What if nobody ever finds out how fucking amazing you are?
Would you still do it without an audience, likes, or a chance to prove someone wrong? On a life you've turned into a presentation.
Imagine you can't tell anyone about it. No photograph. No post. No casual mention over dinner. Nobody will know how much it cost, how hard it was, or what an extraordinary experience you're having right now.
Funny how quickly some dreams lose their appeal when you take the spectator out of them.
You go somewhere that looks good in photographs. Order something that looks good in photographs. Then spend half an hour finding an angle where you look good against the backdrop of your good-looking day.
That evening, someone asks how it went. You show them.
Can you tell them anything, though? What do you remember besides the light? What did you feel before you started deciding how it would look from the outside?
Sometimes it turns out you were busy maintaining a memory you barely had time to make.
I don't think wanting attention is shameful. You want to share things, be liked, get a response. If you make something for people, an audience is part of the point. Musicians need listeners, writers need readers, businesses need customers.
The question begins when someone else's reaction gets to decide whether your day counted.
You had a good time. Then you posted it. Not many reactions. And now, somehow, it feels as though the time wasn't all that good. Even though absolutely nothing about the day you actually lived has changed.
You just didn't get its value confirmed.
The audience quickly moves into your head, even without a phone. You imagine how the story will sound before it happens. Choose what to do based on the impression it'll make later. Turn down something interesting because it doesn't look impressive enough.
And that's how a stranger who must constantly be made jealous takes up residence in your schedule.
They don't pay for the trip. They don't work your overtime. They don't lie beside you when you feel like shit. But somehow their presumed taste gets a say in almost every decision.
Then there are the people you're going to prove something to. An ex. A boss. Someone who laughed at you once. You can spend years building an impressive life in the hope that one day they'll feel a little sting inside.
Maybe they will. Maybe they'll never see it. Maybe they forgot the conversation that grew into your entire life strategy a long time ago.
Then what? Will you need to find a new spectator, or finally figure out which parts of what you've built you actually like?
It's a shame to put in all that effort and discover that revenge requires someone else's participation, which nobody ever promised you.
There's another trap, too. You've already created an image, and now it won't let you change. The successful one can't admit they're tired. The eternally free one can't want a quiet life. The uncompromising one can't say “I was wrong.”
People signed up for a particular character. Now you're afraid to disappoint them with an ordinary human life.
It's a strange job: you invented your own boss, wrote your own requirements, and now spend every waking hour trying to meet them. Your salary arrives as notifications. Days off aren't included.
I like the idea of sometimes keeping something for myself. Not to be mysterious, and not as a new way to demonstrate how far above social media I am. A good evening can simply end as a good evening.
You can learn something without turning it into a new identity. You can help someone without turning their problem into evidence of your own decency. You can quit something you no longer enjoy, even if it looked great in your profile bio.
Not every event needs a report to count as real.
I'm not suggesting you disappear and never post anything again. I have things to say myself, and I want people to read them. But I want to tell the difference between wanting to share my life and needing someone else's approval before I can live it.
So the question remains. If nobody finds out, will you still go there? Still do it? Spend the evening with that particular person?
If yes, great. You have something that keeps existing after you close the app.
And if everything suddenly loses its meaning without spectators, maybe it's time to check who's actually living your fucking amazing life.