Most people are actually two people – the person in private and the person in public.
The person in private’s more candid, describes their fears and insecurities. It’s what we consider to be the actual person.
The person in public is a combination of masks, bluster, hygiene – a projection of who people want to be.
We’ve been taught this is best and good, and in some ways it is. You get the convenience of being considered to be whatever you want to be. If you feel like a loser, people can think you’re a winner!
I admire those who actually create characters that aren’t just done from fear, but from strength. Those who say that “this is who I am” – a fur coat bedazzled piano player, a busty drag queen with fright hair, Hannah Montana.
The problem is where that character ends and the real person begins. How many of those personality traits are a projection of the person being called ugly in high school? Is the person hiding behind that mask, are they suffocating the person underneath the character?
This is the extreme of the example though. The average person probably borderlines on the side of caution – a few closely kept secrets here, some “I don’t want to lose my job/embarrass my family/hurt people” there.
Again – safe and prudent. But we’re still not telling the truth, are we?
Our projected selves are falling for our projected selves, which means that on a base and real level, you might have nothing in common with the other person. It’s no wonder that divorces are so common – one financial or medical emergency and the blame starts to fly.
In the gay (insert acronym here, my keyboard only has so much durability) community, there’s a consistent tendency to hide oneself. Many people got used to being ashamed of themselves, hiding their sexuality in their formative years, sometimes fearing disappointment, often fearing for their safety. It means stunted development, difficulty being honest and forthcoming, having to conceal what you actually want or think you want and sneaking around to get it.
All of this seems very tiring, doesn’t it?
For years I hid my sexuality. I didn’t know how to describe it and didn’t want to be effete, and the more obvious I was hiding it the more other people pointed it out. Sometimes it caused physical pain that went beyond the ceaseless undercurrent of anxiety. And it’s not something where I felt I was a victim – you can be a victim of a crime with a perpetrator, but there’s no one to *blame* for genetic and environmental factors outside your control. People don’t understand what it was like to come out only, like, 2 years ago. Everyone was so accepting, and I just felt so stupid for waiting so long.
To lasso this back to the difference between a public and private person – I think it’s my mission, personally, to erase that barrier. The performance, the performance’s performance, the broken person underneath – they’re all me, and there’s no reason they should have to be separate. Further, I have to overcome the “I am this person who had things happen to me” as an identity. It in itself is a mask. We all get dealt some bad hands, and we deal others bad hands too, but we’re not just a collection of events. Humans are living, breathing, evolving beings.
It shouldn’t take fucking up or weathering a difficult storm to get here, but if I marinated in failure I’d probably be at least slightly more obnoxious than I am now.
I’m someone who is who I am, but who’s trying to do and be better. It’s going to take time and a hell of a lot of effort, but I’m kind of excited. Everyone else’s secrets are safe with me – but mine have nowhere to hide.
