Day 2: Pretend
“You should’ve opened it.”
My girlfriend sat on the floor, glaring at me as she unlaced her boots. It was two days before Christmas Eve, and we had just finished dinner with her parents.
“But it’s not even Christmas!” I replied, defensive, as I hung up my coat next to the door.
“It would have been really nice for her to see you open it.” She meant her mom, who had given me a beautifully wrapped present as we were all finishing dessert.
I sat down next to her. “I know, and I’m sorry. But we talked about this. Remember?”
My whole life I’ve hated opening presents in front of people.
I can picture my 10th birthday party: Half a dozen of my classmates hanging out in the tree house in my front yard, and I’m thinking an hour ahead, dreading the moment they’re all going to want me to open their gifts.
It was almost a blessing when in college, the only gifts on birthdays and Christmas were from my family. I could open them in peace.
It’s not that I don’t like presents. I do.
And it’s not that I don’t like parties. I sort-of do.
What I hate is the attention.
I can’t stand the spotlight. When it’s on me, like at my own birthday party, I feel an intense pressure to perform.
But I’m quiet. Subdued. I don’t make a big fuss about things. So dramatically “ooh-ing” and “ahh-ing” over my presents doesn’t come natural to me.
It feels fake.
And if there’s something I can’t stand even more than the spotlight, it’s being fake.
In fact, that’s probably the main reason I hate being the center of attention: you have to perform. You can’t just be yourself.
(That’s how it’s always seemed, anyway.)
For a time, this led me to an interest in mastering social skills. “If it’s all fake anyway,” I figured, “I might as well learn to do it right.”
So I learned everything I could about “social dynamics” and “charisma” and “building rapport.” But even as I became more social and said and did all the right things, I felt lonely.
I was making “friends” and having “fun” but I still wasn’t being myself. And deep down, it hurt.
Since then I’ve realized what matters more than “social skills” is simply being more honest about how I actually feel.
You don’t have to pretend to be happy. You don’t have to pretend to like people. And if you’re feeling sad, you don’t have to pretend you’re doing fine.
Because if you do that too often, you stop noticing how you feel. You stop noticing the pain, the anger, the shame, the guilt.
But then when you feel good, you don’t notice that either.