What is your "Fake?"

I have great sympathy for anyone who has ever been called “fake.”

When I say “fake,” I’m referring to inauthentic behavior - usually caused by a feeling of insecurity - that is not sly or calculated, but unintentional and immediately apparent. In my experience, the reason for this behavior is often not willful manipulation, but intense mental discomfort.

You may be fake when you feel sad. You may be fake when you feel unwanted or out of place. I am extremely fake when I haven’t had enough sleep.

You may be fake when you don’t feel like yourself and don’t feel safe being yourself. I find that it’s less a feeling, and more a place.

In my case, this place is a small glass room in which I can't stop bumping into the walls that I can't see. The more I try to get out, the more frantic I get, the smaller the room seems to shrink, until I'm frozen in one spot, unable to even turn to see the exit, which I'm not sure existed in the first place.

This inauthenticity is sometimes a terrible defense, because it is so immediately obvious. There are those (we all know one or two) who will tell you directly to “stop being fake,” not as kindly-meant advice, but an off-hand judgment, often by someone who is not interested in why you might be acting “fake.”

This can feel as though it affirms the fear: the world is unsafe and doesn’t like or want you, as well as prolong the feeling, in which you are rendered small and unlovable.

The inauthenticity can be a good defense as well, in a self-preservation way. The discomfort can be useful, warning you to expect some friction with your day. If you remember to listen to it, you may hear your small voice saying: you don’t have a good sense of your self today. If you talk, be careful of what comes out.

Of course, sometimes, all it does is make your voice high and cheery.

It doesn’t help that I, like many people, have different versions of myself. I am not the same person in the company of my partner, my mother, my boss, and my best friend. These different presences bring out different facets of me, but each is me.

So, with this in mind, is there anything I can go back to when my own multitudinous nature gets in the way? Could I "be myself" on command? Is there any core I can hold onto as the essence of "me," a true self, a part of me that persists across all contexts? Rarely have I met anyone for whom this seems to be real, who is themselves no matter the situation, no matter the consequences.

I don’t have an answer to any of this yet, but I have made a small change. Whenever I was confident in my movement through the world, feeling right and good being myself, I used to try to memorize what confidence felt like so I could replicate it later. Now, when I am feeling confident, I remember what it’s like to be insecure.

Maybe then, I'll be nicer to my fake self.

Maybe then, she’ll find her way out of that little glass room.