Girl Musings and More

I have an observation. I was reading the blog of an acquaintance today. I noticed that she tries too hard to seem smart. I have another acquaintance whose blog I read occasionally. She makes no effort to appear brighter than she is; rather, she just presents her ideas and is clearly a talented writer. This has led me to thinking.

It's obvious that the first girl I mention doesn't have much confidence that people will think she is clever, so she shoots beyond the mark. The second girl knows she is bright and just says what she has to say. It comes off very insightful and natural.

I can't help but think we are always perceived negatively when we make too great an effort to have people notice something positive about us. The desire to overachieve is almost always a consequence of low self image.

We've all probably had someone flirt with us who was trying too hard to seem better than they are. It may be that they try to appear more interesting, insightful, smarter, adventurous, easy to please, righteous, or better looking than they really are. Ironically, in their effort to appear too good to resist, they are often the easiest to dismiss. I'm sure most of us have been on both sides of that one.