Last week at the grocery store, I watched a woman around my age tell the cashier that she’d been overcharged for tomatoes. Twenty years ago, I would have admired how politely she stood her ground.
But what struck me now was how the young cashier’s demeanor shifted from friendly chitchat to professional distance, even as he corrected the price. She got her money back, but she lost something else – that easy warmth people reserve for those who don’t make waves.
I’ve been thinking about that exchange ever since, because it perfectly captures something I’ve noticed about getting older: the more I stand up for myself, the less universally liked I become. And surprisingly, I’m completely fine with that.
The shrinking game we all learned to play
For most of my adult life, I was an expert at making myself smaller. Not physically, though heaven knows I tried that too.
I mean emotionally – adjusting my opinions to match the room, softening my boundaries until they were more like suggestions, apologizing for taking up space in conversations I had every right to be in.
I thought this was just being nice. Turns out, I was playing a game that most of us learn without ever being taught the rules: be agreeable, be flexible, be easy. The reward? People will like you.
And they did. I was everyone’s favorite coworker, the friend who never said no, the family member who could be counted on to smooth things over.
But here’s what nobody tells you about spending decades being likeable: it’s exhausting. Every interaction becomes a calculation. Every opinion gets filtered through the question, “Will this upset anyone?” You become so good at reading the room that you forget to read yourself.
When respect and likeability part ways
Lachlan Brown writes that “Older adults who are truly likeable don’t rely on charm or social tricks. Their likeability comes from depth—humility, perspective, emotional maturity, and a level of presence younger people often haven’t developed yet.”
That’s beautiful in theory, but my experience has been messier. The depth and perspective Brown talks about often means saying things people don’t want to hear.
When you stop pretending that your nephew’s business idea is brilliant when it’s clearly not, when you decline to babysit for the third weekend in a row, when you tell a friend that their partner’s behavior isn’t normal – that’s when you discover that many people preferred the agreeable version of you.
The shift started for me in my fifties after reading a book that completely changed how I saw boundaries. I realized I’d been writing three-paragraph explanations for every “no” when a simple sentence would do.
The first time I said “That doesn’t work for me” without elaborating, the silence on the other end of the phone was deafening. But I didn’t fill it.
And that tiny act of holding my shape instead of morphing into whatever made others comfortable? It felt like coming home to myself.
The unexpected freedom of being the “difficult” one
My grandkids call me the strict grandma, and I wear that title like a badge of honor. Their other grandmother lets them have ice cream for breakfast and stay up past midnight. I don’t.
At first, this bothered me – shouldn’t grandmothers be the fun ones? But I’ve learned that boundaries are a form of love, even when they make you less popular at the moment.
The interesting thing is, while I might not be their favorite grandparent right now, I’m the one they come to when they need real advice.
When my teenage granddaughter was dealing with a friend who was pressuring her to lie to her parents, she didn’t go to the fun grandma. She came to me, because she knew I’d tell her the truth, even if it wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
This pattern repeats itself everywhere. The friend group that used to invite me to everything now “forgets” to include me sometimes, especially when they want to complain without someone suggesting solutions.
But the individual calls I get – the real conversations about real problems – those have increased. Turns out, when you stop being everyone’s cheerleader, you become a trusted advisor to the few who actually want to grow.
Why holding your shape matters more
Research examining older adults’ social perceptions found that we tend to rate faces with low likeability as more likable than younger people do. At first, this might seem like we’re just getting softer with age.
But I think it’s something else entirely – we’re recognizing that likeability itself is often a mask, and we’re more interested in what’s underneath.
I had to learn this the hard way when I finally distanced myself from a friend who was relentlessly negative.
For years, I’d absorbed her complaints, thinking that’s what good friends do. But I realized that my loyalty had become enabling.
When I set boundaries around our conversations – no more hour-long calls about the same problems she refused to address – she accused me of changing, of becoming cold.
She was half right. I had changed. But I wasn’t cold; I was just done being a dumping ground for someone else’s refusal to take responsibility.
The friendship ended, and while it hurt, the relief was immediate. The energy I’d been spending on managing her emotions could finally be redirected toward my own growth.
The courage to disappoint
Here’s what I’ve discovered in my seventies, which have become my most reflective decade: disappointing people who expected you to stay small is not a character flaw. It’s evolution.
Every time I choose respect over likeability, I’m choosing to honor the person I’ve become over the person others got comfortable with.
This doesn’t mean being cruel or dismissive. It means recognizing that the approval of everyone is worth less than the respect of someone – including yourself.
It means understanding that when you hold your shape, you give others permission to hold theirs too, even if they initially resist the change.
The woman in the grocery store got her correct change. Yes, she lost some surface warmth from a stranger, but she maintained her dignity and stood up for what was right.
That’s the trade-off many of us face after sixty, and increasingly, it’s one I’m willing to make. Because at this stage of life, fitting into someone else’s frame feels like a costume I’ve outgrown, and I’d rather be respected in my own shape than liked in theirs.
