrong with you… all because you kept your dignity when faced with their subtle attempts to dominate you through **their overhyped frame… a frame they demand you match as a sign of your submission to them**. What they want from you is to show them you’re impressed by them, this way setting the frame of your relationship: that you look up to them, so that they look down on you. I’m not saying “don’t give people respect and acknowledgement for the things they have achieved and the things they value”. To nurture any relationship, it’s important for people to recognise each other, and show respect (in a self-dignified way) for the things that each finds respect-worthy… but only if this respect is genuine. For example, if your whole purpose in life is getting the best tattoos, and you can’t seem to shut up about them, then I can’t match that excitement because tattoos don’t impress me. I can’t show respect for something I don’t value, without having to show disrespect either. But I can’t be expected to show faux admiration for something I do not value just because someone else values it. It’s OK to value dissimilar things. You shouldn’t have to apologise for not matching someone’s enthusiasm over everything. This is what makes respect meaningful, anyway: giving your respect sparingly and carefully.

Still, if we have some matching values, I will calmly recognise them in you, tell you that I respect you for them, and that’s it. I won’t show wide-eyed enthusiasm like a child looking up to the parent for the simplest things that only children are impressed by. Yes, I will recognise your achievements and where you’re better at than I am, but that doesn’t mean you matter more than I do. You’re better than I am at certain things, just like I am better than you at others; no one is to say who is worth more as a person. Expressing sensationalism — being overly impressed and excited with someone and/or their supposed achievements — is a humiliation ceremony, an act of submission to them, which they will gladly welcome, if they are the domineering type. Dominant people use this tactic of covert advancement of their reach: They speak over-enthusiastically about themselves, seeking your emotionalism to match theirs. If **you feel coerced to show you’re as impressed with them as they are with themselves**, you set the narrative for your relationship: that you are inferior, that you worship them, that you idolise them as if you were an insecure, impressionable teenage girl at a boyband concert. This is what they want, and you put yourself in a vulnerable position with them, and with yourself. If you fake being impressed by them, you disrespect yourself, since you sacrifice your integrity to “save face” in the eyes of people who evidently don’t respect you; otherwise, they wouldn’t be so eager to subtly dominate you with their verbal diarrhea. Have some dignity: recognise people’s achievements, if they are truly meaningful achievements. But do it in a **stoic way** — you demean yourself when you put on a performance of forced enthusiasm, pretending to be impressed just to match the level of sensationalism they have for themselves, or demand from you. **Don’t be impressed**; instead, show **reserved respect from a place of** ***self*****-respect**. And that’s **the only recognition that matters**. **There is no meaning in “respect” from people without** ***self*****-respect.**

Not being impressed applies to other types of domineering demeanours. People try to overtly brag, to belittle you with their flaunting of “superior” traits. They also try to intimidate you with their physicality or ability to do physical or mental harm. Yes, physical ability, if it’s natural, is easily obtained, and there’s nothing impressive about it. If you see someone fit, you know they have lots of free time, as fitness boils down to time investment. If physical ability comes from anabolic steroids and other PEDs, then it’s even less impressive. The drive from insecurity to harming your health to look good makes it all even less impressive. The same goes for money. Sure, you made money, but you had opportunities to do so, because you wouldn’t be able to make money in a region where socioeconomic factors weren’t ideal. Even if you think you didn’t have an opportunity, you did, even if it’s just coming across the right knowledge or right motivation at the right time. And then there’s the insecure need to succeed to prove something to others, a desperate plea to be respected by impressionable people. Your desperate need to show off and use your power to impress people shows how totally unimpressive you are inside. Nothing is impressive, if you think about it, because **all is deterministic**, anyway. Whatever people accomplish, they get there **like water follows the path of least resistance**. Even hard work is the result of already having the right motivation, mindset, and opportunity to work hard. https://sotiris.substack.com/p/the-narcissism-of-free-will Nothing accomplish in this life is impressive. Sure, acknowledge achievements, recognise them, show respect for the achievements themselves, but don’t worship someone simply for accomplishing. **Respect for someone as an individual is reserved only for their moral principles and how well they adhere to them**. Hypocrites deserve no respect. What really impresses me? The small things people value and do for no one to validate them. The kindnesses they do when the Instagram reel isn’t rolling, or the art they produce that no one will see, or the humble things they do that only they can appreciate. At the end of the day, they are the things that are worth remembering, that make true, meaningful impressions. **Key takeaway** Being hard to impress doesn’t mean you never show people the acknowledgement they need or the respect they’ve earned. Respect for others must not be given in supplication at the cost of your dignity. Besides, the harder it is to give respect through “being impressed” with someone, the more meaningful your respect is. And the harder you are to impress, the more impressive and respectable you will be. Even those who will hate you for your integrity will respect you in the acknowledgement of their hatred for you, their desperation to earn your respect (a desperation you don’t have for theirs).