A friend of mine recently returned from a trip in which she met a man whose wife insisted he attend church, despite the fact that he’s not a believer. This might sound familiar to LDS mixed-faith couples, but the wife in this story was Methodist, a much less “high demand” religion. Is the husband able to be his true self in this situation, or is he being asked to show up as a false version of himself? Is the wife being her true self, or is she concerned with putting on a false front to hide her real situation, that she is married to someone who doesn’t share her professed belief?
In her most recent episode, Valerie Hamaker talks about the false self / true self dichotomy, but specifically in the context of the “near enemy” or false versions of good traits. For example, “clinging” is a false version of love, one that our faith’s dynastic salvation (families must be saved together) relies on. In this false version of love, clinging replaces actual love and requires that other family members are monitored for compliance with church norms to prevent the loss of group salvation. It may feel like it is rooted in a good place (a desire for everyone to be saved), but it is rooted in fear, a negative perception of humanity, and a self-centered need to be acceptable to God regardless the burdens placed on others; one’s own salvation is dependent on curtailing the freedom of others. As the saying goes, if you love someone set them free, but if you are substituting “clinging” for love, you cannot allow them to be free. You require their compliance to ensure your own safety and reward.
Often we use superficial markers to try to achieve the aims we seek. For example, a study showed that parents who read to their kids at night had kids with higher test scores and who excelled academically for life, and as a result, there was a real push for parents to read to their kids every night. But these studies didn’t differentiate between causation and correlation. Were kids who lived where reading was prized, homes with shelves full of books, already being primed for academic success? Did they have better nutrition and parental support? Were they genetically or through the wealth associated with better health care positioned to avoid health issues that might disrupt their performance? Likewise, superficial markers can be used to substitute for the “real thing” at church. Can you tell the difference between someone who is spiritual and someone who is religious? Can you tell if someone has a happy, loving family or if they just put on a happy face in public? Can you tell if someone is a true believer or just gives the expected “right” answers? Can you tell if someone is charitable or just does charity (Jesus cautioned that the latter “have their reward” which is the praise of men)?
As Valerie used these psychological terms (true self / false self) I was immediately transported back to my years growing up. My sister and I used to read Grimm’s Fairy Tales to each other at night when we shared a room, including in my first year of college. We didn’t read some cleaned up kiddie version. These were the real deal. These are dark tales that include abuse, cannibalism, incest, and murder. Folk tales like these, that the Grimm brothers compiled, were popular among the German people for hundreds of years, not just because they are salacious and scary, but they also explore psychological topics through metaphor and narrative. There are many themes and tropes that recur in different stories, and one of these is the true bride / false bride. This trope provides an interesting way to evaluate the true self / false self dichotomy.
In the story Maid Maleen, a princess falls in love with a prince, but her father does not approve, perhaps due to his own incestuous jealousy of her affections, and he locks in her in a tower with her maid for seven years. At the end of the seven years, no one comes to let them out, and they eventually escape, only to find the kingdom in ruins. Eventually Maid Maleen finds her prince who is about to marry a different princess, the false bride. In this story, the false bride lacks confidence and sends Maid Maleen to the wedding as a substitute (an unusual twist as the false bride is often a magical being in disguise, deliberately deceiving others, as in East of the Sun, West of the Moon). The prince gives Maleen a necklace, and when he enters the bridal chamber on the wedding night, he realizes that the false bride does not have the necklace and is not the the true bride, the one who reminded him of his lost love Maid Maleen. The false bride has sent an assassin to kill Maid Maleen who is now a threat to her, but the plot is discovered, and the false bride is beheaded.
There’s a Biblical parallel to this Maid Maleen story that you might have immediately recognized. Jacob loves Rachel, but Rachel’s father is concerned that Leah, her older sister, is a spinster. So when the wedding occurs, he substitutes Leah (whom Jacob doesn’t love) for Rachel. Jacob is angry at being deceived and insists on being allowed to marry Rachel, so his wily father-in-law requires him to work seven years to “earn” Rachel. The Biblical story is told from the male perspective, one man cheating another out of labor in order to get rid of his less valuable daughter. The Grimm’s story is centered on the perspective of both the true bride (Maid Maleen) and the false bride. The prince, like Jacob, is prone to be deceived, unable to tell the difference between the identity of his true bride and the false one.
Psychologically, we all sometimes have a hard time distinguishing between our true self and our false self. Jung refers to the false self as one’s persona, the public face we wear for others and in specific situations: the “good neighbor,” the “obedient daughter,” the “good mother,” or even the “good Mormon.” With the advent of social media, we all have developed even more personas or avatars. Your Twitter self might be different than your Wheat & Tares self than your Instagram self. The existence of personas is not in itself unhealthy. Somewhere, beneath all of those social roles, is the true self. The term “true self” in psychology was originally theorized by English psychologist Donald Winnicott. He observed that as an infant grows, its awareness of parental approval and affirmation (as a result of what he termed “bad parenting”) sometimes led to the formation of a false self as a means of survival. If the parents will reject the true self, the false self (crafted to be acceptable to the parents) is substituted so that the child can avoid parental rejection.
Later psychologists expanded on this idea in studying the narcissistic personality. The false self is created to protect the insecure, fragile true self, and in the case of a narcissist, the patient requires that everyone accepts the false self as their true self. The exposure of the true self is a danger they feel (through the experience of abuse) that they must avoid at all cost, even at the loss of the true self. The false self sees the true self as a mortal enemy, one that must be hidden (locked away in a tower?), and others must be deceived to accept the false self and reject the true self. Ultimately, the true self has to find a way to be recognized and accepted for the psychological trauma to resolve.
So often in post-Mormon circles, we see this narrative play out, particularly relative to parental rejection. If the child reveals that they do not share the parents’ beliefs, the child risks rejection. This is also the case with a queer child who “comes out” to family members. The false self is set aside in hope that the true self will be accepted; unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen. Too often, the church is not on the side of the true self nor on the side of parental acceptance; its own goals (member retention and commitment) often rely on the monitoring and control that exists when parents see their own salvation as contingent on their children’s compliance with the “covenant path” rather than on loving their children for who they are.
- Does the church, in your experience, improve parenting skills or make them dysfunctional? Provide examples.
- Have you seen this true self / false self dichotomy at play in your own life, family or church?
- How do you recognize your true self vs. the personas and false self?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
I think the greatest damage to parenting skills that happens is the “gender essentialism” behind it and how power/authority is transferred throughout the family as defined in “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” actually does the most damage to parents and the benchmarks around “good parenting”.
Starting by listing the roles (husband = preside & provide, wife = nurturing) and then “everything else is not the default, sort it out” with the external categories of “disability” and “single parenting” called out as essentially “excusable failures of divine design” shames women who do preside (also the “presiding” that is happening under the “executive function – nurturing” umbrella of “presiding over the grocery list” and “presiding over the care tasks” gets marginalized), and men who are more tender-hearted and warm/nurturing.
Also, I do not remember being taught in RS “how to share decision-making and transfer family power to children” as part of the child-rearing process. I do remember being taught that FHE was important, family time was important, and that giving sons the priesthood was an explicit transfer of power and authority to sons from fathers/male relatives. There was a power/authority transfer at confirmation when 8 years old though.
I was a devout, bossy, authority-hungry 14 year old female many years ago in the 90’s- but most of my leadership training happened in the school of hard knocks, with D&C 121 thrown in as a reference guide. And most of that was also under the “Whom the Lord calls, the Lord qualifies – especially in the family hierarchy” commentary. My father and I had multiple conversations about “Could the Lord call a wife to preside in their family, like legit?”
And I am not satisfied with the answers I have encountered in 20+ years since I started looking at that question. I have gotten to the point where what really matters is “Does the wife feel like a personal quest/ministry is for them to preside in their family, and is that supported/supportable? What does presiding centered on authorizing others and empowering others look like?”
What about a child? My parents forced me to attend church.
I agree with Amy that the paradigm of men presiding and women nurturing was harmful for my family. My husband had no interest in presiding, but when I would step into the role so that someone was in charge, he would resent it. I would feel broken and defective for being in charge. Yet, it was the way we naturally fit together and no doubt, why we married.
The conflict this contributed to was not helpful to my children. Realistically, my husband and I couldn’t do anything other than we did. It took us many many years to build partnership instead. The church’s template was very hurtful for our solidarity as a couple and so, it undermined our parenting, particularly in the early years.
We are both wiser now, accepting each other more as we are and just doing things together, however we decide. Who cares about other people 🤷
Honestly, I think most active Mormons are pretty good parents. They care and they try their best. If the Mormon system of parenting has a weakness, it’s in the teenage years for those kids who are more inclined to go their own way instead of the Mormon way. Mormon parents can overdo the Mormon thing, thinking (as noted in the OP) that if the kids don’t turn out to be good Mormons, all is lost. It’s not like they ever get the following message at Church: “Your kids can leave the Church when they turn 18 and still turn out to be great adults.” In fairness, of course, the teen years can be tough parenting for any parents. It’s not like it’s just a Mormon thing.
On the true self versus false self … well sure, we all put on personas depending on context. I think calling every persona a “false self” is misplaced. Maybe there are good personas and bad personas, good false selves and bad false selves. Imagine a guy who grew up in a tough neighborhood, spent time in the military, then somewhere in his late 20s gets married and has a kid or two. He says, “Okay, no more drinking and swearing like a sailor — I need to be better.” If successful, has he submerged his true self under a phony persona who has given up drinking and swearing to be a better parent? Or has he successfully changed himself (his “true self”) to simply become a better person or a more fit parent?
Same dynamic at church on Sunday, although a much tougher question whether it’s a good thing or bad thing. Some folks at church are just trying to be better people. Some folks at church are wearing a phony mask and are not happy about it. Imagine if as adults headed into Gospel Doctrine class one Sunday, something in the air neutralized those phony masks, and everyone gave brutally honest answers and comments. Think Jim Carrey’s Liar Liar. Wouldn’t that be an enlightening class! So candor and honesty we probably need more of, but not everywhere all the time? Who tells the boss or the in-laws what you really think of them?
I really like the word clinging for parents who force a child to be a “good Mormon” rather than who they are, especially when those kids are outside the mold of “appropriate” such as LGBT and any form of gender non conformity. I have long felt that isn’t love, but pretend love, but still didn’t really have a word that fit. Because it is some kind of love even if it isn’t healthy love. So, clinging fits.
And the church has its own version of clinging. This clinging manifests in the social pressure to do all the churchy things. It is not always in the best interest of the person, yet the pressure is there from the church even when the parents do not put on any pressure. My older brother is an example. My parents really didn’t care about our church beliefs, except just enough church attendance and pretense to keep the battle ax grandmothers off their case. But in Provo Utah in the 60s everyone was Mormon and there was lots of social pressure to be Mormon. So, my one older brother was more or less socially forced by pressure from the ward and friends to go on a mission and the result was he came home and the next day took off the temple garments and never went to church again. My being active during my teen years was due to social pressure. As a result I married the most eligible return missionary in my ward and stayed active for him in a mixed faith marriage for 40 years. I mean, I wouldn’t change who I married for the world, but my being such a doubter and just never able to accept the whole “Joseph Smith bit” was really hard on the marriage and could have been a disaster. But my siblings and I only ever attended church because of the social pressure of where we lived. Our parents only cared if their parents were watching, so mostly it was the local social pressure that made us attend church, get baptized, and go on missions. Only one sibling stayed active after leaving Provo, and ya’all know how much I really believe. That was one heck of a lot of pressure to pretend to be good Mormons.
I think we were pretty good parents as TBMs (I guess ask my kids) and I’d like to believe that we would have been just as good had we been non-LDS. But I do give the Church credit for pushing me to be the best father possible.
My one huge regret: we didn’t follow our own intuition about the detrimental effects of early morning seminary on kids due to lack of sleep. We could see our kids suffering but we pushed them to do it anyway (3 out of 4 graduated). Our biggest mistake as parents by far.
My view on parenting in the church is that it generally mirrors the kinds of good and bad parenting in the broader culture. The one exception to that is the Mormon-specific focus on family exaltation, which gets taken by some as an injunction to try to control behavior of adult children, which leads to a particular flavor of dysfunction. Maybe this exists in other religious cultures as well, I don’t know.
Josh, I’m with you on early morning seminary. We pushed our older child to do it and it was tough on her. The pandemic upended things during her second year, and we saw how much easier life was for all of us not having those early mornings and we never went back (to early morning). We proceeded to enroll both of our kids in an “online” version of seminary and they proceeded to not be motivated enough to complete it and not graduate. I feel no regret about that, only about the year and a half of sleep deprivation my daughter endured.
Dave B asks some good questions in his second paragraph. I would boil it down to this: What is the difference between the “true self” and the “natural man”?
My mom died over a year ago. Since then my three brothers and I have been doing a lot of talking about what Mom was like when we grew up and how the church affected the way she raised us. FYI we had a great dad, but he was gone much of the time on business trips or due to church callings.
I realize now that my mom totally bought into the church’s notion that girls and women should all behave a certain way and all want the same things in life. My sister and I were such a disappointment to her. We were both heavily involved in the arts (my sis in theater and visual arts and me in music) and very academic, especially me. The boys our age were afraid of us because of these things, and my mom told us often to act dumb and not talk about our artistic pursuits. How do you do that when those things are an integral part of who you are? When I didn’t get invited to go to prom my junior year Mom handed me a copy of “Fascinating Womanhood” to read the evening of the dance. Not only was it insulting to me because I couldn’t act dumb, let a man do all of the deciding and not express my thoughts and feelings in a conversation I refused to act helpless. Instead, my sis and I would do dramatic readings from that awful book and laugh ourselves silly. I come from a long line of amazingly strong, intelligent and independent women on my dad’s side of the family, and opposite of my mom, I had the most wonderful and empathetic grandma whose life mirrored mine in important ways and who encouraged me to be myself and not give into my mom’s wishes for me to become Molly Mormon 10.0.
Everything that I did, actually graduating from college, having a career, traveling, having a group of friends who had the same interests as me and who loved to discuss whatever was interesting to us at the time was frowned upon. I loved every minute of this time. Unfortunately, for my mom, I wasn’t married in my early 20’s, had no children and had no prospects for a potential husband. I received lectures galore on how I was an embarrassment to my family and to the church because I “willfully” refused to get in line.
My sister caved into mom’s wishes and married at 21. She and her husband fought much of the time (before she suddenly died eight years ango) over his insistence that he be the head of their family without any involvement of my sis. Then she went through 8 miscarriages before having to have a hysterectomy at age 28. Even after adopting her son a year later her husband continued to be very patriarchal. She would call me up and cry at least once a week. She wanted to get divorced, but my BIL’s family was church royalty and my parents were against divorce. In spite of this, my sister was always held up to family and friends as being the righteous, obedient daughter while I was the old maid in my late 20’s but who was having a meaningful life.
I got married in my 30’s a divorced, inactive man who was the custodial parent to his child from his former marriage outside of the temple and only had one child of my own. Again, I was being the family rebel. The rest of my sibs also got married very young and have all had fairly rocky marriages because of their immaturity. Mom finally admitted to me a couple of years ago that while I had gone against all of the stereotypical things required to be a “good Mormon woman” I had had the best marriage and the most functional family out of all of her kids.
It wasn’t just my family, though, where I felt “otherized”. Soon after I married we moved into a ward where I was the only first time mom in my 30’s while the rest were much younger than me. After trying to fit in with them with no success I hung out with the never married, divorced, widowed and older sisters where I was valued and respected. Because I was only able to have one child because of health issues that became another thing to hold against me. However, I got to a point where I just didn’t care anymore if I as a “typical good Mormon woman” or not. What mattered was my relationship to the Savior, our Heavenly Parents, my husband and our tiny family.
Too often Mormon girls and women are taught from early childhood through young adulthood that there’s only one way to act and to live your life. Marriage is the be all and end all for every single female according to church teachings. So many of my friends who married young and had a lot of kids quickly abruptly quit their marriages (including their children) to go find themselves in their 30’s because they’d never had that opportunity before marriage. That’s not so say that earlier marriage is always bad, but it does present many more problems than when the partners are more mature.
Let’s take the pressure off of Mormon girls and women to follow a restrictive path (invented by men, no less!) and allow them to discover who they really are and to use their intelligence, gifts and talents to make both the church and the world a better place live in. That’s my hope although I fear that as long as we continue to have the top leaders of the church be in their 80’s and 90’s who were young in much more restrictive times for women nothing will happen and the “Stepford Wives” will continue to be held up as the template for girls and women to follow.
lastlemming: Your comment about the difference between the true self and the natural man was addressed in Valerie’s Latter-day Struggles podcast. If I’m paraphrasing correctly, the issue (and this is a Christianity/atonement theory issue) is that within Christianity, nobody is good or certainly not good enough, and we are told the law requires that a perfect being be sacrificed for us because we make mistakes, which further cements that we are bad. The natural man is “an enemy to God.” But in reality, we are all born with the capacity for both good and evil, and the church doesn’t own “goodness.” Ideally, we don’t tell infants and toddlers and growing children that they are bad, or remind them that no matter what they do they aren’t good enough, but we certainly do espouse those teachings religiously, and they have consequences on self-perception, more for some people than for others.
There are plenty of religious people, for example, who imagine that without the church they would commit adultery, murder, lie, steal, etc., all because now they would be “free” to do those things. But why would they want to do those things? Lots of people who don’t share their religious beliefs don’t do those things. A friend of mine, a former bishop, said that his brother-in-law became an atheist and then cheated on his sister, which he said as if those two things were linked. I said they aren’t linked at all. Atheists are capable of being in a loving, committed relationship. If the only reason you aren’t cheating is the fear of going to hell, you don’t really love your spouse.
Quentin: Yes, I agree that there are plenty of controlling parents outside the church. Sometimes when I read complaints of post-Mos about having to hide their non-belief from their families, I think “Be happy you aren’t from a first gen immigrant Pakistani family like in the Big Sick.” In that movie, the main character’s parents expect him to agree to an arranged marriage to a Pakistani woman to maintain their culture, but they’ve immigrated to the US, and he feels more like an American than a Pakistani. Eventually he tells them, “If you wanted me to be Pakistani, then why did you move here?” But there are similarities in Catholic families, in families who have long ties to a specific town, or in families where there’s a multi-generational family business. It’s all just expectations that are handed down that might not fit the interests or needs of the growing child. We all have one life to live. Eventually, we have to live it on our own terms.
Josh H: I do think the Church has generally pushed men to be more caring, involved fathers. Aside from the leadership route that few take anyway, the majority of Mormon men I know in my age group have changed diapers, done caregiving, helped with domestic chores, etc. They are maybe slightly ahead of their non-LDS counterparts in terms of showing up and helping out at home, despite the tradwife cohort in the church that seems so recently vocal. I’m sure there are exceptions, where men have used their patriarchal privilege to avoid domestic duties, but my experience has been the opposite, that they see it as extremely important, vital work, an important part of being human, a requirement for parents of both sexes to love and care for their children. I have little doubt that LDS men are showing up better than their more Evangelical counterparts who believe strongly in the inferiority and submissive nature of women.
Hawkgrrl,
I agree with you about Mormon men being encouraged to be good parents by the church. However, our men in leadership would have more of a crack at nurturing their children if they allowed women to carry their half of the leadership weight in the church.
lastlemming:
“I would boil it down to this: What is the difference between the “true self” and the “natural man”?”
I think that is *the* question. The atonement of Christ not only covers our sins–it transforms us into people who possess his attributes. And so if we live without God in the world — natural men and women — we might believe that we’re honest in our self-understanding. But here’s the problem: we might be 100% sincere in our self-examination–but without some understanding of our potential as children of a Living God we’re likely to miss the whole point of our existence. We’ll be like an acorn that never grew into a might Oak. Without tapping into that potential we’ll never truly know who and what we might become–and therefore who and what we really are in terms of our design and destiny.
Prior to my daughter’s baby blessing (she has significant arm and hand differences) I remember having an epiphany that she should be able to choose what she wants instead of what others want for her. For example her grandmother – my mother – was an accomplished pianist and insisted all her children play well also. When my daughter was born my mother said, well she can still play the piano, after which I said only if she wants to. Before the baby blessing I remember thinking we LDS map out the child’s life before they are even a month old.
We’re taught to value the community needs way more than the individual needs so most of us don’t even know we have a false self to present. I didn’t learn until well into my 40s. It’s interesting because when I got my first tattoo (after doing something meaningful to me) my wife was convinced that was my false self. Maybe it’s not my true self but I can tell you my old self wasn’t true either.
And my daughter?? She’s a beautiful young women graduating college in 6 months and will pursue a medical career. She skipped the piano but learned to play a left handed violin and made first chair in all state I high school. She’s married, kept her original last name, and is progressive while still attending BYU, and if anything is proud of her differences.
The LDS tradition is relatively good at teaching men and women to raise children attentively and lovingly – but with a major caveat of adhering to community expectations that inhibit the true self in many cases. We teach everyone to play the piano instead of letting them choose the violin so to speak regardless of preference or circumstance.
I was also thinking there’s sort of a macro vs micro or perhaps long term vs short term component to the true / false self discussion.
Every person evolves over time (few 50 year olds would say they are the same as their 20 year old self) and I’m betting most would say they’re older self is a truer representation of their true selves (minus the sagging skin lol). But on a day to day basis I present or emphasize different versions. My work self is more direct than my home self and my mountain biking self with my homies is different than my date night self with my wife.
They’re all different versions and all true in a way. But nobody, not even my wife, knows the full 100% me. In a different forum I once argued with a therapist that we shouldn’t in fact be 100% our true self with our spouse. That person said it would be a lonely existence but I countered with does my wife really want to know everything in my brain?? Some mystery is probably a good thing.
Toad, I can concur with your comment regarding Mormon parents mapping out their child’s life right after birth and the sometimes inadvertent results those plans can have on the child. My paternal grandfather was a bishop for nearly 20 years. It was just expected that at least one of his four sons would follow in his stead. My dad was made a bishop at age 29, and it was expected that at least one of my brothers would follow in his footsteps. I remember well meaning family, ward members and friends telling the oldest of my brothers that he would be a bishop one day and carry on the family tradition.
My brother felt such pressure to be just like our dad which was unfortunate, because it caused a serious conflict between who HE wanted to be and the things that he personally wanted to pursue vs the expectations of my parents, our grandpa and the leaders of the ward that we grew up in. It didn’t help that he looked just like our dad. People somehow decided that he should be a clone of Dad. As a result he pursued employment opportunities that were similar to Dad’s and made decisions as if he was Dad. This has made him a successful a businessman and bishop just as our father was, but it has been detrimental to his sense of self and his pursuit of his own wants, needs and desires. Frankly, he isn’t a very happy man which breaks my other sibs and my heart to witness. Just as with our grandpa and dad his “duty” to the church has become all encompassing.
My baby brother was also a bishop, but when Holland preached his musket fire sermon this brother, as the parent of an LGBTQ+ child, couldn’t allow himself to be seen as a church leader who condoned the message of that talk and quickly resigned from his calling. Soon after that he chose not to participate in the church any longer. Our older brother was also upset by the talk, but his sense of duty to the church which brings him no joy was stronger than his need to take a public stand against a talk that deeply upset him. Next to “worthiness” the church word that I loathe most is “duty” because it guilts a certain type of member into serving even when the service is detrimental to that individual’s mental, physical, spiritual and emotional wellbeing. And when that person’s term of service is over there is little to no recognition of all that the individual has given up in order to “do their duty”. Is this truly how the Savior and our Heavenly Parents want our lives to be?
Toad, I don’t think that therapist was correct. But that is just my own therapist self talking. I mean, I probably have as much training as that therapist did, and I have other therapists friends who agree with me. It isn’t “mystery” so much as relationship roll, because you are correct that we have many rolls or selves and each one can be our true self, just in different situations. For example, when I am with my husband, I treat him as if he is the most important person in the world. But when I am with my best friend and not my husband, she is treated like the most important person. But when hubby and I are over at best friends house, ….well, her dog is the most important thing in the world. Each is a different way of acting yet each is my true self. I am in a different relationship with the two people and since friend’s dog loves me to death, nothing else can happen until the dog gets his loving and settles down.
As far as my husband knowing my whole true self, well, there are ways he irritates me that I might tell my best friend but not hubby. And I never told him all the nasty things his mother said either. And there are things my children or friends might tell me that I never tell him, let alone tell him about my conversations with my clients.
I had one friend/therapist put it this way, you have thing you do with each other. And she twirls her two index finger in the air next to each other. Then you NEED to have time away from each other to do your own thing. And she twirls her two index fingers way apart from each other. Insisting on doing everything together is smothering, and if one partner is INSISTING on everything together, that is a form of control and abuse.
Now if you show a completely false self to your spouse when you are dating, as soon as you try to be more your real self, it is going to cause problems. For example, someone above mentioned that their mother advised her to hide her intelligence, but she just could not act stupid. That is the kind of thing the one therapist was probably thinking about. You have to present a real version of yourself, not your whole self, just real enough you don’t deceive them. For example, instead of acting stupid, you just show that you are more than just smart. For example, say I took every advanced placement class, and pulled straight As. I can either be a total nerd, with no interests outside of school, or I can be a nerd with a wicked sense of humor who plays soccer and likes to swim, who also needs my guy to be a nerd and enjoy laughing at my jokes and be willing to cheer for my soccer games, and enjoy swimming and who plays baseball and needs me to cheer for his baseball team. The person with no interests outside of school is going to bore everyone, but the person with several interests could marry an average intelligence nerd with the other qualifications and live happily ever after.