This is one of those books that I read at speed, gobbling greedily, feasting on the discovery that someone else has felt the way I do. The danger now is that the book goes straight back on the shelf and any useful Christian reflection is quickly forgotten. (I’ll probably give it away as I’m a little bit ashamed of purchasing a book like this in the first place. Who wants to admit that they’re a people pleaser?)
The front cover is terrible (though Cotton herself loves it) – gaudy pink with an offensive necklace charm in garish gold proclaiming the message of the book which is essentially, ‘Everyone else, get lost’ put rather more bluntly.
I’m amazed by this writer’s courage. Few make themselves vulnerable enough to tell the world how desperately they want to be liked. Cotton, now in her mid-forties claims that she no longer suffers from the people-pleasing palsy. As I write, I’m a fair bit older than she is and still haven’t learnt what she has, namely that you can never please everyone and even if you do, it won’t make you feel better if you don’t like yourself.
Will you like me if….?
Cotton describes liking yourself as coming to terms with who you are – foibles, failings, warts and weirdnesses. A sort of being at ‘peace’. She doesn’t sound at peace. She positively rages in parts of the narrative, swearing freely and telling those whose opinions bound and damaged her (largely media opinions) where to go. The urgency of her writing comes across in a short 267 page book with an attrition of chapters all beginning with ‘Will you like me if….? For example, if I behave, if I keep my mouth shut, if I don’t age etc. You get the idea. She felt so passionate about writing this book that she stopped midway through a fiction contract to sidetrack and pursue the project instead.
I identified with almost everything she wrote, which goes to show how universal a problem fear of man is, particularly for women. What do I have in common with a young celebrity TV personality and writer? Quite a lot as it turns out. We both worry about what others think of us and can be so consumed by it that a rapid descent into venomous and physically harmful self-loathing results. You don’t have to be famous or in the public eye to feel these things: anxious about how your face and body look as you age; afraid you’ll be thought too intense, too bubbly, too enthusiastic, not ‘cool’, not ‘successful’, not ‘perfect’.
By the end of the book, Cotton seems to have found peace with herself at last in relationship. In the acknowledgements she refers to someone called ‘E’.
Thank you E. You have changed my life, woken me up and made me so happy. I love you.
In a secure relationship she can look back on her former self-destructiveness and serial-drivenness and finally rest in who she actually is. She now likes herself.
I can’t bear it when people tell me to love myself. Ugh. Yuck. Do you have the same reaction? A person who boasts about themselves is not someone I’m easily drawn to. Isn’t modesty a quality that we value?
Often, something good can be turned and twisted, become distorted and demonised. Appropriate modesty becomes self-denigration; discretion becomes fear of man; humility becomes obsequiousness.
A Christian indwelt by the Spirt of Christ is increasingly aware of his/her sin. This too is a good thing but again can become deranged and turn into an ungodly mental self-attack, or even physical self-harm.
I was challenged by this book. Ferne Cotton has an excuse for her descent into this pit of people-pleasing. I don’t. As a Christian and because Jesus died for me I have an unbreakable and eternal relationship with my Heavenly Father who has brought me out of the slimy pit and put my feet on solid ground. He has cleansed me – body, mind and soul by His blood. He delights in His children, including me, down to the very hairs of their heads.
So why does the struggle to be likeable linger?
Is it because so often the voices of the world, the flesh and the devil, through social media, our workplace messaging or our own innate depravity drown out the voice of God? The world’s voice is easy listening where meditation on scriptural truth is hard graft.
When I fall into the trap of worrying about being likeable, rather than perform rude hand gestures to the world, I need to go into my room, close the door and pray to my Father who is unseen reminding myself that I am already likeable to Him. Loveable to the point of death.
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:6-8
This Easter might all of us who struggle with this issue know the resurrection power of Christ to lift us again out of people pleasing and into the green, secure pastures of the Shepherd’s unconditionally loving friendship.
Roques Reviews 
Leave a comment