You know the feeling you have when you just do not like someone, and you have no idea why? They may not have wronged you or upset you. They have a way of rubbing you the wrong way. Is there just something in their personality, how they act or carry themselves that you find unbecoming, to the point of wanting to punch them in the face? That is a little extreme, and probably not a universal feeling, but it is a funny way to get to my point.

I remember talking to someone about why he did not like his roommate. He stated that he really did not know why, he was a fine enough guy, other than trivial things that had added up to a curled fist in waiting. The example my friend gave was, depending on the people his roommate is around, he will switch and change all of his preferences to better adapt to the people around him. One person he is around may love “Indiana Jones,” and then the next person he is around tells them he has never seen a single “Indiana Jones” movie, and they look stupid. At face value, this does not seem very important. Everyone can clearly point out that the roommate is a fake person. However, why would it bother my friend so much, if it were that simple?

In a lengthy conversation my friend had with me, he told me how through alcohol he coped with the feeling of never being able to be himself. In drinking alcohol, he was able to be himself; free of the limitations he has placed on himself. He worries about what people think about what he is going to say, even before he says anything. Because of the alcohol, he could just say whatever he wanted.

We concluded the conversation by talking about how he wanted to be himself—his real self—without depending on alcohol. This is when I pointed out to him that maybe the reason he was able to point out the fakeness of his roommate, was because he, too, was fake in a much different way—and did not want to be anymore. The way in which my friend was taken aback by this, I knew I had found something that pertained to my life as well.

Maybe the faults I find in others are the faults that I have in myself—which is what makes me in-tune and able to point out, more than another person can. What makes us angry about the faults of others is that that person has the faults that we do not want, and we are capable of seeing through it. That is not how I would like to go about my life, which is why I do not like it when someone else does.