Mask Off

An old friend reached out to me last year. He apologized for ignoring me the last few times I had reached out to him. He took the mask off. He didn't pretend things were okay between us, especially as we were old friends. I didn’t respond for at least 6 months. But eventually I did, and addressed our situation. I removed my own mask, just as he did.

We wear masks like Halloween costumes, pretending we’re a certain way or a certain type of person. We struggle to just be. This is because pressure comes in from all angles. Where I grew up, you had to be tough. Otherwise you were ostracized. Correction: Where I grew up, you had to *pretend* to be tough. This was how you got by. And we did that by being the best actors. Whether you were a good kid, a drug dealer, or a murderer, you had to pretend. This was all to mask the pain of rejection.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned just how much people fake it. Guys I know consider it a medal of honor to sleep with as many women as possible. They’d boast about it and compare themselves. Then I learned they were all lying. They were living a lie just to be accepted.

For a while I would fake it around some people in my life, trying to fit in to what I thought they wanted of me. It wasn’t completely fraudulent, but I wasn’t fully being me. I still struggle with this a bit today. There are times where I fake it. But now I work on catching myself and correcting it.