How does your self-image affect the extent to which you interact with others?

However you hold yourself in your mind, concerning your perceived strengths, weaknesses, characteristics, and qualities, how does this self-perception limit or encourage you to freely express yourself around others?

In my mind, I feel like an oddball. The sense of feeling weird often inhibits me from freely expressing myself around people I’ve not known for a long time (or who don’t know me intimately enough to understand me). If I don’t feel safe to fully express my personality, then I put on the mask of professionalism and fake-maturity. This is just one example of several other perceptions of my self.

Do you ever tolerate (or not tolerate) in others the qualities that are similar to yours, but have felt uncomfortable for you to freely express? Do you ever wish you could let it all (the qualities you try to contain) out in the open?