The Facade

“Fake is as old as the Eden tree.” – Orson Welles

It is hard to be real in such a fake world. Everybody’s at it. Fake smile, insincere friendliness, pretending and facades everywhere.

The receptionist at work: “Oh, how I hope everything works out for you. You have a nice day now! I hope you find your dog!” But when the customer departs the building… “God, that woman! What a tweakin’ nutjob! If I was her dog, I’d run away too!”

The sales rep on the phone: “Sure, I’d love to come by and see your new store… Errr… Meet for lunch? Uh, yeah, sure! Sounds great!” And after hanging up the phone… “Great. Now I have to spend my lunch hour shmoozing with that guy, trying to get him to put an ad in the paper. Sometimes I hate this job.”

It has become a necessary part of life, in order to get along in society you have to paste on that smile and pretend that you understand, that you care, that everything is great. I’m not very good at it. I learn more social skills every year, but I can’t seem to find the knack of faking sincerity and hate having to try. I am certain that people find me to be very rude or unfriendly all too often, even when I am trying to be the opposite.

Appearances. Image. Everybody’s selling something. That is part of why I hate TV so much. The shows are as bad as the commercials, with painstakingly-perfect looking actresses pretending that their fake TV lives and plastic appearance are what the world is really like, or at least should be.

I want to find more honest words and phrases, that can be used at work and out in public among friends and strangers without hurting or offending people. I want to bake cookies from scratch. I want to go for a week without wearing any makeup. I want to realize when I’m being fake for no good reason, just from habit, and tear down the facade and start over.