Why do people find personality important?

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Acharya Prashant (AP): Vikram is asking, “Sir, I can kind of see that personality is a mask, but then why is the world giving the personality so much importance? Why does everybody seem to be giving the personality so much of importance?” Right, Vikram, that’s what you are asking.

Vikram, the reason is simple. You need to talk to me, correct? When you are talking to me, then you need to have some sense of who I am. As Vikram gets up and speaks to me, he must have some idea of who is he talking to.

Now, there are two ways of trying to understand who I am.

If Vikram is intelligent, he would have heard what I said, looked at it carefully, and seen that he can talk to me, that I am worth talking to. correct? That is one way of determining who I am. Vikram wants to see who I am. So, the first way Vikram looks at me clearly, and from that clear seeing comes his understanding of who I am. For this to happen, he must be attentive. Right?

But if he is not attentive, he will have a substitute method of knowing who I am. What would be that substitute method? He will say, “Look at his clothes, what kind of clothes is he wearing?” He will say, “Ah! Look at his language, is he using flowery language…