The Relatability Trap: A Hazard for Introverts
Why you should think twice before complimenting a politician, a businessperson or a novel as relatable.
“Be relatable.”
Relatability is supposed to help you make friends, achieve popularity on social media, develop an appealing personal brand and make progress in your career. When people see themselves in you, the theory runs, they feel warmly connected with you and want that trusted connection to continue. Without relatability, you risk coming off as arrogant, distant, other and even almost alien.
Relatability arises when you emphasize what you have in common with as many people as possible, rather than what makes you unique. For instance, if you were an Olympic runner, you’d emphasize your stumbles, hopes and shortcomings more than your discipline, talents and triumphs. As an aspiring entrepreneur, you’d downplay your nerdy love of numbers – how many out there would identify with that?! – and play up battles with competitors and the uncertainties of funding.
For the introvert angle on all this, keep in mind that in extrovert-ascendant countries like the United States, introverts are an out-group whose preferences for alone time, intense friendships and less noisy/less crowded social settings get marked as unusual and therefore not relatable.
The Drawbacks of Relatability
Let’s suppose it’s true that most people choose friends, bloggers to follow and job applicants who mirror something they recognize in themselves. But “most” isn’t everyone. Some people gravitate toward what’s different. For instance, those whose love life illustrates the theme “Opposites Attract” weren’t looking for relatability but for challenge, complementarity and expansion. Others in this category enjoy exploring unknown places, tasting cuisine with unfamiliar ingredients, hiring people who perceive what they cannot, and learning from friends who have had unimaginable-to-them experiences.
And thank goodness for that, because otherwise those of us with minority identities, uncommon abilities, rare life trajectories or quirky personalities would have few opportunities for friendship, employment or acclaim.
In certain contexts, even “most” people would not prioritize relatability. For instance, selecting members of a sports team or community orchestra according to prospects’ relatability wouldn’t set up the group for winning games or wowing audiences.
And what about heroes – individuals we admire because they have finesse or courage that far outshines us? Do we really need to find weaknesses so great humanitarians like Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela or Eleanor Roosevelt can become relatable?
In advising people to be relatable, it seems to me we’re asking people to downplay whatever makes them stand out and instead adopt a modest, average, I’m-just-like-you persona. A world full of nothing but relatable people might mean a bland universe without edgy individuals, diverse lifestyles, creative geniuses or life’s unusual tragedies. Everything and everyone would clump around common denominators. In ways that may not be immediately obvious, an emphasis on being relatable rewards conformity and penalizes divergence.
I’ve been in many situations where the desire to go be alone or be with just one or two others made me come across as unrelatable. As I said above, introverts who can’t or prefer not to fit in are outliers in many families, organizations and workplaces. I’d so much rather live in a society where nonconformers were viewed as interesting and (apart from the worst criminals) worthy of respect.
To the extent that we yield to pressure to be relatable, introverts run the risk of twisting ourselves into more acceptable shapes, weakening our self-confidence, adding to our burden of stress and forgoing more authentic connections.
The Cultural Aspect
And when it comes to movies, books and other works of art, I wish people would hold back and think again before praising something as relatable. What they mean is that they appreciate how well that item reflects themselves and their place in the grand scheme of things. Entertainment – and art – can do so much more. It can acquaint us with unfamiliar places, situations, challenges and values, and in so doing, enlarge our imaginations, make us think, deepen our understanding and boost our capacity for empathy.
However long we’ve already lived, however much we’ve traveled, our human experience remains necessarily limited. In many instances, what is unrelatable is therefore what brings us the greatest and most valuable impact.