Split Personalities

Have you ever noticed that someone you thought you knew really will
suddenly does something which seems really out of character when you
see them in a different social situation to the one you know? Have you
ever noticed that you act differently yourself when you're with
different groups of people? Does this behaviour mean that you are an
underhanded person who manipulates their personality to make people
react how you want them to, or is it simply a natural human response to
enable us to interact with a large range of people?

I think that there are basically two divergent
personality types, one that says what they think
without ever realising what effect it has (or
perhaps realising but not caring?) and one that
never does anything because of the possible
effects. Most of us fall somewhere in between I guess,
or we act in both ways depending on the
situation. We might be type A when we're talking to
subordinates or with people we know very well and
who will not therefore be offended by anything
we do and then acting as type B with our bosses
or with someone we're trying to become friends
with or impress.
Type A personalities are generally unpopular but
usually can't see this. Nobody ever has the
courage to stand up to them so they go through
life thinking they're the most popular kid in
school. Type B's are the opposite, never getting
noticed and being dismissed as having no ideas or
intelligence. Luckily most of us can adapt our
behaviour to suit the social situation and so make
friends, impress our bosses and intimidate those
working for us.
I think behavioural changes with different sets
of people are more fundamental than that though.
It's a basic human need to be accepted, just
think about how you act if you're out on a Friday
night with a bunch of lads and then how you act
at a family Sunday lunch - bet you seem like two
different people eh? We all do it, it's not that
we're pretending to be someone we're not more
that we all have multi-faceted personalities to
allow us to interact with as broad a spectrum of
people as possible.

So we're all suffering from
split-personalities (or is it just me?)