Most of us have wondered what our nearest and dearest really think about us. Of course, we know (or hope) they love us - but do they bite back harsh home truths, or secretly long to tell us when we’re being a pain?
It’s also true that everyone in our lives has a different relationship with us - so how my mom sees me may be miles from my best friend’s honest appraisal.
Perhaps that’s why, according to new research from Washington University, St Louis, we’re less likely to get impartial advice from close family - apparently, they tend to “filter out negative traits”, whereas friends are able to be more objective.
“There are aspects of our personality that others know about that we don’t know ourselves,” adds Professor Simine Vazire.
“To get a complete picture of a personality, you need both perspectives.”
I have a small, close family - and I suspect they’re as brutally honest as anyone I’m ever likely to meet. Growing up in no-messing Manchester, too, I’ve tended to choose friends who wouldn’t know soft soap if it came in a labelled gift pack.
And I’ve been with my husband Simon for 14 years, so I’m pretty sure no stone of my personality flaws (or his) has been left unturned in our various marital clashes.
But while I assume my self-knowledge is pretty good, like most of us I’ve never requested the full, unvarnished truth.
To test out Professor Vazire’s theories, I’m asking four of the people closest to me to offer their deepest thoughts on what they think I’m like - including my worst flaws and where I’m going wrong.
So who does know me best?
THE BEST FRIEND
Rachel Morris, 41, is a psychotherapist. She is single and has one son, Josh, 23.
Flic is a paradox. When I first clapped eyes on her ten years ago, she was wearing a low-cut leopard print number with incredibly high heels and a slash of red lipstick.
I never imagined her to be such a strong and intelligent woman. But that’s my failing, not hers.
Over the years, I found more contradictions. Behind her confidence is a vulnerable person, full of self-doubt and, in my opinion, often needless worry.
We’re both moms to single boys and, to save a friendship we both treasure, we’ve had to stop discussing parenting because our views differ so wildly.
She is a brilliant yet over-protective parent who doesn’t subscribe to the view that it’s good for children to have the freedom to make their own mistakes. She never forgets that the worst can happen and she brings that to bear on Wolfie, her 18-year-old son.
I can challenge her on most things, but that, I’ve learned the hard way, is certainly not one of them. I’ve tried to stick up for Wolfie and persuade her to allow him more freedom, but I was told in no uncertain terms: “Back off, he’s my son.”
Flic, at 40, is utterly meticulous about everything in her life, from her work to her clothes to her fabulous cooking and her perfectly constructed opinions. Yet her house is the epitome of chaos.
I lived there for three years - in the basement that Simon now calls his office - following the break-up of a relationship, so I feel well-qualified to comment on the sheer madness of her domestic arrangements.
She is, for instance, incapable of putting the milk away after she’s made a cup of tea, yet she’s paranoid about drinking sour milk. So she opens a fresh bottle almost every time she boils the kettle. Her fridge is always filled with an array of almost-full bottles of varying vintages.
It means she’s wasteful, which I can’t stand, as someone who grew up with relatively little. She throws away tubes of toothpaste long before they’re finished, just because she can’t be bothered to roll them up from the bottom.
She’s also incapable of hiding any emotion. Everything is a gut reaction with Flic - she never gives herself time to think before she tells the world exactly how she feels.
Some might say that’s a flaw, but since I met her ten years ago, I’ve learned it’s a rare and precious thing in a friend.
THE MOTHER
Janey Preger, 62, is a writer. She is married to Pete, 63, a radio producer. Flic is their only child.
By the time Flic was three or four years old, her determined streak was already pronounced. She had a wool bobbin doll, which occupied her for hours as she intently wove the wool around the pins.
When I saw the wool was tangled, I said: “I’ll help you. I can see where you’ve gone wrong.” To which she shouted “I can do it myself!”, her little body shaking with frustration.
That forceful personality is her greatest strength, but also her biggest flaw. It has led her to persevere and succeed where others would have given up and failed. But, it’s fair to say, the softly-softly approach means nothing to her. Flic’s not one to sugar the pill because, unlike so many women, including myself, she’s not afflicted by the need to please.
The other day, I told her I was going on a diet and I asked if she would be my diet buddy - I wanted her to encourage me and keep me away from cakes and biscuits.
“No Mom,” she said. “Just eat less.” Cutting me to the quick, as only Flic can.
When she was a teenager, the phrase “Tone. Of. Voice. Flic!” was often heard in our house. It’s as if she just doesn’t hear how she sounds when she says things, and that has ruffled a lot of feathers over the years. But now she’s an adult, her father and I can only wince - and admire her determination to be nothing but her true self. The only time I have been really wounded by her was during the breakdown of her first marriage.
It must have been awful for her - she had a new baby and her marriage was falling apart - but, at the time, I couldn’t understand what we’d done to deserve her hostility.
I can see now that it was testament to the strength of our relationship that she could vent her frustrations at us, knowing we’d never turn our backs on her. After all, she always has been a wonderful daughter - so clever, funny and kind.
THE HUSBAND
Simon Buckley, 44, is a photographer. He has three daughters, aged 16, 19 and 22. He has been married to Flic for 12 years.
If Flic finds herself in an argument, winning is all that matters. She’s a take-no-prisoners kind of girl. She’ll go for the jugular first and ask questions later.
With Flic, as I learned early on in our relationship, you have to be on your toes at all times to keep up. She wants everything to happen to her timetable, which tends to be now, now, now.
We both arrived at this relationship from our own difficult first marriages. And, inevitably, we brought a lot of emotional baggage with us. How we dealt with it was one of the things that really highlighted our differences at first. I’m for taking the slow and steady approach, Flic determinedly forges ahead with what, at times, feels like too little regard for the feelings of others involved.
I can’t say that determination is a character flaw as such but it can work for you or against you. Many’s the time that Flic has got the bit between her teeth and I’ve thought: “Oh, for God’s sake. Not now!”
She is harder on herself than she is on anyone else. In fact, she is so haunted by all the things she thinks she “should” have done by now, that she is eternally dissatisfied by all the things she has achieved.
But above all, it’s her untidiness I can’t stand. The first time I ever saw her flat was when I dropped her home after a date. The place was such a bombsite, she thought I might never return. Of course I did, and I suppose I should have known that a life with Flic would be a life strewn with clothes, paper and used tea bags.
It might seem trivial, but, in order to maintain my sanity, I have set up office in the basement of our house - a Flic-free zone.
Her moods, too, spill into mine. When Flic is up, I’m up. When she’s down, I’m down. Her emotions are so huge and intense, it’s easy to be swallowed up by them.
Being married to Flic is a bit like being married to a stroppy teenager - albeit one with an immense capacity for love, loyalty and friendship.
EX-MOTHER-IN-LAW
Joan McFarlane, 66, is a slimming group leader. She is married to David and lives in North Manchester.
When we first met, about 20 years ago, Flic was already engaged to my son. She looked like a little girl, tiny and fragile, yet I found her slightly intimidating.
She had a very individual sense of style - she dressed to please no one but herself - and that, to me, as an old conformist, suggested a level of self-confidence that I never had.
She was quiet, but what she did say revealed a fierce intelligence and a quick wit that, until you know her well, can seem pretty sharp and uncaring.
It was clear she was very much her own person, and I felt she would always keep me at arm’s length. But when she and my son announced that they were splitting up, Flic was utterly distraught.
I remember how we cried together in my kitchen, and that moment finally broke down the barrier between us and made me see what a warm and sensitive person she is.
From then on, ironically, we saw more and more of her, and of our grandson, Wolfie. We stopped feeling like mother-in-law and daughter-in-law and started a friendship anew. I developed a real admiration for her. I saw strength, determination and loyalty that I never really knew existed before.
It’s strange for me to think that, at first, I only saw Flic’s serious side. She’s actually very funny. She really makes me laugh.
But if I was to pick fault - and it’s not easy - I might say she’s quite demanding.
When Wolfie was younger, there was always an assumption that we would fall in with whatever Flic’s plans were and rearrange our lives around them. But I can’t say we minded a great deal. We did what we could, because we wanted to.
We’ve never argued, as far as I remember. I suspect she reserves her sharpest tongue for those closest to her.
FLIC SAYS
I had a few sleepless nights over this experiment. It’s one thing to have your family and friends occasionally remark on your negative traits, but quite another to have them laid bare before you all at once - and in print for all the world to see.
I thought I already knew everything my loved ones would say - but I’m shocked to realise I appear more like a crazed military general crossed with Lady Gaga than the friendly, unthreatening woman I thought I was. “Demanding”, “cutting” - oh dear! I suspect that being very small - just grazing 5ft 2in - has always justified my belief that I had to make my personality twice as big to be taken seriously, but it seems I may have overdone it somewhat. I am quite upset that I can seem uncaring - I do know, however, that sometimes I completely fail to filter what I’m saying, assuming that, somehow, people will know I don’t mean to sound harsh. I’m just tired, or stressed. But how would they know that?
I’d rather be kind than “witty miss whiplash”, so I fully intend to curb my wicked tongue. Interestingly, it struck me that other people may also see themselves very differently from how I see them - I’d never describe my Mom as a “people pleaser”, as she suggests in her own comments, because she can be very direct in her opinions.
In fact, I’d always assumed I inherited my somewhat forthright approach from her.
I’m not nearly as self-confident as my mom and Joan think, either - but I’d correctly have guessed that Simon and Rachel know more about that, as I tend to confide in them more often.
When I first met Joan, I felt very shy and had no idea I could seem intimidating. This has really opened my eyes to the difference between how I see myself (tiny and unthreatening) and how others might (sharp and scary).
I hope she knows now that I was always very grateful for the help she and David offered when my son was little - but I wish I’d said it more at the time.
Nothing that Simon said is a surprise, though it is slightly chilling to see my worst marital traits revealed in full. I am horribly untidy, despite regular drives to improve. It is true, though, that I’m tougher on myself than anyone else.
It is lovely, of course, to see that there are positives, too. I put huge effort into friendships and I am very loyal - secrets are always safe with me.
So is the survey right, that friends are more objective than family?
Well, I think my family have been pretty candid - and sometimes a little cutting - but Rachel’s view of me is the closest to how I see myself.
It is all true (including, shamefully, the milk) and I suspect that’s because there is nothing in our friendship that we haven’t talked about.
Although I am very close to my family, I feel they don’t have the full picture in the way that my husband and best friend do.
Now I know the unvarnished truth about myself, I can try to improve. I’m going to start by tidying the kitchen. And offering to be my mom’s diet buddy. - Daily Mail