Last week I was re-enacting a hilarious skit I'd seen online to a friend but he didn't laugh. Instead he just sat there and looked at me thoughtfully and said, "you know, you should be this person all the time with other people."
I had no good response to this because being real is one of the most difficult things a person can do. Which doesn't necessarily mean that you're fake. I have learned that it takes a lot of effort to be real. It takes almost no effort to be a phony. Sometimes you look at a friend and how they're acting and you immediately know they are not being real because you've seen every layer of their personality. You don't feel like a jerk when you call them out on it, because you know they are better than that.
