You step onto a stage no one told you you'd be performing on...
...and you pretend you know your lines.
They have a rotating inventory of pre-installed social presets:
Knows what 'synergy' means. Dead inside.
Holds back tears in public. A classic.
Small talk module v4.2. Glitchy.
Internal screaming volume: 110%.
Currently in storage. Dusty.
Masking isn't deception. It's survival. It's ergonomics for the psyche. It's the emotional equivalent of ergonomically questionable shoes: They look good, hurt later.
REFLECTION_ENGINE.EXE
You become who the room expects. You tune your voice to the frequency of whoever you're talking to. You match energy, tone, speed — like a neural chameleon with performance anxiety.
It's not manipulation. It's pattern recognition wearing human cosplay.
"Authenticity is just consistency, and consistency is a myth."
Inside your head, there's a tiny exhausted director controlling the whole production.
DIRECTOR_LOGS:
"Smile like you mean it!"
"Maintain eye contact but not serial-killer levels!"
"Don't say anything weird—great, now you said something weird."
he's trying his best. he also wants to quit.
Here, you don't mask. You decompress. You glitch. You exist without expectation.
Walking into the world feels like hitting "unmute" on the self.
(the trifecta of social camouflage)
your brain: "am I acting natural enough?"
Sometimes the performance breaks.
You slip.
You say the quiet part loud.
You reveal an unpolished thought.
You forget to be the version of you the room hired.
These moments feel like existential jump scares.
But here's the secret:
Everyone else glitches too.
Most people are too busy managing their own performance to notice yours.
Masks aren't prisons; they're tools.
The real tragedy isn't wearing them —
It's forgetting you can take them off.
existing without rehearsing.
speaking like you're not auditioning.
resting your face, and your brain with it.
Being human is a performance only because the world is confusing.
But beneath every mask, every reflex, every curated version—
there's a self that doesn't need an audience.
You don't have to perform to be real.
You don't have to be understood to exist.
You just have to be.