The information problem

Comparison is not a character flaw, it is a calculation — and it runs on data you do not have. You are comparing your own inside, which you know completely, against other people’s outsides, which is the only part of them available to you. The two are not the same kind of thing and cannot be usefully placed on the same scale.

This is why comparison gets worse rather than better as the group gets larger and less familiar. With a close friend you know something about the difficulty behind their result. With two hundred acquaintances you know only the results, so the comparison runs against a version of everyone assembled entirely from their best days.