Humans and being two-faced

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Is everyone (or mostly neurotypicals) capable of being two-faced even if they're generally nice-natured?

Sometimes I feel like my kind nature leads me to be two-faced, to please everyone. I am sensitive to people's feelings enough to like to be helpful instead of facing conflict.

Today at work there was a conflict between two coworkers that I'm both friends with. I won't go into what the conflict was about but to cut a long story short they were fighting over a task and I ended up caught in the middle, as I didn't care either way what task I was doing. Person A ranted to me about person B's arrogant behaviour and I listened and agreed. Then person B made me go to the boss with her to tell him about person A's awkwardness. So I had to balance my opinions to please both. I could actually see both of their viewpoints on the matter, but I still had to pretend to only be on person A's side when around him, and on person B's side when around her.

I succeeded, but isn't this what being two-faced means?

I have also been in similar situations at my previous workplaces, trying to have good relations with everyone. I don't think its a bad thing to be able to sympathize with people with opposing viewpoints. But if you feel uncomfortable maybe you can say that honestly or try to keep your distance with people so they don't try to get you involved in conflicts.

It's hard not to get involved with people when you hate being lonely.

But this isn't a thread about how to avoid this sort of situation, it's more a thread on asking if this is two-faced behaviour? What does two-faced actually mean? Is it always bad? Are most people who are two-faced really only trying to please everyone with opposing opinions?

It seems most spectrumers prefer upfront and honest, but I just can't bring myself to be like that. Lying seems easier to do than to tell the truth sometimes. How do you normal spectrumers manage to be morally blunt? I'm very rarely blunt.

Such truth in your first statement, especially when you are nosy or curious like me.

It's a tough call as you were honest when you agreed with both. I would also assess the benefit of being dishonest as sometimes it's helpful in the long run.

For me, two-faced is being kind to a person's face but unkind behind their back. This is where it gets tricky, you were honest to both then one forced the issue which made it unkind to the other. I would mention, as easy or understanding as possible, this put you in an awkward position to both A & B.

Possible options are:
Tell A you were put in the awkward position and threw them under the bus.
Tell B not to do that again as friends are priceless.
Could even wait until all has calmed, when all three are together, and then moderate.

I don't see that as truly being two faced and more being scared by conflict and kind of panicking. To me being two faced is when someone pretends to be on your side/your friend, and then also delights in talking badly about you to others and making things harder for you. I've known two faced people who pretended to like someone then would turn around and mock them. I don't see what you are doing as the same.

you cant please everyone, so you gotta please yourself ....... the only one you have to live with at the end of the day is Yourself. i smile and nod alot .

You speak much sense. Please yourself, go ahead, happiness comes forth internally. You can't depend on others for it. And you can't please, everybody.

I would say you weren't being "two-faced" until one of them successfully pressured you into helping them get the other one in trouble. Even then, it's debatable whether you were being "two-faced."

It does not appear that you are a person who engages in habitual backstabbing, which is what "two-faced" usually means. Merely sympathizing with both sides doesn't constitute backstabbing unless you add fuel to the fire.


In situations where I'm caught in the middle between two people who have issues with each other, I usually look for a possible way to be a peacemaker. Occasionally this works, often it doesn't, and sometimes it blows up in my face. I've learned that this is something I need to be VERY cautious about, but it's still my longterm goal -- unless I become genuinely convinced that one side is definitely right and the other is definitely wrong.

In the meantime, I find ways to express empathy for both sides without lying. To that end, I distinguish (in my own mind, at least) between the two people's differences on (1) factual claims and (2) value judgments.

For example, between "he's such a slob!" and "she's such a pathological neat freak!" there is NO difference in factual claims, just a difference in value judgments. The underlying facts, which both sides agree on, are that she is neater than he is and that this is a source of tension between them. Because there is NO difference in factual claims, one can easily empathize with the frustrations of both sides WITHOUT having to endorse one factual claim over another, and hence no need to lie. This makes it relatively easy to remain neutral.

On the other hand, between "she stole my money!" and "he falsely accused me of stealing his money!" there is big a difference in the alleged facts. This makes it much harder to remain neutral.

In the latter case, I would empathize with both the pain of being stolen from and the pain of being accused, but I would also very gently try to play detective -- asking, for example, (1) how he knows that she is the person who stole his money, and (2) whether she knows of any other instances of him making similar false accusations against other people. I might also, if possible, take some steps to protect myself from possible similar future false accusations, such as making sure I'm never in a situation where I could have an opportunity to steal his money.

The only conceivable way to make peace in the above situation would be to convince him, eventually, that he does not have sufficient basis for accusing her of stealing his money. This may or may not be feasible, depending on how strongly he believes in his accusations and on his basis for believing them. A lot of very gentle questioning of both sides, mixed with empathy for both sides, would need to precede any such peace-making attempt.

I would also be open to the possibility of eventually taking a stand in favor of one side or the other, depending on where the evidence led me.

Anyhow, if I were in a situation where two people were complaining to me about each other and one of them asked me to take action against the other person, I would refuse to do that -- UNLESS I were presented with sufficiently strong, independently verifiable evidence of serious wrongdoing. Without such evidence, I would say that I don't have enough evidence to do get involved; all I have is hearsay. I would express sympathy for the person talking to me, but I would also say that I am not an independent witness and therefore do not want to be dragged into the situation.

It’s always hard when you love both parties but it’s even more so when you are forced to take sides.

The one trick I learned to prevent people from labeling you as two faced is setting boundaries with both parties.

“ I am sorry you two aren’t seeing eye to eye on this but I have a policy about not getting in the middle of people’s problems.”

the above post makes good sense , as long as the parties are not too demanding .

Some lies are involved a little bit though. Like person B asked me to speak to person A to put person B on to the preferred task so I said OK, but instead when I went to person A I told him that person B is being so awkward, even though person B thought I was telling person A to put person B on the task. I sympathised with person B more but agreed with person A more. I do think person B was overreacting about the task but person A was overreacting about person B overreacting.

Drama!

Personally, I would not agree to give someone a job recommendation if I didn't think I could honestly follow through.

Instead, I would first ask the person on what basis they would like me to recommend them for job X. Then, if I didn't feel entirely comfortable with what they said, I would try to give clear and specific feedback like, "I'm sorry, I don't feel that I have a good basis for recommending you for job X unless you become better at A, B, and C. But I do think you would be great at jobs Y and Z, so please feel do free to ask me for a recommendation for those jobs if they ever open up and you're interested."

Thanks but I don't think you're trying to be two-faced on purpose, rather, it means you are confused and stuck in the middle and that's never fun.

Rather, one who is two-faced is someone who is one way to your face and another way behind your back because of one of following reasons.

1. They are too scared to tell you what you want or need to hear because they don't want to risk hurting your feelings
2. They are not very sincere but it's not just with you, they just love to gossip about everyone because it's unhealthy way of coping out of their own insecurities. Instead of taking responsibilities and take care of their own problems, they point out flaws in others.
3. They do it out of spite because they really dislike you and are only in your life to gather information about you so they can destroy your reputation
4. They act two-faced so they don't look like they are sticking out like a sore thumb or so they can fit in and "Be cool"

What most NTs realise, and what most autistics are yet to understand, is that often it actually is easier to be involved in people's drama than to not have any friends at all. I find myself emotionally involved with other people before even thinking about it. And I like people.

While this might resemble the dictionary definition - this is not really what being "two-faced" means. Being two-faced for NTs is agreeing with Person A that Person B sucks. Then going to person B and agreeing with them that person A sucks. In the process you are playing games and perpetuating a conflict between A and B.

In contrast all I see you are doing is trying to be on friendly terms with A and B by being agreeable while not necessarily pitting the two or being directly drawn into the drama.

The wisest thing to do is listen to both your friends and let them make up their own mind. They will appreciate you for just being there rather than getting involved (I learned this the hard way in highschool that when you pretend to be a good samaritan the outcome is you lose both friends).

Yes I totally understand this post … And I recognize it . And so dearly wanted contact . that I was seriously overlooking people using me. I even could make allowances for that . But it is a potentially dangerous situation to allow yourself to be drawn into . It is almost impossible to know everyone’s back story . And before you might be aware of it . Things could get very bad for you and you might lose your friends anyway. Have actually been drawn into serious legal issues on account of my eagerness / desperation to have friends . And you may want to be the best friend and suffer with them regardless of consequences , But each person , ( your friends) may very well be on their own learning curve . That you may not be suppose to interrupt .
My eagerness to have friendships cost me very dearly …. And eventually cost me all of my relationships , then on the rebound thought I was entering another good bonding relationship .Only to find out at your lowest time of no friends the person that came along listened to my tale of woe , began confiding in me.. a bunch of attempts to just draw me to her web , then did exactly the same thing, if I had not just been through it all before , and barely able to step back enough from her friendship , that I was able to realize the things she was starting to ask of me. Were absolutely to dupe me out of my last most important thing I owned, (but she took several years to do it in)Please be careful and keep your eyes open for discrepancies in the persons actions . Autistics are absolutely the best possible targets for those people with psychopathic tendencies . Friends do not draw friends in to questionable positions.
Regardless if they are questionable for the # Aspie # or other people they want to draw them into their own issues.
Since then I have found at least 3 genuine friends, whom wanted nothing from me but good conversation and share some experiences. Please be careful . After spending a lifetime of wanting a good friend these are my experiences. Had 2 previous genuine lifetime friends but both of them passed from health issues and older age.
But knew them from childhood .