Removing the Mask
Do I really like it? Is a question that I ask myself often regarding things I am interested in. As a person who quickly absorbs the interests of others due to feeding off their excitement, I can get really excited about things that I either am unfamiliar with or don’t genuinely care about. This wasn’t a problem as I was growing up, but I have noticed that it has been causing problems. The main one being that others see that I am similar to them when in reality I am not. Sometimes I get carried away with other people interests and excitement and reflect that as if I am mirror. This has led to friendships and relationships dying, as people realize that we are not similar after all. Obviously there are things that I am genuinely passionate about but for somethings I get confused whether I really like it or it just those around me really like it. I do not want to put on a mask as that just perpetuates inner loneliness and prevents me from having true connections. I realized that I did this in the past in order to evade abandonment, and prevent loneliness. But doing this is a disservice to me and the people around me. I want to get better presenting myself and being honest about my opinions and interests, even though others may not understand it.
If you struggle with this as well, here are some questions I ask myself:
If this person was no longer here, would I still participate or be interest in said subject or activity?
This one might be confusing as obviously, without my friends I wouldn’t want to do a lot of things because them being there enhances every experience and gives me the motivation to do things. But there are some activities or subjects that when I am not with these people I completely forget about it. The biggest one being watching sports, TV shows, or movies, without my friends I probably would not be watching any of that. When I am on my own I rarely watch those things. My interest in those things is always short lived as without being with my friends I don’t have my own motivation to watch it. However I do use those subjects as a way to make connections with people and get closer. This makes the appearance that I know a lot about those things or have an interest, but I am mainly cherry picking knowledge that I picked up and leveraging that as a talking point to build connections. I feel this is in genuine as it again adding to this image that I really enjoy those things and I don’t want to disappoint others when they find out I don’t have intrinsic passion. However I do enjoy watching those things with friends, because without them I probably never would.
Am I communicating my interests enough?
This one I would say is a definite no. Being a very reserved person and scared of judgement, I tend to keep a lot of things to myself, whether it be interest or opinions. The main problem being struggling to communicate how I really feel. I am a very contradicting person and very inconsistent. One day I might feel one way and the next I might feel the complete opposite, it all depends on how I am feeling that day which never stays the same. Thus when someone asks to justify or give more of an explanation I can struggle greatly expressing my reasoning because in that moment I just don’t know how I feel. Also when I do share a particular interest, sometimes the other person gets very surprised, which surprises me. However throughout the last couple of years I have been being more open with my interests and to my surprise have received no judgement. Thus I am unlearning hiding myself and slowly expressing myself more and more. To my closest friends I am already mainly myself but I want to this to new people I meet and just be honest instead of putting on a mask, as I did in the past.
As always, thanks for reading and I hope this was helpful 🙂