Stay real

I’ve wondered out loud before at how real people really are online. Is it easier to be candid here than in real life? Even if you use your real name, telling real stories about your life, there is a certain level of anonymity. We can still hide behind our laptop screens, avoiding the tells of body language, the inflection in voices. We can be more ourselves then ourselves.

We can be bolder than we would be during face to face conversations. Here we can let our guard down, we can say what we want, how we want, without that trepidation of a negative instant reaction we could get out in the world.

Here I can exude a sense of confidence that I don’t always feel, hoping no one pulls back the curtain. We all have insecurities that we successfully hide, does that make us less honest? In the spirit of full disclosure, I’m staying real…

1. I try very hard to appear like I have my shit together, but there are days I am so overwhelmed that I ponder what would happen if I took just a little of my son’s anxiety medication.
2. I am very insecure about my friendships, and am constantly concerned that I have done or said something to offend people. I don’t want to ask if that’s the case, because I also don’t want to seem too needy.
3. I act like I have all the answers, but am really flying blind and hoping I don’t kill anyone.
4. If I were as honest as I pretend to be, I would use the phrases “Shut up!” and “Grow up!” much more often.
5. When I share a comparable experience with people, I fear that it comes across as oneupmanship or duplicity. I have gotten to a point where I don’t want to say anything at all, then worry that that makes me seem indifferent. See #2
6. So many of my responses to other people’s difficulties sound like stock inspirational clichés, but don’t feel like I can say what I really think because I would appear callous. See #4
7. I’m not always as happy as I seem, nor as nice.
8. As I get older, I become notably more cynical and mistrustful, and can easily see myself in my dotage as the curmudgeonly, neighborhood cat lady yelling out my window at kids to “get off my lawn!”

Stay real, what’s behind your façade?

Submitted as part of Shell’s “Pour Your Heart Out” writing prompt at Things I Can’t Say. Please stop by to read the other posts, and give a little comment love.