Projection isn’t always negative—And that’s a problem

How we dangerously project the worst and the best of ourselves onto others

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When I was in school, I remember my mother telling me:

We often find ourselves annoyed by someone—without any specific reason—because we see something in them that reminds us of ourselves. Consciously or subconsciously. And often, it’s something we don’t like.

That was my first brush with the idea that other people are mirrors. That the traits we’re quick to criticize in others may be the very ones we carry ourselves.

It is my earliest understanding of the concept of projection—this strange intimacy of recognizing yourself in someone else and then rejecting them for it.

But what is projection, really?

Before we go into the psychology, I want to look at the literal meaning because sometimes, etymology offers more clarity than theory.

projecting
adjective
extending outward beyond something else; protruding.

It’s an act of pushing something out, beyond the boundaries of yourself. Stretching an internal experience until it takes an external shape.

Now, in pure psychological terms:

According to Freud, projection is simply a defense mechanism. It’s when a person in an unconscious manner attributes their own unacceptable thoughts, feelings, or impulses to another person.

It’s essentially a way of disowning the parts of yourself you can’t face by seeing them in other people instead.

It’s uncomfortable. It’s protective. It’s deeply human.

The bully is often gay too

And when I think of this, my mind immediately flashes to those American TV shows we grew up watching—like Glee, Sex Education, Euphoria, 13 Reasons Why, etc.

That trope of the closeted boy who bullies the openly gay kid—his cruelty not in spite of being queer himself, but because of it. His self-loathing spills over, and it finds a target in someone who dares to be what he cannot yet allow himself to be.

What is that if not projection? The self, rejected, weaponized, and thrown at someone else.

Disgust with mendacity

And then there’s this moment in Tennessee Williams’ play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. It’s set in mid-20th century Mississippi, and we watch Brick—an alcoholic ex-athlete—spiral in the wake of his best friend’s death.

His marriage to Maggie is strained, not just from grief, but from the silence around his queerness, which everyone senses but no one names.

In a pivotal scene, Brick tells his father:

Mendacity is a system we live in. Liquor is one way out and death's the other.

Mendacity, btw, is just a fancy word for hypocrisy, for deception.

And Big Daddy, his father, cuts through it with the line that has stayed with me for years:

You been passing the buck. This disgust with mendacity is disgust with yourself.

Isn’t that it? The self, too unbearable to hold, gets externalized. It’s easier to be angry at the world, be disgusted at others, instead of accept that you have parts inside of you that you cannot stand.

The tell is always there

I always find it funny—how easily people give themselves away.

There’s a kind of performative mockery that doesn’t come from superiority, but from longing. I’ve seen it in the people who roll their eyes at me speaking English fluently, calling me “fake” or “show-off.”

They’ll joke about accents, mimic tones, act unimpressed—but underneath that is a quiet kind of grief and resentment. Not being able to express yourself in a language the world rewards makes you want to punish the people who can.

They say you think you're better than them. But that’s not what you said—that's simply what they believe about themselves.

The same pattern shows up everywhere.

• Literary snobs/pseudo intellectuals

The ones who shame others for reading romance novels or “trashy books” often have the deepest literary insecurities. They haven’t read widely enough to know that pleasure and intellect aren’t mutually exclusive.

So instead, they posture. They pretend taste is a weapon. But real readers don’t gatekeep and they definitely don’t judge.

• Do you know how much this cost!

Even wealth gets performed this way. I’ve known “new money” who can’t stop mentioning how expensive something was. The way they obsessively signal gives them away.

Because the truth is, if you’d always had it, you wouldn’t need to prove it, point it out. It wouldn’t quite even register as something novel. It wouldn’t feel so rare.

So I know that all of this is not really projection in the strict Freudian sense. Some of it is insecurity, some is compensation, most is social defensiveness.

But the emotional mechanics are the same:

Something inside is too raw, too unresolved, and instead of soothing it, we outsource it. We assign it to someone else. We rewrite our discomfort as their flaw. And just like that, we don’t have to face it anymore.

But wait… projection can be positive too

If negative projection is handing someone your worst traits, positive projection is lending them your best ones. It’s believing their honesty matches yours, their loyalty mirrors yours, their kindness runs just as deep. It’s mistaking your reflection in the glass for their real face.

I used to think projection only worked in the shadows—born of shame, sharpened by defence. Then my therapist pointed out a pattern I didn’t want to see:

Someone hurts me. I cut them off. Time passes. The anger drains out, the bitterness fades, the story softens. Months later, I find myself thinking fondly of them—not because they’ve changed, but because I have. My nature defaults to hope, to brightness, so I start colouring them in with all the things I value.

They haven’t earned the restoration. I’ve simply handed them my own virtues (once again) like borrowed clothes.

Limerence and other daggers

Positive projection feels warm, generous, even noble. But really, it’s a sleight of hand—you swap out who they are for who you wish they were. And once you’ve done that, it’s hard to remember which version is real.

It’s the fuel for limerence—that heady infatuation where you fall for the version of someone you’ve constructed in your head. Give me the most aggressively average man and I will make him sound like a renaissance poet. My friends will be convinced. Hell, I’ll be convinced.

The trouble is, this isn’t love. It’s myth-making. And myths are stubborn. Seeing the best in people sounds like a virtue until you realise it can be a dagger to your own heart.

The (exhausting) solution

You are honest, so you assume others are too. Replace “honest” with “kind,” “thoughtful,” “trustworthy”—the risk stays the same. This is not the golden age. This is kalyug. Such people are exceptions, not the rule.

So, what’s the solution? How do you stop engaging with the world with this rose-tinted projection, where you fail to see people for who they are?

One thing that’s helped me—in flashes—is recognising my cognitive distortions. These are habitual ways of thinking that twist reality, usually to protect us or make sense of uncertainty, but they end up warping the truth.

A few of the most common (in light of positive projections):

• All-or-nothing thinking: One warm act and they’re a saint. A saint!

• Overgeneralisation: They remembered my coffee order, so clearly they’re the most thoughtful human alive.

• Filtering: I replay the sweet messages while conveniently ignoring the weeks of radio silence.

• Emotional reasoning: I feel safe with him, therefore he must be safe.

• Mind reading: She didn’t reply for 3 days—obviously she’s just busy, she would never avoid me.

In theory, it’s easy to nod along and say: Yes, I see how I do that.

But the real work is catching them in real time—mid-thought, mid-urge, mid-projection—and asking: Is this them, or is this me painting over them with my own colours?

I KNOW it’s not a perfect fix. It can be extremely tiring to track patterns, to weigh intentions against actions. But when you notice the distortion as it’s happening, you create a tiny crack between perception and reality.

And in that crack, there’s room to put the brush down, to pause, for objectivity to enter. And maybe, just maybe, then you can step back and see if the real outline is still worth loving.

This is a safe space for gently roasting ourselves. Drop your “I thought they were X but they were actually Y” moments below. I’ll spill mine if you spill yours.