Have you ever pretended? Slipped into a role, put on a mask, and played along? Can you even count how many times you’ve done it? No? Never mind. Neither can I.
Why do we pretend? You already know the answer. Fear.
Fear of being judged. Fear of standing alone. Fear of being unloved, unnoticed, unwanted.
Fear of not being enough. Fear of being too much.
Fear of losing what we never really had.
Does that make sense? No? Good. Who said I had to make sense? Who said you had to?
Don’t pretend you’re sane—heck, nobody is. The world is a stage of carefully choreographed madness.
We pretend so well that even insanity wears a suit and calls itself normal.
We pretend to be what our parents, teachers, friends, lovers, strangers, society—hell, the whole damn world—wants us to be.
We pretend to belong, to impress, to outshine, to matter.
But tell me—have you ever pretended to be yourself?
Do you even know who that is anymore?
Now, imagine a world without pretense.
No filters, no façades, no rehearsed smiles or scripted words.
Just raw, unfiltered truth.
Could we survive it? Or have we pretended for so long that we need the lie?
I pretend that if I am not pretending who I am pretending to be right now, but pretend that everyone is pretending not to pretend who they are—then would that still be called pretending?
Or would it finally be real?
