Fake it Til You Make It

"Fake it 'til you make it."

Conway stared at the words until his nose wrinkled up. Then he turned the book this way and that. Upside-down. Over his nose. As if each perspective of the sentence would somehow make things clearer to him. Then he tossed the book across the bed.

"I don't like it," he hmphed, placing both hands behind his head as he leaned back. His nose was still scrunched up in annoyance. "What's that? Just a fancy way of saying 'sorry, society doesn't like you how you are, so please conform to this specific way in which we expect you to be.' With added 'and we really hope you stop remembering what you were before, because that version was bad.' I don't like it."

He let his arms move in front of his chest, crossing them as he glared daggers at the book.

"Seriously though. Why say that to someone? Why not just say 'learn how to do things a different way' or 'keep trying even though it's hard.' This way is stupid."

With each word, he got just a bit more worked up, bouncing in place until the book was nearly bounced off the top of the bed. Rather than let that happen, he was the one who found his feet planted on the floor. He paced back and forth along the length of the bed, legs almost brushing against the sheets as he did. His eyes were fixed on some point along the ceiling, as if he expected to find the words up there to express why the saying sat so jarringly in his head. When he worked it out, he gestured at the book with both hands, debating against some invisible author.

"I don't want to be a fake! I'm me! And I'm certainly not going to fake some action until I make some arbitrary goal. Who cares! Who's trying to score me? Who's sitting behind me telling me that what I'm doing is weird or inappropriate or that I should pretend to be 'normal' because I don't fit in. Hell to that! I don't want to fit in. Learn how to do things so I don't offend someone else, yes. Learn how to respond to something so I can better communicate what I want, yes. But like hell am I going to fake anything."

He hissed, crossing his arms again and sticking his nose in the air. "Stupid book. Who wrote you anyway?"

Lifting the cover as if it was something dead that he really didn't want to touch, he flipped to the section that told him who'd written the material. The sneer he was wearing got just a bit worse.

"'Doctor' ey? Who gave this joke a psychology degree?"

He let the cover fall closed again. Whatever emotion he was carrying dropped away from his face and he shrugged. Eh.

---

About three hours later, a chair was set up on the sidewalk outside. There was a single book on top of it with a cardboard sign which read.

Free Book: If you want bad advice.

(chair is not free, please leave here. thx.)

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A while ago, someone evaluating me during my testing for autism said that I should change how I acted in class by "faking it 'til I made it."

No thanks, supposed professional. I will not "act normal" for your entertainment.

I will learn how to respond to a situation. I will then chose to use that knowledge or not, thank you kindly.

It was in regards to how often I talked in class. My solution which I came up with? Checking in with the teacher some time early on in the semester, made them aware that I'm very chatty and will raise my hand a lot, but that I am absolutely alright if they don't call on me. And if I'm ever any trouble that they may talk to me about it.

Much better than "just pretend you're like the other students and be quiet."

I've had at least 4 professors since, including my absolute favorite, tell me there class wouldn't be as lively without my input.

The important part is communication. The normalization of what it means to be truly yourself is important. Faking it would have never worked for me. What I needed was to learn the middle ground between what was expected of me and what I was willing to do. I wont settle for fake and neither will my characters.