text: Any human being, simply because he is one, has to experience a vital drama: his own interests and the interests of others, which are expressed through social norms, do not coincide. However, in order to survive, it is necessary to exist within a certain social fabric, be it a family, a village, a town or a large city. This is where the strategies created to manage this tension appear: we have to be ourselves, but trying not to let this lead to contempt or rejection of others.
  Fortunately, most people are able to combine these two realities well (that of public and private interests). However, at other times, some people opt for attitudes that are too cynical or opportunistic to be genuinely pro-social. Normally, we know these individuals as hypocrites .
  But… what is it that really characterizes hypocritical people? Let’s see, from a proposal of 6 typical features of those who adopt this strategy to socialize.
  6 characteristics of hypocrites
  Although there are several ways to identify hypocrites, we will usually be able to recognize the following characteristics in them.
  1. Explicit but inconsistent morality
  One of the ways in which it is easier to differentiate hypocrites is by looking at their use of morality .
  From an individualistic point of view, moral standards can have an unpleasant side, especially when we feel that we have to do something we do not want to do, but they also have a positive side, as we can appeal to them when we want other people to behave in a way that benefits us. Hypocritical people know this, and that is why they use morality to try to get others to abide by those values.
  Of course, this is in contrast to your own compliance with the rules. Anyone who lives in an environment where others live according to moral restrictions that one does not follow oneself has a certain competitive advantage, and hypocrites abuse them with virtually no remorse.
  2. False affability
  Hypocrites tend to look for quick and dishonest ways to get social capital (i.e., the sympathies of many people, or at least the possibility of resorting to them). To do this, it is common to feign a false interest in the life of another at key moments, such as greetings or goodbyes. It can be noticed that this is not an honest and spontaneous initiative because, beyond these key moments, sympathy is transformed into difference.
  3. Minimal social contact until the favor arrives
  Another common attitude of hypocrites is to have “friends” or acquaintances in their agenda, without any dealings with them, and take advantage of this only to ask for specific favors.
  Unlike others, who in the age of social networks may have many contacts stored passively in the phone book or in the friend section of one of their social network profiles, those who have this opportunistic spirit are not consistent with the fact that they barely deal with these people, and if they can, they take advantage of the fact that they know them without contributing anything at all in return.
  This is important, because that which is appealed to at the time of asking for a favor, friendship, has not existed or no longer exists in practice, only in a theoretical way. However, it seems that it begins to be a real emotional bond seconds before making a request. Soon after, that supposed friendship will fall into oblivion again.
  4. They make useless gestures of kindness
  Trying to invite people to tapas when someone else has already paid for them, warning them of an event which they clearly cannot attend… These gestures are a way of trying to seduce people without exposing yourself to the little annoyances or inconveniences that this can generate.
  5. Praise on the one hand, complicity with mockery on the other
  Another typical attitude of hypocritical people is to show themselves as friends while, when the other person is not present and is criticized, they show complicity with those criticisms, regardless of whether they are fair or not . It is also common for the hypocritical person himself to bring up these criticisms, sometimes with the aim of gaining social acceptance by detecting imperfections in others.
  6. Disappearances when you hit bottom
  When someone is going through bad times, it is relatively frequent that the hypocrites around him who showed a close relationship with the first ones, disappear in anticipation that they can be asked for help, even if it is minimal.