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> Unless you are an actual friend of theirs, you don't really know what their true authentic selves are. People put on a front for their friends, too. And spou

> Unless you are an actual friend of theirs, you don't really know what their true authentic selves are. People put on a front for their friends, too. And spouses. Even themselves (who people really are often emerges only when they under extreme stress). Being drunk also strips off the facade to some extent, like being a "mean drunk". I have different faces for the internet, work, friends, lovers, family, etc. We all do.

JohnFen 7y ago
This is true, and I don't mean to discount that. There's a couple of important differences, though. The face that people put forth in social media is much more artificial than the faces we put forth to people we have real relationships with. So, in a sense, it's a difference in degree. When you have a real relationship with someone, you put on a face in a sense, but it's a fairly shallow sense. What your friends, lovers, family, etc., see is, generally speaking, authentic. It's just not the whole story -- I may have a different style and emphasize different parts of myself with my friends as opposed to my lovers, but those are still authentic, true aspects of myself. I'm not pretending to be a person I'm not. Also, over time, anyone you're close to gets to know your true self -- even the parts you wish they didn't (or maybe that you didn't even know existed). If that's not true, then the relationship isn't really that close. I will exclude internet and work relationships from this, as those are of a different, and much more artificial, type.