If you know me, or if you want to, read this.

I have had enough of living with a mask. For most of my life, what the world has seen has been an act. An act complex enough that even some of those who know me best don't seem to see through it. I have lived this way because of my own insecurities, my own fears, and likely my own selfishness. It has been stressful, but I comforted myself with the thought that by not showing my emotions so openly, I would spare my friends any discomfort from seeing me upset, because I always knew that there was nothing that felt worse to me than a friend being unhappy.

But I am sick of living with nobody knowing what I truly am, so I am writing this, and I am going to put it places where people can see it. I am going to let people know that it's there, because I need them to know. Perhaps this is just another form of selfishness on my part, but if anyone takes offense at it, maybe they can forgive me after reading the rest.

For as long as I can remember, and far before I became the person (or at least assumed the mask) I am now, I have lived for my friends, and they are all that I have lived for. It has been far too long since I've known anything I can call my own happiness for me to live for that, and I've found that my most comfortable life is one that I live for those few others that I have come to care for, despite my best efforts, because I do actively try to not let anyone close to me. Those that have gotten there have, almost without exception, had to fight their way through far more mental and emotional defenses than I care to count or account for.

I do not care for my own comfort, my own pain, or my own unhappiness, because i know that I can endure them, but it is much harder for me to endure seeing someone I care about in the same amount of pain, so I let my own pain become part of me, instead of fighting it, and I try to take theirs as well. Because of this, many people think me to be unemotional, uncaring, almost cold. The truth is, I am, I believe, more sensitive to emotions than the vast majority of people, but the emotions I am sensitive to are not my own, but those of the people around me.

This is true to the point where if any part of my world is making my friends hurt, or making them uncomfortable in any way, then if it is something that I can live without in any way, I will discard it, with no questions asked, even if, as has happened, that part of my world is my contact with that friend, because even if contact is cut off, I still consider them a friend.

I care for my friends even beyond what I would call love. They are my companions, my family, my life, and my world.

A bit more, perhaps, needs to be said about the image that I have quite intentionally presented to the world. I act like what is best described as a cocky son of a bitch, but the truth is that I have deep insecurities. I know on an intellectual level that I am better at most things than most people, but on a deeper level, nothing I do is good enough. I can never be strong enough for everyone to lean on, I can never predict well enough to keep from hurting anyone. I cannot play chess well enough, I can hardly tie my shoes well enough. It is far from an ideal arrangement, but with all I have learned to change about myself, this one thing, I can find no way to change, nor am I sure that I would want to.

I have sufficiently explained, I think, what it is that my life and my own inclinations have made me. Certainly this is far more than has ever been written or said about it before, and I think that anyone who knows me can fill in the blanks well enough, even though part of me would scold them for coming to conclusions with incomplete evidence. I hope that anyone who started reading this has finished, and I hope that it may change how some people see me. And I hope it was worth the effort of writing, and the vulnerability that I feel from removing my mask, but that mask has become to heavy, and maybe now that I am learning to take it off, life will be less of a pain in the neck.