personal - 1842250214

Adapted from ¹.

so picture this: there’s a guy—let’s call him alex. now, alex has always been incredibly good at pretending. not in a malicious way, though. it was more like an art, you know? he learned early on how to show up, do the thing, say the right words, and leave no one the wiser. the world? it was just a big stage, and alex was always performing.

but somewhere along the way, he forgot where the performance ended and his real self started. he didn’t even notice it at first. it’s like he kept perfecting his act until one day, the lines blurred, and who he was… didn’t exist anymore. he was just a mask, going through motions, making others think he had it all figured out. hell, maybe he thought he had it all figured out too.

so alex built a life that looked great on paper—successful job, nice house, the whole social media aesthetic. everyone looked at him and thought, “man, that guy’s got it together.” but here’s the kicker: every night when he sat alone, he could feel it. the emptiness. like he was hollow inside but had no clue how to fill it. he didn’t even know what was missing.

one day, alex met this woman, let’s call her eva. she was the exact opposite of him. she didn’t try to fit in, didn’t perform. eva was raw, unapologetic, and real—like the kind of person who didn’t care if you saw the messy bits or not. for the first time in a long while, alex felt like maybe… just maybe, he could stop acting. eva didn’t ask him to be anything but himself.

but of course, the real world is never that simple. eva saw through his act almost immediately. it wasn’t hard to spot—there’s only so long you can pretend to be someone you’re not before the cracks start showing. and it terrified alex, because the one thing he had been avoiding, his whole life, was to actually face himself. but eva made him do it, just by being there.

so they sat in silence, one evening, and she said something that shattered him. “you know, the person you’ve been pretending to be? he’s not real. and you’re not really living like this.”

it was a gut punch. like someone yanked away all the layers of his life that were built on lies and perfection. and for the first time, alex had to confront the simple truth—he’d never really lived. he’d just gone along with it all, playing the part of someone who had it all, but on the inside, he was scared. scared that if he stopped pretending, people would realize how deeply lost he felt.

and here’s the twist—alex couldn’t even blame the world for this. he had done it all to himself. no one forced him to wear a mask. but eva? she made him understand something. real living? it’s messy. it’s not perfect. it’s about being okay with the parts of yourself that aren’t polished. the cracks are where life gets in.

so, after months of avoiding the truth, alex began the painful process of peeling back all those layers. it wasn’t easy. hell, it felt like he was shedding his own skin, but there was something beautiful in that suffering. alex finally realized that the most valuable part of life isn’t the perfect version we present to the world—it’s the moments when we let the mask slip, even just for a second.

because in the end, the real journey wasn’t about how much he accomplished or how perfect everything looked. it was about learning to be okay with being incomplete. and that, oddly enough, made him whole.

he never told eva this, but she changed everything. not by fixing him, but by forcing him to see that he was the one who had to fix himself. because yeah, you can have all the wishes, all the things, but if you’re not you? it’s all just smoke and mirrors.

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