Why are we so concerned with impressing each other?

Because humans are nervous apes who just want to be loved. Impressing other people gives you feedback that you are wanted, accepted, and appreciated.

Because we are social animals? Someone should create c/AskStonerLemmy 😂

Yeah, we should create a c/PedanticNonanswers too

Most likely about getting laid. Probably left over from our monkey days.

That probably covers it sufficiently. Translations for non-sexual contexts is easy.

we're a social species. community standing plays a role in our ability to find mates and improves our childrens' chances of survival

If I impress people enough they might be willing to give me the D

its because we find it cheaper to deserve gifted genital visits than to rent/lease/buy them.
What is your French toast policy?
- I'd rank French toast below a good waffle, but I would still not pass it up

Welcome to The Problem!

I believe our societal models are the reason. It's not just that all people are self-absorbed and greedy, it's that everything we have built for ourselves pushes us toward being just that, from start to finish.

We have slowly snubbed out true values, like a sense of justice (by this I mean fairness mostly, true Justice, not Electric Chair Jamboree), empathy, collaboration, soulfulness, all of the noble qualities of humanity, and have slowly replaced them with therapy shopping and a fixation with achievement in order to cover up that which is missing from within ourselves.

Then again, some are just... empty. Devoid of personal meaning, which is why they want to empty everyone around them in order to not be alone with that hole in their souls.

Lemme see if I can put that in a succinct meme.
We have created a parallel reality. A consensual dream. And, when you live in a society, skill at navigating the consensual dream is more useful than skill at navigating reality.
- Exactly, it's like playing a video game. And no matter how immersive the game, reality always demands its cut.

I'm convinced it's because we want to be loved, but most people will settle for someone just feeling positive about some superficial aspect of them.

You know that nature programs saying "complex social hierarchy?" It is part of that. Everything we do is part of it. There are multiple forms of hierarchical display. Our primary form is the insane use of the means for fundamental survival, aka wealth. This is a very primitive and barbaric form of display. Academia and visual media arts use reputation as a form of hierarchy; sports use meritorious achievement. We are only animals determining class and rank. No one living can opt out because ostracization is still a class and rank, as is simple survival.

Writing about a very hard science fiction future pushed me into this space. Particularly, what are the implications of post scarcity if one completely discounts the argument that, 'it is an idealist utopian fantasy,' and tries to address the real complexity of humanity.

So we enter post-scarcity but everybody is still playing the same games.
It could be the effects of ancestral trauma. We see people expressing extreme poverty behavior even tho it happened a couple generations back.
It could be genetic. Climbing the social ladder is arguably what we're born to do.
This would suggest some kind of therapy is called for.
I think there was a Greg Bear where humanity encountered an alien race with a nice therapy that became popular among humans. Probably an allegory for meditation.
Talsit?
- People are a product of their environment and opportunities. Genetics have nothing to do with hierarchy and display. Wealth is the dumbest and most primitive form of display that fundamentally harms and kills millions of people, enabling humans with the least ethics to peacock around. This is the behavior of subsentient unevolved imbeciles, like if publishing a scientific paper involved a gladiator death match fight with and rival publishing author. Wealth as hierarchical display is barbaric stupidity. If any alien civilization were to exist in some childish fantasy universe and somehow find us in time and space, wealth hierarchy would be seen as a primary reason why humans are if no regard as nothing more than primitive farm animals or parasites as they are unable to transcend to full sentient behavior as a species capable of acting in the best interest of all. Humans are nothing more that sentient cosplay that constantly devolve into sadistic murder orgies of war over meaningless distinction and sadistic torment over the fundamental needs of other humans at every level from relationships to neighborhood, community, region, continent, and world.
  The answer is applied game theory in the present. Doing right for everyone, and systematically dismantling systems of exploitation.
  Wealth hierarchy will end in a violent and tumultuous way within the next century once the first successful resource acquisition of a M-type astroid in near Earth orbit is achieved. Japan is leading that effort in the present. There is more resource wealth in a single M-type astroid than all of the Earth based resources accessed in the Holocene. That will make wealth as it is now totally irrelevant. The future is in space after we make that transition. At that point, the biggest limitation is cyclical elemental balance and heat budget. The primitive concept of wealth becomes nonsensical and totally irrelevant. Deep gravity wells and planetary differentiation due to gravitational separation are the real creators of human scarcity.
  Wealth only buys connections and opportunities. It has nothing to do with merit. Multi generation wealth is a massive hindrance to humanity as it removes any connection between merit and achievement and acts as a barrier to humans of real merit. This is why you are fundamentally only a product of your environment and opportunities. Promoting true merit is healthy for humanity, however anyone that is born into wealth has proven nothing and is a destructive obstacle of progress and achievements. These are the indications of corruption exploitation and a failed system when such individuals lead. Intelligence is not genetic. You do not know of the great things Einstein's parents or children discovered. No community produces better. No gene pool is superior. We are a reflection of the opportunities we have. Most people have very few if any opportunities in life. The rich can fail countless times and still try again and again. This is meaningless and harmful as it concentrates power and opportunity amongst the incompetent and incapable.
- Taoism?
No one living can opt out because ostracization is still a class and rank, as is simple survival.
I am the basement king

Counter question. Enjoying those up votes?

Sure, I'm cashing them in later today.

finding meaning in life, those who care about it trying to validate themselves by doing just that

"How impressed everybody is" is the basis of money, law, self-worth and our models of reality.

Can you expand on that some? On the surface, it doesn’t match my experience at all.

Ok, the obvious : our society-programming is just that powerful. So we are all eyebrows-deep embedded in a useful insanity.

But you'd think we'd struggle against our restraints a bit more. That it might even be common. If nothing else, for the sake of art, science, economics.