@thesotiris 30 November 2025 more from that month

Judge People by What Impresses Them: A conflict of social image and individual identity

When I first got my first big motorbike as a second-year university student, I experienced something profound. Everyone seemed to be much friendlier and more respectful to me, from one day to the next. Where I was largely keeping to myself, not interested in making friends, everyone suddenly showed an interest in being my friend. And the girls? I remember the hottest, most confident girl in my classes began to initiate conversation after conversation with me, talking sweetly with me, teasing me, asking me to take her on a ride on my bike, and all done publicly. She wasn’t ashamed to be seen with a loser like me because, for some reason, I wasn’t a loser anymore. And I wasn’t very attractive; at the time, I was overweight, with zero fashion sense, a tendency for depression, and the social skills of a puffer fish. But that bike, for whatever reason, made me insanely popular despite my failings. Did I appreciate this “blessing” of sudden recognition? No. I hated it. I felt like a fraud — impostor syndrome. I didn’t deserve such recognition because I never earned it. But I then understood why so many people invested their money and their whole image in “riding bikes” or any other nonsense gimmick society seems to find “cool” for some reason (sports cars, extreme sports, rockstar images, and tough guy personas). It was just like in school: the day I decided to start smoking, all the girls in my class suddenly decided I was worth talking to, and the guys seemed to treat me with respect. Even more so, the day I showed up with a stupid earring. What is it about certain things that grants us meaningless validation from impressionable people?

A few years later, I had a similar experience: I was a loser working at an extremely popular bar where even the staff were arrogant. Nobody treated me with any respect, especially not the older staff there, the tall, gorgeous waitresses, and the cool managers. I was a newbie, their servant, deserving not even a second of their time for a simple ‘hello’. But on one of my off days, my cousin, who at the time drove a cheap used Porsche Boxster, insisted that we go to the bar as guests. It was the first time for me there as a guest after being employed there. But it just so happened that they all saw me step out of the car, not from the driver’s seat, but just from the passenger seat. And the stark difference in how they treated me was insane. The snarky Lithuanian barwoman, the one who was extra rude to me until then, was now extra polite and even flirty, giving me prolonged looks (a few years later, she’d send me nude photos of her and make passes at me even though I was in a relationship with her friend). The two insanely tall and gorgeous waitresses who were aggressively dismissive of me suddenly had time to come over and talk to me (a few months later, I’d sleep with one of them, regretfully). And the hugely popular and successful general manager? When, until then, I was just another lowly employee beneath him, I was now someone in whom he showed interest, coming over to ask me how I was, and to tell the staff that I could have anything I wanted on the house. This newfound respect carried through into the future, just from one appearance as a passenger in someone else’s used Porsche that anyone could buy. Yes, they showed interest in my cousin, too, because ‘implied money’ carries a lot of respect, regardless of how you make it. But I remember feeling disgusted by how **hypocritical** they all were, but also by **how worthless I was as an individual, if that was all that mattered to people**. I felt like an object — I assume this is **how pretty women feel when they are constantly objectified for their sexual utility by thirsty males**. The same happened in a different entourage when I decided to get a fitness model body. I was so insecure that I thought having shredded abs and crazy-lean definition would solve all my confidence issues, and even help me out with the professional dead end I was in. And I did it: invested the time, the pain, the deprivation (thankfully not used any drugs) to the point where I was fitness-mag-cover fit with overtraining syndrome. And when I started showing up to places where people knew me, their reactions to my veiny forearms and slim waist alone were incredible. Uploading a needy photo of my abs on social media must have helped, too. It’s insane how much more seriously some people will begin taking you the moment they discover you carry a set of shredded six-pack abs. The symbol of fitness, having abs suggests you are high in the sexual marketplace. It also implies that you are physically strong, with enough willpower to ascertain the self-discipline required to achieve and maintain abs. Sure, there’s something to respect there, but physical ability relies on youth, time availability, and also on having nothing better or more lucrative to do with your time. Also, from what I realised, most others took the easy way out with PEDs and even cocaine to give them that shredded look, so I wondered how stupid I was for starving myself and jumping on treadmill 3-4 hours a day for the same effect. It meant nothing to actually have a shredded (and weak) body. But what did it all mean for the people who suddenly treated me differently on account of superficial, meaningless nonsense? What did that say about them, if they never chose to show interest in what truly defined me? **What does it say about us as a society when we praise each other for the things that mean nothing while we ignore what truly defines us as unique individuals?** **How you assess others and yourself — What it says about you** Just as people judge you by different criteria, you can judge them back. And by “judge”, I don’t mean “condemn them from a high horse as if you’re the arbiter of cosmic justice”; I mean **assess them and form an opinion about them according to your standards**. Yes, you are humble in that you don’t get to dispense the wrath of your ‘judgement’ onto people, but you are still entitled to your opinion about them. And this is what ‘judging’ means in his case: opinion. With an opinion about someone, you get to choose how you involve them in your life, if at all. So, here, you **form opinions about people according to how they form opinions about you**. If the wrong things impress them about you, then they aren’t valuing you; they are valuing what you can do for them. If they value superficial things, things that objectify you, things that don’t define you as an individual and are inalienable to your core true self, then you can’t have such people around you. They will either exploit you or direct you to a path of **losing yourself**, thus defining yourself by the wrong things. https://sotiris.substack.com/p/the-false-self-tribulation-part-2 Ideally, you’d want to be appreciated by the things that define your true self: your virtues, principles, values, ideas, and ideals, and your faithful adherence to them. These are the things you can choose, and cannot be taken away from you unless you decide it. And this — your control over them — is what makes them meaningful, and give to your life a sense of higher purpose. If you wish to be defined by superficial things, such as money, physical appearance, or institutional positions of social power, then you are on the fast track to losing yourself. Then you’ll wonder why you’ll suffer from depression, a sense of purposelessness, an impostor syndrome that makes you feel like a fraud, and a crippling feeling that ‘you don’t know who you are’. Yes, money and physical appearance sometimes require hard work, but hard work still relies on opportunity, and on your physical, mental, and socioeconomic capacity — things that are beyond your control. **Hard work is easy when you have an opportunity that would be hard to miss**. **Takeaways** So, here are three takeaways from this article: Assess yourself by the right things — how well you adhere to your virtues, values, principles, ideas, and ideals, especially in the face of adversity when it’s not in your immediate self-interest to adhere to them; that’s when they (and you) are tested. Avoid people who want to be defined by superficiality, like money, physical appearance, and nonsense, needy-for-validation, cookie-cutter “lifestyles” like gangster, rapper, biker, posho, tough-guy, model, business **guru**, **military** nut, political ideologue, activist, alternative lifestyle freak, etc. These are desperate attempts at defining oneself by borrowed, faceless self-images that don’t truly define anyone. What’s worse is that these collective, regurgitated identities further deprive you of identity. Such people don’t know who they are because they refuse to be defined by their **integrity**, their consistency towards their **values**, **virtues**, **principles**, **ideas**, and **ideals**: the only things that define us as **individuals**. They lack the **humility** to refuse to be defined by superficiality, that temptation of **narcissism** over things that truly are borrowed, and do not depend on our contribution. And such people will drag you down with them. **If you truly know ‘who you are’, you don’t need needy superficiality to mask your emptiness**. https://sotiris.substack.com/p/toxic-motivators-and-toxic-positivity https://sotiris.substack.com/p/the-military-is-4 https://sotiris.substack.com/p/how-to-be-the-most-alpha https://sotiris.substack.com/p/what-are-western-values-anyway https://sotiris.substack.com/p/on-virtue https://sotiris.substack.com/p/on-morality-part-1 https://sotiris.substack.com/p/i-am-not-a-good-writer https://sotiris.substack.com/p/on-voluntaryism https://sotiris.substack.com/p/what-makes-a-man https://sotiris.substack.com/p/the-irresistible-charm-of-middle https://sotiris.substack.com/p/narcissistic-parenting Assess people by how they assess you and others. If they value in people superficiality and **vice** instead of virtue, then steer away from them. Not only will they harm you sooner or later, but they will also confuse you about who you are, about what you should value in others and in yourself. On the other hand, if they value in you the same things you value in yourself — the true core definitions of yourself instead of the superficial, fleeting, fake masks society insists on defining us by — that’s when you know you’ve found people on your wavelength. Value them; they are rare. https://sotiris.substack.com/p/the-loudest-moralists-tend-to-be