.jpg?itok=kQneHP0D "Source: Gabi Brasilliano/pexels")
Source: Gabi Brasilliano/pexels
Having friendliness as a prominent feature of your personality carries overwhelmingly positive connotations.
Consider that if you were on the receiving end, what could be more flattering than having someone smile at you and say something endearing, reassuring you that you were being perceived favorably?
Very few writers have weighed in on the various instances in which being friendly isn’t particularly welcome—or might even be frowned upon.
This post will summarize five instances in which the cordiality of friendliness is looked upon adversely. This is a general warning that apparently positive traits are not always or absolutely positive, especially in anomalous social interactions.
Times and Places Where the Trait of Friendliness Is Apt to Be Viewed Negatively
1. Boundary Violations
The more private and introverted a person is, the less comfortable they’ll be having a stranger or acquaintance assume the freedom to communicate openly with them.
Whether sharing something intimate about themselves or (prematurely) asking them personal questions, such conversing—doubtless, accompanied with friendly gestures—will lead the more reserved individual to feel intruded upon.
Something deep inside them may silently be uttering: “Get out of my space!”
2. Problems With Timing
Another situation experienced as intrusive is when a person is struggling painfully to solve a difficult problem, requiring their full attention. If they’re confronted with a person chummily accosting them, such an undesired distraction can’t but obstruct their concentration.
The same reaction would hold if the individual is disturbed or distraught over something and needing, by themselves, to productively process their dilemma. Here, too, they’re not ready to, or interested in, chit chat. So what’s being offered can’t positively appeal to them.
3. Friendliness as Presumptive, and Quite Possibly Manipulative as Well
A friendly familiarity between good friends serves to define their relationship as close. However, when another person who’s only vaguely connected with the individual (if at all) exhibits this otherwise attractive trait, it’s unlikely to be received anywhere as favorably. On the contrary, it’s most often perceived as invasive.
Additionally, if such friendliness feels inauthentic or insincere, the person so approached may well wonder whether the other person has a not-so-hidden agenda to take advantage of them.
It might be to exploit them by asking a favor (such as lending them money) or assist them in a manner or to a degree not in accord with the relative superficiality of their relationship.
4. Friendliness as Unprofessional and Inappropriate
In more circumscribed environments, the informality normally linked to friendliness may be out of place.
At a corporate meeting, for example, where critical matters are soberly being discussed, the casualness of friendly banter will run counter to the tone befitting the occasion.
Plus, those in authority will probably signal disapproval of anyone whose nonchalant behavior undermines the serious attitude they want to see demonstrated by their employees.
5. The Artifice of Social Media
All too often, social norms are governed by the dictates of social media. And because in this context the various performative aspects of interpersonal communication can prompt someone to adopt a “too friendly” orientation toward others, it’s often viewed skeptically.
What may be genuine enough may not be regarded this way. So it’s important not to overdo feelings of amity or goodwill, for in such settings it’s much safer to avoid even the appearance of effusiveness.
To end where I began, as admiral a trait as friendliness customarily is, it can yet be evaluated as not invariably so. Which is to say, context is everything—and so ought to be scrupulously assessed before you give yourself permission to put your friendliness on overt display.
© 2024 Leon F. Seltzer, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved.
