StickBugette wrote:
Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. Perhaps you don't mask, which is always an option.
But I find I need to mask all the time, and it's exhausting for me. It wouldn't be exhausting if it was the real me.
That's okay.
I'm generally myself when around people I know but find myself masking more when I'm in public around strangers. It's because rules are different in public, you have to sort of be a clone to everyone else and not show your emotions much or talk about certain things. NTs become easily self-conscious and embarrassed in public, which I've also inherited over the years, so as an adult I get self-conscious and embarrassed in public too, maybe to a more extreme. So I become more anxious and feel I have to keep up a bland persona and not express any emotions except light happiness, otherwise people look.
When I'm around people like my family or at work, I relax more and be myself, express my emotions, chat away and not have to mask enough to make me exhausted.
I can be shy at large gatherings with a lot of people I don't know, but it's still easier than being around strangers in public, because people at gatherings are there to chat and get to know you, so I find eye contact and smiling more natural.
I tend to avoid eye contact with strangers in public, unless there's a reason to make eye contact then I do automatically. But it's exhausting to avoid eye contact, but I feel more self-conscious in public and feel afraid of meeting people's eyes in case I catch them staring at me and then I feel more self-conscious. Strangers are known to just stare at each other and judge.