I suggest you concern yourself less about how you are perceived by others and use that energy to focus on the substance of your goals. We live in a time when appearances are dangerously overtaking reality, and when glamour as a metric is prevailing over the quality of someone's character. You could say this has been going on since the first motion picture was released, yet in truth it's something that is happening from moment to moment. You continually get the choice of which to feed, appearance or reality. Meanwhile, in a similar vein, you seem ready to question a belief that until now you've taken for granted. This belief is influencing a relationship. It's not showing up as definitively helpful or unhelpful, but rather as something that you need to understand thoroughly. The belief is influencing the way you make your agreements with others, in a sense, biasing you. It will indeed be helpful if you know what that bias is, and you will soon have the clarity and mental tools to do so. This is a matter calling for careful analysis, of your own thought patterns as well as the specific elements of your commitments. What do you expect of others and what do they expect of you? How realistic are those expectations and what are they grounded in? You will have happier relationships for knowing these things.
