I'd rather be rejected for what I actually am than accepted for a performance I have to maintain forever.
I'm not smooth. I don't want to be.
I don't code-switch for boardrooms. I don't soften my opinions so they go down easier. I don't pretend to care about things I find tedious just because caring is expected.
Gide wrote it in 1950: It is better to be hated for who you are than to be loved for who you are not.
Il vaut mieux être haï pour ce que l'on est, que d'être aimé pour ce que l'on n'est pas - André Paul Guillaume Gide, Autumn Leaves, 1950
Society disagrees. Society wants you palatable. Agreeable. Smooth enough to slide into any room without friction.
People treat authenticity like a risk to be managed. They rehearse opinions before saying them. They laugh at things that aren't funny because not laughing has a cost. They collect memberships to clubs they never wanted to join just to say they're inside.
I don't want the membership. I don't want the jacket. I never did.
Fitting in works. That's the problem. You sand yourself down, you get invited back. You accumulate access. You wake up one day wearing a costume you can't take off because you forgot what was underneath.
The world rewards pretenders. It promotes them. It calls them sophisticated and socially intelligent.
I'm not participating.