How many masks do you wear?

While chatting with a friend yesterday, we made the observation that how we sound online, whether in email or in blogs, or even on online chat, don’t really “sound” like how we do in our real life conversations.

On my part, I find that its easier to go a little crazy and gila-gila online but unless you really are pretty air-headed or gila-gila in real life, its not as easy to keep that image up in front of someone else. But online, where we are all (relatively) anonymous, its fun to project an image that you might otherwise not project in real life because its not professional or not adult or just not so you.

For example, when I write in an electronic medium, I tend to use the term “Whee!” a lot to express joy or excitement. In real life, I don’t think anyone I’ve ever known has heard me say “Whee!” in a squealy girly manner. Its just not me to say it but somehow, it works online. Yet, there is that part of me that thinks “Whee!” even as I don’t say it because some part of me is the fluffy Paris B.

So I suppose yes, I do wear masks all the time, as I’m sure many people do to survive in our complex world with the complex relationships we have with different people.

On my end, I wear:-

• one serious mask for work -Paris B would never get away with being an airhead at work!
• one social mask for social engagements - which is frozen in to a perpetual polite grimace… I mean smile
• one mask for hanging out with friends - its got its hair let down and has elements of fluff in it
• one really ugly demon mask for when I lose my temper - believe me, its awful
• one light fluffy mask for the times when I’m Paris Beaverbanks - to date, its my favourite character yet!
• and one last mask for when I’m with family - because sometimes you need masks to survive family

Who is the real Paris Beaverbanks then? Probably  a mixture of all the masks I put on and take off. Just like a bian lian (mask-changer) I sometimes change them so quickly that it takes me a moment to remember just which mask to put on.

So, tell me, how many masks do you wear?

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