Why People Treat You Differently When You Change
Labeling Theory Explained
Chapter 1-Cold Open
“You know what I mean?”
I look up from setting up my tray for the day. I have no idea what she’s talking about.
I’ve only been at this salon for about six weeks. I know this coworker’s name. I don’t yet know the version of her that shows up after a year working together.
She’s waiting for me to agree with something, so I raise an eyebrow instead.
So she says it again, like it’s obvious. “That client of mine, the one who lost all the weight, she used to be so nice. Now she’s kind of a bitch.”
I smile. Mutter “…Wow…” and go back to setting up my tray, hoping that’s the end of it.
It isn’t.
She laughs. “You know what I mean, right? How people lose weight and then get super bitchy?”
I tell her I’m not familiar with that characteristic.
She looks at me for a second like I’d missed the punchline of a joke everyone else already agreed on.
Fortunately, my client walks in, and I’m saved before I have to say anything else.
I was probably twenty-five pounds heavier than I am now. I don’t know if that’s why she said it to me like that— as if I’d get it.
Maybe I’ll never know, but I’ve thought about that conversation more than once over the past two years.
Chapter 2-Introduction
Hi, it’s Evet.
That was a real exchange you just heard.
I had no idea which client my coworker was talking about. All I knew was the woman had lost a significant amount of weight, and somewhere during that process, my coworker decided she liked her better before.
I didn’t know whether this client had actually become unkind. I still don’t know what she was like before she’d lost the weight, what else might have been happening in her life, or how much of the story I wasn’t hearing.
What stayed with me was the way my coworker said it as though it were a fact: people lose weight, especially women, and become off-putting.
I mean, I know water boils at a certain temperature. I know Jon Stewart is brilliantly sharp and quick-witted. And I know Aretha Franklin is the greatest soul singer who ever lived.
Those are facts to me.
But when my coworker said, “You know what I mean?” as though we both understood this predictable consequence of weight loss, I was genuinely puzzled.
I kept returning to the conversation because it seemed to be about more than one woman’s weight or personality. It made me think about what happens whenever someone changes in a way that disrupts how other people have come to know them.
Someone loses weight and is suddenly considered arrogant.
Someone becomes more confident and is told they’ve become difficult.
Someone begins setting boundaries and is accused of being selfish.
Sometimes a person stops accepting a role they’ve played for years, and the people around them experience that as a problem instead of growth.
It made me wonder whether people were reacting to who we have become or to the loss of the person they expect us to remain.
There’s a sociological concept called labeling theory that helped me decipher this.
In this episode, I’ll explore why change can alter not only how we see ourselves, but how other people see and treat us.
I also want to look honestly at the roles we sometimes learn to play so we’ll be accepted, and what happens when we no longer need or want to play them.
Because sometimes when people tell us, “You’ve changed,” what they really mean is, “You are no longer behaving the way I expected you to.”
Chapter 3- The Story Becomes the Person
My coworker took a complicated human going through a significant change and reduced her to: “She used to be nice, and now she’s kind of a bitch.”
That sentence didn’t leave much room for anything else to be true. The change was identified, the explanation was decided, and the woman was given a new label.
This is where labeling theory becomes important.
Labeling theory was originally developed to explain how certain behaviors and eventually certain people come to be defined as normal, acceptable, problematic, or outside the rules.
One of its central ideas is that a label doesn’t merely describe someone; it can influence how others interpret that person, how they respond to them, and eventually how that person understands themselves.
In other words, the label becomes a lens.
Once a label is in place, another familiar tendency can strengthen it: confirmation bias. We begin collecting evidence that supports what we already believe about the person.
If they disagree with our assessment, well then, that’s proof that we’re correct.
If they say no to us, or don’t return a call quickly enough, it’s all added to the proof file to support our theory.
The bummer of our quick assessment is that we don’t often reopen the file and ask whether we named it correctly in the first place.
I’m not suggesting that a person’s behavior is always imaginary or that every judgment we make is unfair. I have an entire podcast on judgment.
Sometimes people really are inconsiderate, and sometimes people can change in ways that make them harder to be around.
Labeling theory asks us to notice what happens after we decide what that behavior says about who someone is.
What information do we continually notice?
What information do we dismiss?
How much space do we leave for that person to behave in ways that contradict the identity we have assigned them?
Because once someone becomes the difficult one, even neutral behavior can begin to look problematic.
Once someone becomes the selfish one, a reasonable boundary can look very self-absorbed.
Once someone becomes the emotional one, a legitimate reaction can be treated as unnecessary drama.
And once someone becomes the nice one, anything less than constant warmth can feel like a personality change.
That last label matters in this story.
My coworker may have known this woman as a kind client who happened to be heavier. But it’s also possible that, without consciously realizing it, she had combined those qualities into one identity: the nice, overweight client.
A related sociological concept is called master status. It describes an identity or characteristic that becomes so dominant it begins overshadowing everything else we could know about a person.
We do this with weight, age, race, illness, disability, occupation, money, relationship status, and family roles.
He’s the successful one. She’s the responsible sister. He’s the one with the drinking problem. She’s the heavy one— but she has a pretty face, and she’s so nice.
Chapter 4-The Label Becomes an Expectation
The labels we give people shape what we expect from them.
If I label you “easygoing,” I begin to expect you won’t ever object to a plan or idea.
If I label you “strong,” I may not offer you support because I don’t think you need it.
If I label you “the caretaker,” I may become uncomfortable when you need care.
And if I label you “nice,” I may treat your warmth as an obligation instead of something you freely choose to offer.
Then, when you change, I may not experience that change as you becoming more fully yourself. I may think it’s you breaking an agreement.
Where the problem lies is that you didn’t agree to any of it.
You probably didn’t even know the agreement existed.
Maybe my coworker’s client was especially accommodating in the past. Maybe she had been agreeable, apologetic, or careful not to inconvenience anyone. Maybe she had learned that being warm made it safer to take up space in a body she knew other people might judge.
Or maybe none of that was true.
But if my coworker had come to expect a certain kind of warmth from her, then even a small change could have felt extreme.
A more direct answer, a firmer opinion, or one appointment during which she wasn’t especially talkative might have seemed like evidence that she wasn’t the same person any longer.
Now here’s the fun part, ladies.
Research on gender backlash has found that women are often judged negatively when they behave in ways that conflict with expectations that women should remain warm, agreeable, and accommodating.
I know, shocking!
A woman who becomes more assertive may be considered abrasive.
A woman who speaks confidently may be seen as arrogant.
A woman who stops overexplaining herself may suddenly be described as cold.
Remember in 2008, when Hillary Clinton became emotional while answering a question about how she stayed upbeat and kept going as she fell behind Barack Obama in the presidential race?
For years, she had been portrayed as controlled, cold, and calculating. Then her voice broke, and she showed vulnerability. Rush Limbaugh accused her of “emotional blackmail” and described the moment as calculated.
I saw humanity and strength. I thought her willingness to show emotion helped cut through the persona of someone who was never affected by anything.
What interests me is how the label followed her either way. When she remained composed, she was perceived as cold. When she did show emotion, the emotion was dismissed as manipulation.
That’s the bind many women face. There’s a very narrow range of behavior that some people are willing to interpret generously. A woman can behave in two completely different ways and have both treated as proof of the same opinion people already hold about her.
Which brings us back to the client in my coworker’s chair. A person’s growing confidence can challenge other people’s expectations about how they should behave.
This doesn’t prove that every criticism directed at a confident woman is unfair, but it does raise a possibility worth considering.
What if the quality my coworker had interpreted as “bitchy” was confidence instead of anything negative?
What if this woman had just stopped performing smallness?
Perhaps losing weight changed how much space she felt permitted to occupy, how often she apologized for voicing an opinion, or how much responsibility she accepted for keeping everyone else comfortable.
That might have felt like freedom for her on the inside, but from the outside, especially to those who preferred an earlier version, it might have looked like an attitude problem.
Chapter 5- Believing the Label
Those reactions can be especially confusing when they come from friends and family who have known us for years.
Just because they have known us the longest doesn’t mean they know us the most accurately.
People who have known us for years can become accustomed to a particular version of us.
The relationship develops a familiar rhythm. One person is treated as the expert and does most of the talking. Another asks questions and listens.
Someone keeps the peace or makes everyone laugh.
Over time, we become accustomed to whose thoughts get the most room.
As someone becomes more confident, they may begin contributing in ways they didn’t before. That change in their voice and presence can interrupt the relationship’s familiar rhythm.
I’ve noticed this in my own life, and it’s never happened dramatically. It may happen when I’m expressing an opinion, sharing something I’ve read or seen, or simply trying to add to a conversation.
I’ve experienced many interruptions, with people adding in their own thoughts before I can even get mine out. People tell me to hold on, redirect the topic back to themselves, or say they have to go after they’ve been the one speaking for most of the conversation.
I’ve wondered whether this happens more now, or whether I notice it more. Going back to school, losing weight, and getting older have given me reasons to reconsider what I accept in a conversation. I’m more aware of whether I’m being given the capacity to finish a thought.
Before I changed, I rarely asked for the space, acknowledgment, or respect I deserved. I don’t think I believed I deserved it, or thought much about it.
For much of my life, while I was overweight, I learned to be liked by being funny, smart enough, very friendly, but mostly not too assertive.
Now don’t get me wrong, I can be aggressive- I become especially outspoken about injustice when it affects other people. I’m more willing to push back, speak up, and refuse to tolerate discrimination or rudeness toward others.
But I was less likely to do that for myself.
That history makes me ask myself: how much space have I been giving myself all along?
When I heard the words I’d just used- funny, friendly, smart enough, and mostly not too assertive- I stopped at “smart enough.”
Smart enough? That’s an interesting choice, isn’t it? Enough for what? And who was deciding when I’d reached the limit?
Those words make me wonder how much I actually edited myself before anyone else even had the chance to respond. How often did I decide that something I wanted to say could wait, or that it would be easier to let someone else keep talking?
This is where labels become personal for me. Over time, we can absorb other people’s expectations into our own understanding of who we are.
We begin making decisions around them, and eventually, we may carry on enforcing a role even when nobody is asking us to.
If being agreeable has become part of how you understand yourself, disagreeing can feel uncomfortable before you’ve even opened your mouth.
You may anticipate how it will sound, whether someone will be disappointed, and what they might think of you afterward.
You may have a perfectly reasonable opinion and still feel the urge to soften it, apologize for it, or keep it to yourself.
Because I do value being warm. I value humor and kindness. Those qualities matter to me, and I want to be true to them.
I also want to understand how much of my friendliness has sometimes been tied to wanting people to accept me.
Both things can exist in the same interaction. I can genuinely enjoy someone and be interested in what they’re saying but also hesitate to ask for the same interest in return.
I think that for many years, as an overweight person, I believed I needed to bring a little extra to every interaction. Being funny and attentive felt like a way to make people more comfortable with me, and more accepting of me.
I can recognize that bargain now and feel compassion for the version of me who believed she needed it.
The difficulty of that bargain comes when we feel permitted to use only one part of ourselves.
If I’m always the funny one, what happens when I’m hurt and don’t want to make a joke?
If I’m always the understanding one, can I say something upset me without immediately explaining why the other person meant well?
If I built my identity around being easy to get along with, how do I respond when getting along means swallowing something I need to say?
As I change that role, I still want to consider my tone, my timing, and how I treat the other person. I don’t want to be a jerk simply because I’ve become more assertive.
I want to honestly look at my own behavior. If I interrupt someone, I want to notice. If I go on too long, I want to make room. I want the people I care about to feel heard, and I want to be included in that same consideration.
An interruption by itself tells us very little about someone’s motives. People get excited, distracted, or pressed for time. What interests me is the pattern: whether we regularly have the capacity to contribute, and what happens when we ask for it.
The difference now is that I rarely hold back my opinion. I’ve learned that what I have to say deserves the same expanse I’ve spent years giving to everyone else.
When someone interrupts me while I’m saying something important, I’m more likely to stop them and say, “Hang on” or “Wait, let me finish.” I have learned that I’m not required to disappear.
I also don’t spend as much time worrying about whether everyone likes me. It used to bother me deeply, and I would adjust so that they would.
Now I ask a different question: Was I being myself? Was I kind? Was I present?
If the answer is yes and someone still doesn’t like me, I can live with it.
The same change has happened in how I think about attraction. If a man doesn’t find me attractive, I no longer treat that as information about what I should change.
I don’t need to become quieter, thinner, less opinionated, more agreeable, or more like whatever he prefers.
His preference belongs to him. My life and my body belong to me.
Rejection can still sting. I mean, I’m still mostly human. I’m simply saying that someone else’s approval no longer gets the final vote on who I am authentically.
Maybe some people will experience that as a change in my personality.
Maybe some people will say I’m more outspoken, more difficult, or less accommodating than I used to be.
They are right; I have changed.
I’m less willing to abandon myself so that someone else can remain comfortable with the version of me they already knew.
And thinking about that brings me back to my coworker’s client. I wonder whether she had been going through some version of this herself.
Chapter 6- Looking Beyond the Label
So all I had was the label.
My coworker never described a specific interaction or told me what her client had said or done. She only gave me her conclusion about who the woman had become.
The question that may have opened the story back up was: What exactly changed?
That question separates a label from behavior.
“She’s selfish” judges her character.
“She canceled our plans without telling me” describes what happened.
“She’s arrogant” gives her an identity.
“She interrupted me several times while I was speaking” identifies a behavior I can examine.
Specificity creates room for reflection. I can consider what I did, understand how it affected someone, apologize if needed, and choose differently next time.
A character label makes the accusation much larger. Instead of responding to what I did, I’m left defending who I am.
This matters when we’re labeled and when we describe someone else. When I hear myself thinking of or describing a person as difficult, dramatic, selfish, or arrogant, I can pause and ask what they actually did.
Is it a pattern or just one moment?
Did their behavior cause harm, or did it challenge an expectation I had of them?
Can I describe what happened without deciding what kind of person they are?
In that salon conversation, the label stood in for the answer. Certainty replaced curiosity.
Curiosity gives us another option. We can remain interested in what actually happened and what context we may still be missing.
Chapter 7- Closing
“You know what I mean, right?”
At the time, my answer was no.
Two years later, my answer is still no, and I think that’s the point.
I didn’t know the client. My coworker knew her in one setting, through one relationship, and from her own point of view. Yet one label made the story sound complete.
That conversation stayed with me because labels can create the feeling that we know more than we do.
I’ve changed in these last few years.
I speak more freely.
I protect my place in a conversation.
I’m less willing to shape myself around another person’s approval.
Some may appreciate those changes; others may prefer the earlier version of me.
Their reactions are information, not instructions for how I should present myself.
Although I remain accountable for how I treat people, I will continue to decide for myself who I’m becoming. And I hope you do too.
I’m Evet DeCota. If this story resonates with you and you would like to discuss this further, you can find all my contact information in the episode notes.
Thank you for listening, and have a fantastic day.
