Roleplaying

How to avoid being myself? Easy task – don’t think about it. If you try to be someone else, then just act like others act, imagine yourself as them. Even dress like they do. 

It’s not easy, but you’ll get used to it. If you are different then your otherness, after all, is evident in some spheres of live but not in others, thus, it’s possible to act ‘normal’, at least partially. When you play chess, read a book or study Maths, you differ less than when, say, dreaming about your future. In the first case, you can easily mimic others, and give into that activity. Playing their game. Yet it can be your game too, simply because all people have at least something in common, at least it looks like that.

If you are strange (others think you are) you still can look fairly normal, at least, if you don’t start speaking, don’t start explaining yourself to others. So, there are situations, when it doesn’t even require any additional acting – you just look and behave normal. Of course, psychologists could dig deeper and find that some of your gestures or the way you look at something makes sense in a way that give away your secrets. However, this is not that serious. Most people don’t dig that deep and if they glance at you in the street, you can hide pretty well.

Of course, if you want to avoid ambiguous situations, better stay at home, stay away from the crowds, stay away from any company. But, hmm, that’s hardly possible. If you are at school, at work, whatever, you are forced to play certain games following given rules and participate in certain activities. And thus you are lured out of your comfort zone in the wild, where you fall prey to intolerant people (what if you have no comfort zone – even what should be your hiding place in yourself, is made by you an exhibition of what you are trying to be). They quickly notice that you look different, act different, speak different (even if you do not, they project your otherness in one sphere onto all the others), maybe you look scared, maybe your hands are shaking, when giving a presentation, maybe you laugh in inappropriate situations. Basically, you show your inner side. And what you do not realise yourself, you can easily help others to realise – what you hide from yourself, can be bloody obvious to others. And this is your biggest fear.  

Then you have to act so that people do not look at you as if you were a freak. However, here's a good question: should you be yourself, even if that means being viewed as strange, or should you destroy your own personality in order to comply? Fear is a good thing here – it doesn’t allow you to drift away, lose the notion that you are in front of others that you are not free to be yourself, that you need to give an impression. 

But, wait, the problem here is a different one – what if you are so afraid of giving a “wrong” impression that you lie to yourself? This is not a case of “I know that x=a, but I will not say it”, but rather a case of “I am afraid that x=a, so I will drag myself further and further away from anything that reminds me of x and of a”. In this case… What to do? Of course, if society A doesn’t approve of a, then it is better to avoid mentioning that x=a. But why better? And what is a harder problem- to say that “I know x is not a”, when you know the opposite, or to know it somewhere deep deep inside, but avoiding to reflect on it? It looks easy – if you know but have to keep your mouth shut, even lie, it is harder; but, well, maybe avoiding to accept something to yourself is more damaging psychologically? Maybe you can part and be one person A, who says “I know that x is not a”, and another person, A1, who says “I know that x=a”. Then you play one game for the public and the other for yourself. Like in a theatre, you play your part, but you are certain that THIS HERE is a play, so that if you have to say “Look, now I kill you”, it does not mean you are actually intending to kill a person. So, here you are safe in yourself. You can run back to your hiding place. If you feel uncertain and afraid, if you are not sure, whether you are playing a role that has nothing to do with your inner self, with your actual self, if you believe that it is you here, but there is some part of you that says no, this is not you, then you lose your chance to escape. You firmly believe you are transparent.  You believe that what you think is what you feel. You believe that there is no fact that is the opposite of what you say. Here you say “I know that x is not a” not only in public. But to yourself as well, thus you are lost. You avoid being yourself. Your self (that you perceive yourself and that you present to others) is constructed in a way that is different from what it actually is, thus here you part and become two people – the true you and the role you play, but you embrace the latter, forsaking the former.