Yes, unfortunately, I've met people like that. And it's so very obvious how fake they are.

Yes. I ve noticed that many people, especially young people, seem to be what I would call "Emotionally Confused". Emotions are something very intimate and are felt and perceived in different ways by different people. So when a person tries to get introspective and compare their emotional life to that of others, they can sometimes develop a sort of "Am I Normal?" anxiety. In most instances, this anxiety is ungrounded. But the thing is, despite what one would tend to think, it can be more difficult to see emotions in yourself than in others, because we often take our emotions for granted apart from very specific feelings like love, sadness, etc. The fact of the matter is, no one, unless they happen to be genuinely sociopathic, is truly "Devoid of Emotion", they're all living, feeling beings. They just live and feel in different ways. Trying to conform to the way others express and deal with emotion or think you should express and deal with emotion is often what leads to the kind of overcompensation you speak of. It's not a healthy way to go through life, and ironically enough, putting up a front of false emotion is often a means of denying, to oneself and to others, real emotions that actually *Are* there, but which the person can't or doesn't want to accept and deal with.

Do you mean do people fake emotion? Sure they do, just as they fake knowledge, intelligence, concern..there are fakers in the world and they come in all sizes, shapes and have varying agendas..usually they fake whatever they have to to get what they want..perhaps some of them do it because they are aware they lack "the right stuff"..but I think it more likely that they simply have a goal and decide how to get there the quickest way..and conning people by faking whatever they think the people need to hear is how they go about it. :)

yes i do.

You want me to back off with the xoxoxoxox right? I'm freakin you out with compliments and presents and all the flowers I send huh? It's hard to back off when you are the most beautifulest and brightest person I know....you are simply divine and you rock my world.....too much huh?...:))

Yes, I have seen that in some people. It comes off as phony and I don't like it. I just wish people would just be themselves and stop being superficial. My ex boyfriend was like that.

I'm suspicious sometimes.

I think some people see me like that. Over the top emotionally, but what most people don't know is that I spent the first (I dunno) 22 years of my life showing little or no emotions... When the flood gates opened though, well, it's been a wild ride since then. lol

Some of us are just drama queens, but then there is soem validity to what to you are asking. We all do feel the need to compensate for our shortcomings. I have definitely known guys that drive cars with really big engines to compensate for.....

Yes I do.

Definitely. Especially working with teens, I have seen kids get very worked up over how much they "don't care." I think people often view emotion as a weakness, and so they claim not to have any. Or, as is often the case with teens, they really THINK they don't have any because they think emotion is supposed to look and act a certain way. Our culture is making it difficult for normal people to have normal emotional reactions to things -- it's like people have to fit into certain categories when, in fact, people are not being left free to respond in the way that would actually be natural for them -- whatever that way might be. Wow, that was rambling. But I'm too tired to fix it.

Jodie, I totally agree with your comment, that people would possibly compensate for having a lack of emotion within themselves. I can feel when people either take to me or they pretend to. I feel that I dont have many friends because you always have to be soo nice all the time. If there is a hiccup for any reason, most people cannot stand confrontation. I have always had a problem with that. I sometimes feel that I am the real person and they are not real at all. Most people I think dont like any confrontation at all about anything as they think it is a slant or a critism. But how do you form real friendships anyway. Drinks, lunches and fun times are great but that is no basis for real friends.

I think that explains a lot of emotions, including, but not limited to, clinginess; jealousy; rage; and the love for people who do not reciprocate the emotion. All of these emotions share in common a compulsion to identify with someone else in a way that is negative and overall just not connected to the feelings of the other person. It is a one-sided, out of balance attempt to overcompensate for some emotional shortcoming. Other people cannot fulfill sense of self. No one can "complete you" (Sorry, Jerry Maguire). Truth is, these overboard emotions do speak to deficiencies, and it takes an emotionally balanced and stable individual to truly carry on a meaningful, balanced, respectful, and consideration relationship. Emotion ought to be sincere and understood from the core. Not some manifestation of the deeper places of trouble and hurt. The idea of going overboard to compensate says it all. What have you really gained from diving off the deep end?

i think theres a term for that, cognitive dissonance.