i feel like a square peg
A friend of mine, Anna, once described her relationship with a phrase that stuck with me: “I feel like a square peg being pushed into a circle hole.”
Anna is the kind of person who laughs loudly, starts conversations with strangers, and leaves half-finished craft projects scattered around her flat. She’s energetic, creative, and unapologetically social. But her partner? Very different.
Over time, small comments started piling up. Could you be a bit tidier? Maybe don’t talk so much at dinners. Why are you always making jokes? Can’t you be a bit more serious?
Individually, none of these requests sounded dramatic. But together they carried a clear message: be different.
Anna began to wonder whether she really should change. Was she too messy? Too loud? Too much?
This question touches on a fascinating topic in psychology: how much can our personalities actually change?
Personality psychologists often describe traits using the “Big Five” model—openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Research shows that these traits are surprisingly stable across adulthood. Long-term studies following people for decades find that while personalities can shift gradually, the overall patterns tend to remain fairly consistent.
For example, someone who is naturally extroverted is unlikely to transform into a quiet introvert simply because a partner prefers it. Likewise, a person who thrives on spontaneity may always struggle a bit with strict order and structure.
That said, personality isn’t completely fixed. Psychologists have found that people can adjust certain behaviours over time—especially when motivated by personal goals. Someone might learn better organisational habits, or practise listening more carefully in conversations. These changes often happen at the level of habits and skills rather than deep personality traits.
In other words, we can grow—but we rarely become a completely different person.
For Anna, this was a relief to realise. Wanting to improve or develop new skills is healthy. But constantly feeling like you must reshape your core personality to fit someone else’s expectations can be exhausting.
Sometimes the real issue isn’t that you’re the wrong shape.
It’s that you’ve been handed the wrong hole.
