My late mother was a kind woman – who I treated badly in adolescence, as teenage girls are often inclined to do – so the few times she said nasty things to me stick in my mind. In fact, I can only think of one: when I was 11, she told me that I had ‘no personality’.
I remember sitting in my bedroom, staring at a poster of David Bowie, my eyes practically crossed in crossness. What did she mean, ‘no personality’? I was a right weirdo, already well under way with the process of changing myself from a wholesome working-class Bristolian schoolgirl into a total freak, thanks to growing immersion in the works of the Velvet Underground and Oscar Wilde. It puzzled me until I heard the old rock ’n’ roll song ‘Personality’ a few years later, sung by Lloyd Price on the soundtrack to the brilliant David Essex film That’ll Be the Day:
’Cause you got personality
Walk, with personality
Talk, with personality
Smile, with personality
Charm, with personality
Love, with personality
And plus you’ve got a great big heart!
Suddenly I got it; having ‘personality’, to my poor simple mother, meant being bubbly. I sniggered in what I hoped was a sinister manner and cracked open my copy of Against Nature – not gonna happen! Sure enough, a quick ‘AI Overview’ tells us that ‘“Miss Personality” refers to a title, often in pageants, awarded to someone showcasing exceptional inner qualities like friendliness, confidence and kindness, rather than just looks, recognising their positive attitude, charisma and ability to connect, making them approachable and inspiring, focusing on qualities like being supportive, sociable, empathetic and having strong communication skills.’ Later, I was to learn that before this, ‘personality’ could also be used euphemistically to mean sex appeal, as in the 1946 Johnny Mercer song of the same name in which, to quote Wikipedia: ‘The song employs tongue-in-cheek, slightly bawdy lyrics and an ironic use of the word “personality”. The lyrics suggest that men are often attracted to a woman because of her shapely figure (called euphemistically her “personality”) rather than other admirable qualities she might possess.’
But of course ‘personality’ is a real thing, and not just a word applied to women who behave in a socially acceptable manner. Most of us would choose the third definition in the Merriam-Webster dictionary: ‘The complex of characteristics that distinguishes an individual or a nation or group especially; the totality of an individual’s behavioural and emotional characteristics; a set of distinctive traits and characteristics.’
I thought of the word the other day when the great Helen Joyce and the ghastly Helen Webberley had a right old ding-dong over transvestism on Times Radio. ‘What does it mean to “feel” like a boy or a girl? This just sounds like personality to me,’ opined Helen the Great. ‘What do you mean by personality? And if it is, what’s wrong with that?’ lamely countered Helen the Ghastly. Though Helen the Ghastly is very ghastly indeed, one could feel a flash of sympathy for the poor addled creature.
You rarely hear about ‘personality’ these days; ‘personality disorders’ hung around a bit longer but they’re seldom mentioned now, probably on the grounds that it sounds a bit judge-y. Have they been replaced by ‘neurodiversity’, perhaps? I reckon so. Perhaps the reason people prefer to think of themselves as having ‘conditions’ rather than personality disorders is that a personality disorder sounds like something you could fix yourself, with a bit of effort, whereas a condition is something you’re at the mercy of; you have no control over it, so can’t be blamed for anything it makes you do – and, crucially, it means you never have to go through the hard slog of trying to change yourself for the better.
If I consider the people I know with the most obvious personality disorders (I’m thinking in particular of Borderline Personality Disorder, sometimes referred to as the ‘King of Co-morbid Kingdom’ because its very large umbrella can shelter a multitude of sins and co-occurring psychiatric conditions), they’re now to a person calling themselves neurodivergent. It sounds well fancy. But in my book it still means that you’re a fidget, a fantasist or an all-round omnishambles, to varying degrees. Often, being neurodivergent, far from making one a sort of hyper-interesting Rain Man or other kind of genius-holy-fool, just means that one’s got oneself into a bit of a pickle, logic-wise – and that’s the most banal thing in the modern world.
Personality is as much about what you leave out as what you show and tell; the definition of someone who says everything that crosses their mind is not a fascinator, but a bore
BPD is now very much considered to fall under the big new boast of being ND (unlike the rest of us poor plebs, the word implies, whose thought processes resemble those of a big old flock of sheep) which has given a new lease of life to those BPD ‘sufferers’ whose main (only?) aim in life appears to be seeing how much of a merry dance they can lead friends and family with their lousy behaviour before turning round and saying: ‘But it isn’t my fault – I’ve got BPD!’ I know one person who has gone through diagnoses the way Americans used to go on whistlestop tours through Europe – if it’s Tuesday, it must be narcissism! But it certainly hasn’t made her more fascinating; on the contrary, the predictability of it is wearisome. You just know she’s never, ever going to say one day: ‘Guess what, I’m utterly normal – and all that rubbish I did was entirely my fault!’ Now that, and only that, would pique my utterly extinct interest in her.
The old stereotype idea of the personality-vacuum bore is the man who recites in meticulous detail how he got from A to B on a car journey; a person who actually told you little about themselves. The modern bore is the person who goes to the opposite extreme and tells you everything, and expects to be found interesting. We have become so caught up in the easy drama and attention-getting of ‘mental health’ in particular that it is often what people have instead of bothering to cultivate a personality these days. Because personality is as much about what you leave out as what you show and tell; the definition of someone who says everything that crosses their mind is not a fascinator, but a bore. Not sure that you have an interesting personality and keen to have one? Basically, be honest, be entertaining, and edit, edit, edit!
My mum was right about quite a few things, as it transpired (that I’d end up badly if I flew too high comes to mind), but me not having a personality certainly wasn’t one of them. I am now so confident in mine that I habitually answer politely yet cheekily ‘No, thank you – I have a personality instead’ to waiting staff who ask me if I have any allergies. So, in 2026, let’s bring personality back – because as the old song had it:
So don’tcha say I’m smart and have the kindest heart
Or what a wonderful sister I’d be
Just tell me how you like my
Personality…
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