How to Instantly Tell If Someone’s Being Fake
If you want to know if someone is being fake or highly insecure,
you have to look beyond their words
and pay attention to their core social needs.
Insecurities are often very loud,
while true confidence is very quiet.
Deep behavioral profiling reveals that the way people behave
is usually just a strategy to conceal shame
or deal with guilt from childhood.
Here is how you can spot someone’s true nature
and hidden insecurities within 60 seconds.
3 Signs Someone is Being Fake
When someone interacts with you,
it is usually obvious if they are connecting as a genuine human
or treating the interaction like a transaction.
If someone is being fake,
they typically display three specific behaviors:
- “Bestie Bombing”: This is when someone meets you and immediately acts as if you are best friends. They give way too much affection right out of the gate, saying things like, “We are literally the same person!” Secure people do not attach instantly. This rapid attachment is a form of insecurity.
- Over-Complimenting: Humans have a sixth sense for authenticity; we can tell a fake laugh from a real laugh. Fake people will over-compliment your outfit or shoes, but immediately turn their head. They are not truly engaged; it is a rehearsed ritual and a performance.
- Lack of Genuine Interest: Fake people are not willing to have an actual interest in you. They only want to talk about themselves. In a networking situation, they might be talking to you but scanning the room to see who they should talk to next.
The 6 Core Social Needs and Their Hidden Insecurities
To spot someone’s number one insecurity,
you just need to spot what they need to be seen as by other people.
What a person desperately needs others
to see them as is a direct reflection of a childhood
wound—something that was missing or unacknowledged.
There are six social needs.
By listening casually, you can identify what a person
is broadcasting and instantly know their deepest secret insecurity:
- Significance: Someone who constantly mentions how everyone still calls them for advice after 20 years needs to be seen as significant. Their hidden insecurity: Feeling insignificant, being left out, and fearing they do not make a difference.
- Acceptance: Someone who highlights that their workplace was the “greatest group of people who took care of each other” seeks acceptance. Their hidden insecurity: Being exiled, being left out, or being made fun of publicly.
- Approval: Someone who constantly fishes for compliments (e.g., “I always mess these speeches up,” hoping you say, “No, you’ll do great!”) seeks approval. Their hidden insecurity: The constant fear that they are wrong, they are going to mess up, and that their insecurities are true.
- Intelligence: Someone who name-drops their degrees or complex projects seeks to be seen as highly intelligent. Their hidden insecurity: Being seen as stupid or being publicly judged for not being smart.
- Pity: Someone who constantly talks about how horrible their boss was and how much they had to endure seeks pity. They don’t want you to cheer them up; they want you to validate how hard they had it. Their hidden insecurity: The fear that no one will ever acknowledge what they have been through or truly understand them.
- Strength/Power: The guy driving a giant lifted truck covered in aggressive stickers, or the boss who brags about putting weak employees in their place, does not actually have a need to be powerful. They have a need for you to see them as powerful. Their hidden insecurity: Weakness.
Confidence vs. Insecurity
Insecure people have the urge to say everything
so they sound more believable,
hoping you will realize how smart or capable they are.
Confident people have the urge to say nothing
because they have nothing to prove.
If someone insults a confident person’s shirt,
the confident person doesn’t need to argue
because they already know the truth.
They do not have the insecure need to prove everyone else wrong.
The people who are most looked up to are usually
the ones who say the least and listen the most.
How to Profile Anyone in 30 Seconds
If you want to read people at a highly advanced level,
pay close attention to two things:
- What do they judge others for? When you hear someone judging others, you are hearing their own Jungian “shadow self.” They are actively projecting the shame and guilt they conceal within themselves to avoid social injury.
- What insults do they use to put others down? We naturally assume everyone is hurt by the same things we are. When someone wants to hurt another person, they reach for the weapon that hurts them the most. The insults they use reveal exactly where their own deepest wounds are.
When you read these signs correctly,
you stop reacting to a person’s abrasive behavior
and start seeing the hidden wound and suffering behind it.
