Online intimacy

You become fragile because every outfit becomes a vote. “Oh you are wearing something from five seasons ago.” God forbid. You start listening to trends instead of your own taste. Taste becomes feedback. Identity becomes reactive. You become a performer instead of a person.

if you're always understood, you're probably not saying much.

We learn early that fitting in is often just a long-form apology for who you are

we live in a world where exposure is mistaken for closeness, and where mystery is treated like deceit.

People were losing excitement about the internet, starting to articulate a set of new truisms. Facebook had become tedious, trivial, exhausting. Instagram seemed better, but would soon reveal its underlying function as a three-ring circus of happiness and popularity and success. Twitter, for all its discursive promise, was where everyone tweeted

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Selective presence is not disappearing. It is confidence. It is self trust. It is identity that stands on its own. It is curiosity that grows privately. It is taste shaped by experience instead of applause. It is refusing to flatten your life into content segments.

Because when you stop translating your truth for other people's comfort, you don't become harder to understand. You become impossible to misinterpret by anyone who was actually listening.

People who stop performing move differently. They wear what they want. They listen to what they want. They order the takeout they crave without wondering if it is trendy. They unlock a lifestyle that feels like their younger self before the world told them what they are supposed to be. Confidence grows naturally. They become their own trend without... See more