Isn't it such a great compliment when someone feels so comfortable with you that they can truly be themselves around you?

[Still-alive]

Thats something i always cherish whenever it happens. The amount of comfort and safety a person feels around me to where they feel they can freely express or be themselves is phenomenal. i highly recommend it lol.

Who else agrees?

I do take that as a compliment yes

It's a generally good thing yeah, not necassarily a compliment

Eh i don't care about this feeling much

I prefer the feeling that another person can make me feel safe or comfortable instead of vice versa

I never felt like this before so i can't say

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

I don't consider it a compliment since I think this is how we should always all be around everyone. However, it has become a very strong prerequisite now to me for friends and lovers. That's what started to ultimately distinguish friend and date material for me from acquaintances is their ability to open up completely freely and be themselves around me with no shame whatsoever.

[Still-alive]

i suppose its an ideal but humans just can't help themselves with their judgy ways y know. or even worse than that

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

For sure. The way I see is that there are two strategies here.

One is to be so reserved that we only really open up and become comfortable being ourselves around people we most deeply trust. I think works as long as we only do it to people we can most deeply trust, but such a person could be in for a world of harm if anyone betrays that trust.

The other as I see it is strive to open up and become comfortable being ourselves around every single possible person we can. Then we don't need to trust people to do it, since if they betray our trust and start trying to tell other people what we so comfortably shared, they'll reply, "Yep, we already know that. He shared that with us too."

And I think this second strategy is the most robust although it does tend to be a divisive approach and tends to require a very thick skin, because we're basically going around being metaphorically naked around everyone.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

I might be guilty of just trying to legitimize my socializing habits being a type intuitively inclined to overshare even with complete strangers, but I have mulled over this and think there might be an argument that exposing our barest selves actually makes us less vulnerable, not more. On the contrary, I think it's hiding that side which makes us vulnerable.

The physical analogy I like to use is the masks we had to wear over he pandemic. Before the pandemic, I felt no vulnerability whatsoever exposing my bare face to the public. I did not have to trust anyone to show my face. After multiple years over the pandemic of wearing the mask each day and hiding my true face, I became so used to the mask that I did start to feel vulnerable showing my face to other people, and didn't want to do it to people I didn't trust.

So it was actually getting used to hiding my face from almost everyone that made me vulnerable, not getting used to showing it to almost everyone.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

With the COVID masks as an analogy, it has a detrimental effect on social relationships to mask ourselves in any way. The more we hide of ourselves, the more vulnerable we become, the more we need to deeply trust others to show our true side, while simultaneously becoming more reclusive and finding it increasingly difficult to find those we deeply trust. It can become a vicious downward spiral where we want to work ourselves towards closeting ourselves and trusting absolutely no one else. Relationships become increasingly difficult to form and maintain, and the increasing need to trust others to show even a glimpse of ourselves begins working towards a state of paranoia.

So I might be an extreme case but I do think it's healthy for people to not require so much trust to be comfortable showing their true selves to a wide variety of other people, and to discard whatever metaphorical masks and armor we might be wearing in favor of becoming closer to metaphorically nude. It's too maddening the polar opposite way.

[GoodGuyBreakingBad]

I take it as a compliment, I love it

[IslaTheWitch]

I don't see it as a compliment... it's a responsibility as this person trusts me completely. And I bear this responsibility with utmost respect and appreciation. Such trust is rare, and I treasure it.

[LaurenM1997]

I love it when people are themselves around me especially when they are happy

[WhitneySnow]

Yes! Definitely

[Ms_Facesitter]

It's the best :) beautiful to see, or scary

[Wiredone]

Yes it is a good compliment.