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Let's say that someone is talking as if they know something that they really shouldn't be so certain about, or doing the false humility bit, or that a person is expressing some kind of emotional depth that they probably don't really have, and that's what being pretentious means. How does a person regulate that in themselves? A person isn't going to say to themselves: "hey, I'm going to act like I know a lot more than I really do" (or if they do then they've got bigger problems, lol) so, considering that, how could they take any kind of preventative measures? It's got to be unconscious, right? When people are being pretentious, it's not like the people around them are going to be all that willing to say: "hey man, I think you may need to express just a little more humility about that" so it's not often that a person who's being pretentious gets that reflected back to them. And if they do, it's usually very hard to accept. Occasionally (though it seems very rare) there is a person who comes off as a little pretentious and it turns out that they have some real wisdom there, and while although they might need to work on their presentation, they are ultimately right about what they are saying. So I guess what I'm saying is that it's not always obvious, so it can be difficult to draw that distinction, expecially from the inside. It would be a shame if a person were then making themselves out to be pretentious when they weren't or they became paranoid about it, because they couldn't make that distinction for themselves. I've heard it said that pretentiousness is an over-compensation for insecurity, but over compensated as compared to what? Someone who never expresses their opinions? People who are just over the top pretentious are probably beyond helping anyway, but I just mean the more subtle kinds of pretentiousness. The kind that most (all?) people have to some degree. I'd love to hear if someone has faced their own capacity for pretentiousness and how they work with it. Is this problem really as hard as it seems or am I missing something important? lol!