| No. |
Vulnerability |
Fauxnerability |
| 1 |
Offers specific and sometimes painful parts of oneself in service of connection and empathy |
Offers general offerings (“I’m a sinner” or “My heart is an idol factory”) in service of maintaining an image of one who is safe and honest. |
| 2 |
Responds to another’s pushback with curiosity and compassion |
Responds with defensiveness and reactivity. |
| 3 |
Speaks in present terms (“I am so scared because I self-harmed again this morning, and I feel the temptation again now”) |
Speaks in general or past terms (“I battled this back in the day.”) |
| 4 |
Is other-centered, focused on empathic connection to another. |
Does not breed connection, but actually distances oneself from another, as you may feel like you’ll never be as honest as they are. |
| 5 |
Both vulnerability and fauxnerability may come with tears or a palpable sense that the other is in pain |
But those who are fauxnerable have an uncanny capacity to stage their emotions. |
| 6 |
Those who are vulnerable risk an encounter with shame for the sake of belonging and connection |
But those who are fauxnerable are shameless, deeply self-protected and incapable of letting another behind the curtain. |
| 7 |
Vulnerable people share wisely and discretely, often with close, trusted friends. |
Fauxnerable people over-share, offering too much too soon, in a way that demands that you to be their confessor in a manipulative tactic of engendering your sympathy or inviting you to take their side. |
| 8 |
Vulnerable people don’t take up space but create it through their way of being in the world. |
Fauxnerable people tend to be self-referential, self-congratulatory, and take up too much space. |
| * Fauxnerable - the act of being vulnerable by sharing seemingly intimate information in order to manipulate vulnerabliltiy from another person. |
