He was out with people he liked. The conversation was good. He was contributing. He was laughing at the right moments and saying the right things and being, by all available measures, present.
But there was a split. The version at the table and the version watching from somewhere slightly behind it. The watching version was tired. Not tired of the people. Tired of the effort of being there completely.
He drove home and felt something that wasn’t loneliness, exactly. More like the specific depletion of having been elsewhere inside himself all evening.
There is a kind of disconnection that isn’t about the people around you. It’s about the gap between who you are and who you’re being. You can be in good company and still feel the absence of yourself. Not lonely for others. Lonely for a version of yourself that is not currently accessible. Not performing. Just present.
I know this feeling. The going through the social motions while something essential is somewhere else. It’s not depression. It’s not introversion, not exactly. It’s a particular distance from yourself that shows up in the middle of otherwise fine evenings and makes you feel like a guest at your own life.
He was fine. The evening was fine. He drove home and sat in the car for a few minutes before going in.
What was he performing toward, and what was he performing away from?
The performance of presence is exhausting in a way that actual presence isn’t. When you’re fully there, the evening takes something and gives something back. When you’re performing, it only takes.
He does this regularly. He doesn’t entirely know how to stop. He’s starting to wonder what would happen if, just once, he let the watching version step into the room instead of the performing one.
Some things worth sitting with:
- Do you ever feel like you’re performing presence rather than actually being present?
- What’s the difference between being with people and being seen by them?
- What is the version of you that watches from behind? What does it need?
Something similar runs through They Grew Up Together and Apart and Didn’t Notice Until They Were Strangers., if you want to keep sitting with it.
Inspired by a real story shared anonymously online.