So many imposters and blowhards

Speak with sufficient authority and you might just get away with it, writes Gina Barreca.

MANY of us secretly believe we’re fakes. One of the reasons for this might be because wellmeaning people give us credit where credit is not due, assuming we know things we don’t. Being human, we’re loath to correct flattering assumptions.

For example, I’ve taught English for 31 years and lots of nice folks assume I’m a good speller. I’m not. I had to doublecheck ‘‘loath’’ to make sure there wasn’t an E at the end.

I compensated: I learned to rely on dictionaries. Less nobly, I also learned to rely on relationships based on whether my companion knew when to apply the ‘‘I before E except after C’’ rule.

I dated a guy for two years because he knew how to spell ‘‘beige’’.

When spellchecking rode in on new technologies and rescued me from a lifetime of seriously tedious relationships, I was more grateful than Snow White and Cinderella combined. No ordinary prince would have been a less judgemental proofreader.

I attempt to hide my flaws rather than lie about them. I’d never willingly play Scrabble or pretend to help somebody with a crossword puzzle. But if somebody wants to assume I’m competent, I don’t tell them otherwise. (Until now, of course.)

There’s reason to believe that many of us know we’re kidding ourselves: 90% of us think we’re imposters. Of the 10% who don’t think they’re imposters, 8% suffer from a combination of grandiosity and narcissistic personality disorder.

The 2% who are genuinely brilliant, original, competent and erudite pretty much keep to themselves.

And despite the fact that I just made up those statistics, I am nevertheless certain they’re accurate.

And that’s why we worry about being fakes: We know how much to make up and pass off as real. We invent information and present it as evidencebased.

If we speak with sufficient authority, we might just get away with it.

It’s terrifying: After all, if we’re able to do this to others, then what are others doing to us?

Folks who most capture my imagination are the ones who have fully and authentically convinced themselves that they have a comprehensive vision of whatever subject is under discussion.

Some of my favourites are politicians, commentators and bon vivants who lecture without so much as stopping for a breath on every subject, despite knowing almost nothing.

Not only do they consider themselves experts on every subject, they also — with savage, glittering smugness — regard everyone else as amateur.

These types often preface their sermons by saying, ‘‘In my humble opinion’’. And yes, I know that the PBS NewsHour has a segment titled ‘‘IMHO’’.

Having watched many of the offerings, I believe they also illustrate precisely why the phrase should set the warning lights in motion.

People who use the phrase ‘‘in my humble opinion’’ are rarely humble and don’t consider their palaver opinions but instead see it as unalterable facts.

It’s important to know the difference between what you know and what you only believe you know.

For example, I have opinions about the differences between good and bad cholesterol, about whether Pluto should still be a planet, whether St Christopher should be a saint and whether fresh oysters are alive or dead when you eat them.

Millions of people, however, know a lot more about each of these subjects than I do, rendering their perspectives far more useful than my own — but I have trouble deciding which of them I should most trust.

If I’m being honest, I trust the whole of the Roman Catholic Church less than I trust in poor St Christopher, in part because the entire Roman Catholic Church is hard to stick on to my dashboard. It’s probably not good theology, but to me it makes sense.

Part of being a reasonable and responsible adult is having a firm fix on where the stories you tell about yourself stop and where the real you begins.

To stop feeling like a fake, you have to know what you know and face what you don’t.

Admitting the slippages, the gaps and the chasms in your own understanding and accepting that opinions are not the same things as facts can move you from being a poser to a person. Being who you are is not something you want to fake.