Marcel Deer
Who doesn’t like avocados?
These yellow-green fruits are soft, squishy, and creamy on the outside and taste delicious. But hidden under that tasty flesh is a big hard seed that can sometimes take up most of the inside of the fruit.
Well, there are people like this, too.
They might not be green and squishy, but they certainly seem very nice on the outside. But the deeper you get to know them, the clearer it becomes that they’re not exactly who they seem to be.
They can be selfish and uncaring, but at the same time, they put on a veneer of kindness and concern for others.
So how do you know who’s an avocado and who’s nice all the way through?
One way is to look for some key characteristics.
People who are sweet and kind on the surface but really self-absorbed underneath usually display these seven behaviors that you can pick up on easily.
1) They talk over others
People can seem sweet and kind by doing a lot of different things.
They might smile a lot and have sweet, sing-songy voices.
Maybe they hand out hugs like they’re going out of style or give compliments to strangers all the time.
These things can make them seem like the nicest person in the world… at first.
I know a woman, Meg, like this who shows up at a dinner or a party and walks around the room saying hi, kissing cheeks, and praising everyone.
“You look great!” “Honey, you’ve lost weight!” “It’s so good to see you again,” and the like.
But very soon, she starts doing something that’s not so nice at all.
Meg is a pretty loud person to begin with, but when she’s in a group of people, she can really boom.
She turns up the volume to 11 and starts to talk over other people.
But I’ve noticed that she doesn’t do this to everyone.
She tends to keep quiet(er) when the more popular and influential people in the group are talking. But she has no problem stealing the spotlight when someone who’s less popular, meek, and mild is talking.
It’s like she knows just how far she can get away with this behavior without the influential people catching on.
Unfortunately, it seems to work. She’s able to talk over some people, which is a really rude and selfish thing to do. But as long as she doesn’t do it to the wrong people, she can still pull off looking nice.
2) They turn conversations self-ward
Another thing that you won’t be surprised to hear Meg does is turn all topics of conversation toward herself.
Some people are incredibly jarring in the way they do this (“Yeah, watermelons are delicious. By the way, you’ll never believe what happened to me at work today…”). But Meg is certainly more tactful.
She doesn’t change the subject; just turns it toward her.
So, if people are talking about sports, she’ll bring things toward her sports-related stories and experiences.
If the conversation is about great TV, she’ll be able to talk about all the things she’s watched recently.
Now, we all do this to a point. We tend to listen to others express themselves and then say things that relate to our own experiences.
But it’s the degree to which we do this that matters.
The more intense and personal a person’s story is, the more we tend to pay attention and give them the spotlight. We listen and ask relevant questions while trying to relate to them.
But some people can’t handle not talking about themselves. Sometimes, you can even see them squirm like Meg does when the conversational spotlight goes off them for too long!
3) They dominate choices
Do you know anyone who’s kind, generous, and willing to give you anything as long as they get to choose what it is?
I have an old friend who’s been like this for as long as I can remember.
Chad and I grew up down the street from each other, and our families had fairly similar circumstances.
For some reason, though, Chad had everything. He had every model of every toy you could want to play with, every video game console that came out, and all the sports equipment under the sun.
He’d invite me over often and always ask, “What do you want to play?”
Sounds great, right?
But every time, before I could answer, he made the choice for us. “Let’s jump on the trampoline!” or “Come on, let’s play Mario!” were the sorts of things he’d say.
While he seemed nice, he actually dominated these decisions all the time.
It made me feel like what I wanted wasn’t important and like I was only being invited over to keep him company while he did what he wanted.
He’s still like this now, I should add.
He’ll invite you for a night out but always suggests where to go and what to do.
It just comes across as a little too uncaring and self-centered.
4) They help… when people are watching
There’s no doubt that it’s nice to help others when they’re in need.
But not everyone’s Superman, doing good for its own reward.
Since everyone also knows that it makes you look good to help others, there are lots of people who use this to their advantage.
They’re more than happy to help elderly people across the street or serve food at a soup kitchen – when people are looking.
If they think they’ll get noticed or even get on TV, they’ll jump at the chance.
But when there’s no obvious reward for helping, these are the first people to disappear.
Not so nice now, huh?
5) They throw others under the bus
A lot of people try to maintain reputations as sweet and kind souls.
But one thing that might give away their real self-centeredness is that they don’t take responsibility and love to avoid blame.
Truly good people will stand up and admit when they make mistakes. But people who are fake nice are more than happy to throw others under the bus if it helps them protect their reputations.
Obviously, this isn’t kind at all, but really devious and underhanded.
6) They suck… energy
You know the type of person who’s giddy, giggly, and full of energy when you walk into a room, but they’re the only one?
They’re sometimes called energy vampires because of their ability to suck all the air out of the room, and the excitement, too.
These people feed on the energy of others, getting energized and feeling good only by making the people around them feel bad, sad, and tired.
They do this by playing the victim a lot of the time. Especially empathetic people will tune into their needs and give them comfort and assurances to pick them up, even at the expense of their own energy.
They also create a lot of drama and try to manipulate others. For example, they might really play up getting bad service at a restaurant so that they can make a scene and pull other people over to their side.
Most of the time, they feed off attention and the kindness of others. This makes them happy and bubbly while it totally exhausts the people around them – and that’s a pretty selfish way to live.
7) They hate
We all know that hating on others is nearly always about being jealous.
The thing is, these people aren’t going to be nearly as obvious about their negativity as you’d normally expect.
They might use tons of sarcasm, so it actually sounds like they’re being nice when they’re really not.
Or they might just be totally two-faced, talking sweet to a person’s face and then talking smack behind their back.
As soon as they have the opportunity to say something nasty about that person (which is usually as soon as they take off), they’ll take it.
But of course, this pierces the illusion they’re trying to put out there that they’re really kind, sweet, and wonderful people.
As soon as the knives come out, you can see who they really are. They’ll insult or make fun of others to try to make themselves feel better about whatever it is those people have that they lack.
And guess what?
If they do this to others in front of you, what do you think they’re saying about you when you’re not around?
Any chance that it’s different?
Conclusion
Do you know any people like this?
People who are sweet and kind on the surface but really self-absorbed underneath usually display these seven behaviors all the time.
You just need to know what clues to look for and be able to get past their fake-nice exteriors. Then you’ll realize what they’re all about and be able to avoid them if you don’t want to get stabbed in the back one day.
Of course, they’ll do it with a smile!
