Hello and welcome to another episode of Transition Phase Podcast, I am your host Taiwo Demola and I thank you for joining me while I marvel about the fluidity of our self concepts. Today I will be talking about something I’ve been pondering on for a while both alone and with friends and family who’ve been experiencing a similar thing: Feeling like actors in our own lives.

Its a strange feeling that we aren't ourselves when we are with others, but rather actors, who know the right line to say and when to say it and with the perfect inflection. Its like our first date selves, we know which stories to tell to get people to like us to become enamored with our personalities, but not enough to let them see the true self that lies underneath. It is the safest version of ourselves.

As an actor we think and perform like we are “supposed to.”In accordance with the identities that we have been given or have adorned ourselves with.

The feeling that you are pretending to be yourself is hard to conceptualize, but the metaphor of being an actor in your own life, and the world your stage, fits the narrative quite well.

As much as I would like to take credit for being the first to come up with this concept, I would say that where I engaged with this thought process was in a philosophy class I took during my freshman year of college.

Judith Butler’s theory of perfomativity was the first to unpack for me what it meant to fall into roles I had been given without question and what it meant to act according to the “social scripts.”

But what does it mean when you are not so tired of the performance you have been giving to the world, but rather the fatigue of performing altogether. The point I wish to make is definitely an abstraction or an extension of Butler’s original theory, but for the sake of using the same concept of life as theater lets pretend it fits perfectly.

I am most aware of this feeling when I meet new people or am engaging with a group of people. The first thing I think to myself is how can I make a good first impression that will get them to like me or be captivated in some way. But something I find very difficult is knowing when this “performance” of self stops. Is it after the second or third time we meet? What if we never get the chance to get into deeper conversation? What if its easier to be the actor?

Now Im not saying that this is an innately good or bad thing. Not at all, we all must do it. If everyone demanded that we be our full and complete selves with no modulation 100% of the time that would be exhausting. But being an actor full time all the time is utterly draining. These two versions of self are constantly being negotiated and its very easy to fall into an all or nothing mentality between them. Feeling trapped in being the realest rawest version of self or being an actor at all times

This is something I have had to contend with for a while in all areas of my life. A few years ago, this manifested in me trying to put only my most professional and business like self forward, only to feel drained like I could only save the version of myself that was gentler, more introverted, and silly for those who were in my closest circle. Since I’m obviously not friends with the whole planet, and I spent the majority of the day with people outside of that circle, for about seventy to eighty percent of the time I was “on stage” performing this version of myself for others.