Why do so many people struggle with relationships? There's a highly upvoted response online that goes like this:

It's because you haven't grasped a hard truth: "In this world, except for your parents, very few people genuinely want you to do better than them."

You think building good relationships requires opening your heart and sharing your happiness and achievements, but in the jungle of human nature, that's called strategic self-sabotage.

Every time you share your joy, you're unconsciously reminding the other person:
you're doing better than them, earning more than them. This awareness gap creates pressure that instantly triggers their jealousy and defensive mechanisms.

In other words, what you call social authenticity is putting a knife in the other person's hand to use against you.

The secret to good relationships isn't displaying superiority—it's through concealment to balance the other person's self-esteem.