An impression of "me/my/myself" being very friendly with everyone - which one to use?

Question

We often say,

I want to create a good impression of myself.

But when we want to add a subject after the preposition "of", which do we use? me, my, or myself?

I want to create an impression of me/my/myself being very friendly with everyone.

No need for a pronoun: I want to create a good impression. Basta. :) — Lambie, Nov 02 '21 at 16:40
What @Lambie said. Personally, I don't think reflexive *myself* works very well at all in this context, but the "object / possessive" choice between *me* and *my* has been covered many times - see When to use an object pronoun or a possessive adjective before a gerund. — FumbleFingers, Nov 02 '21 at 17:12
...here's an NGram chart showing that we nearly always used the possessive pronoun in such contexts a century or two ago, but usage is pretty evenly split between *me* and *my [being]* today. And *myself [being]* was always too uncommon to even show on the chart. — FumbleFingers, Nov 02 '21 at 17:17
I want to create a good impression as being very friendly with everyone. Again, no pronoun is needed. — Lambie, Nov 02 '21 at 17:34

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 02 '21 at 15:48

I would usually choose "myself." In "impression of myself," "myself" is the object in the prepositional phrase. It's true, you're tempted to think of yourself as a subject in the second half of the sentence, since you're "doing something" (being friendly), but that's not really how the structure is working. The whole second half, "being very friendly with everyone," is just one big adjectival phrase describing you. So you stay "myself," since that's what the core of the sentence requires.
Especially in a simpler sentence, one might choose "me." This might be a small mistake, but does happen enough that it would be accepted. "This is a picture of me cooking hot dogs."
You can escape both of them since "me/myself" is implied: "I want to create an impression of being very friendly..." or, to make it clearer, "I want to create the impression that I am very friendly..."

1 Answers1