Day 8: Confident
My intentions were good. But something about me was making the hair on their necks stand on end.
It was the second day of acting class. Twelve of us in a small empty room lined on one side with chairs.
Two at a time, we’d stand for five minutes at the front of the room and describe what our partner was feeling.
“You’re sad.”
“You’re angry.”
“You’re still sad.”
“You find this funny.”
“Now you’re angry!”
On and on, back and forth. We weren’t allowed to stop and think. We had to make our best guess and blurt it out as fast as we could.
Being in this room was the furthest thing from my comfort zone.
I’d moved to the big city a few months earlier, painfully shy and introverted.
I’d taken a couple improv classes. And they had loosened me up. But I wanted something more.
I’d known a few theater kids growing up. And despite never relating to them (honestly, I thought they were weird as hell) I always admired them.
Nevermind what they were like onstage. Offstage, they seemed so confident and free. They laughed harder than most. They cried.
Of all the people I’d ever met, they seemed comfortable in their own skin.
A girl I knew was the barista at a local theater. She knew what I meant.
“When someone walks in, I can tell if they’re an actor within 30 seconds,” she told me. “The actors are just… confident. Even if they’re alone and not saying anything, they’re grounded. And they always look you in the eye.”
I signed up for an acting class the next week. I was going to become confident.
But standing there, with my partner watching my every move, I felt exposed.
I wanted them to like me so bad. I wanted them to see how cool, interesting, charming and confident I was.
But they couldn’t see it. Because they saw right through me.
And what they saw made them uncomfortable. So they kept their distance.
It was a nightmare. What were they seeing in me that I couldn’t?
Deep down I knew the answer. Because in a way, it was obvious.
They saw all the nasty, creepy, ugly, unkind and insecure thoughts I wasn’t admitting.
I was trying to act confident, but they could see how much I wanted their approval. How much I feared their judgment. How I wanted the women to want me and the guys to think I was cool.
But as much as I tried — as much as I stood up straight and stuck out my chest — there wasn’t any confidence for them to see. They looked in my eyes and saw me pleading, searching for any sign of validation.
Finally, after a few painful months, I “cracked.”
I realized that as much as I wanted to be liked, deep down I was terrified to show them who I really was.
I realized I’d been wearing a mask.
And I realized that if I wanted to connect — to even give them a chance to like me — I had to get rid of that mask.
I had to risk showing them — and more importantly myself — the truth.