People Like You More Than You Think

There is a well-documented gap between how much people like you and how much you think they like you. It almost always runs in the same direction, and it affects how you behave around other people.

Think back to the last ordinary conversation you had with someone new. On the way home, did you spend any time replaying the parts you thought went badly, like a pause that felt too long or a joke that did not land?

Most people do, and they rarely consider that the other person may have walked away thinking it went really well.

The liking gap

In 2018, a team of psychologists led by Erica Boothby and Gus Cooney published a set of studies in the journal Psychological Science on exactly this. They had strangers talk to each other, and then they asked each person two questions. How much did you like them? And how much do you think they liked you?

People consistently guessed low. They underestimated how much the other person liked them and how much the other person enjoyed the conversation. The researchers called it the liking gap.

The finding is worth your attention because of how persistent it was. It held after short conversations and longer ones, and among college roommates it lasted for months. Part of the reason, the researchers suggested, is that people are overly critical of their own performance, noticing their own stumbles while the other person is busy enjoying their company.

So the voice telling you that a conversation went badly is often wrong, and it may have been misleading you for years.

Why this happens

The reason is simple. During a conversation, you hear your own running commentary and the other person does not. You know what you meant to say as well as what you actually said, you feel your nerves, and a short pause feels much longer to you than it is.

The other person gets none of that. They only get your words, your face and your attention. You are grading yourself on a performance only you can see, while they are simply enjoying a chat.

What it is costing you

If this were only a private discomfort, it would matter less. But a wrong read on how people see you changes what you do next, and that is where it costs you.

You do not follow up, because you assume they were being polite. You do not suggest getting coffee, because you decided they were not that into the conversation. You leave parties early and skip the second invitation. Over a few years, that small error can make your life much smaller, and none of it is based on anything that actually happened.

It also changes how you behave in the moment. Someone that believes they are barely tolerated tends to apologize more, take up less room and end conversations early to spare the other person, and people tend to take them at their word.

What to do with this

The first thing is simply to stop trusting the replay. When you walk away from a conversation and your head starts producing evidence that it went badly, you now know that it comes from a source with a known bias. You do not have to argue with it, only stop treating it as accurate.

The second is to act on the better estimate instead of the worse one: send the follow-up, suggest the coffee, go back to the group. If you have been underestimating how people see you, acting on the better estimate simply moves you closer to how people actually see you.

The third, which I think is the most useful, is to test it yourself. In your next few conversations with people you know well, notice how often you enjoy talking to someone far more than you would ever tell them, and how rarely you go home thinking about their stumbles. That is how you look from the other side, too.

In all likelihood, people like you more than you believe. Most of the time they are simply having a nice time, even when you go home convinced they were not.