An Actor: On Stage and Off

By: Krutika Surve

Manipulation comes into our lives in many different ways. It sneaks up on us. It sneaks up on us and pulls out the rug from under us causing us to fall. We eventually question ourselves on how we fell. “I must have slipped.” We convince ourselves that it was our fault. Isn’t that the whole point? The unfortunate part about it is that we are almost never aware of the impact people have on us until it comes to them controlling us. We never learn from these experiences until they happen and something goes horribly wrong.

But in these cases, there are other people to blame and steer clear of. We have picked up the red flags along the way, preparing us for our next encounter. We know what to listen for and analyze people’s behaviors. But during all of this, we still fall victim to manipulation. In this case it is because we are unintentionally hurting ourselves.

I can’t tell you how fantastic it feels to make people laugh. The energy I get from it is almost addictive. I love being an artist and I love being a performer. The feeling of an audience watching you on stage, supporting, listening to your story and laughing at your jokes is indescribable. The feeling of someone admiring a work of art you made is exhilarating. To be frank, I can be a vain person. Regardless, I love that feeling of admiration. The sad thing is, I don’t get that feeling as often as I would like. Sometimes I’m not ​feeling funny, sometimes I’m not loud enough, and sometimes I’m just ​not funny enough.

Somehow, through that desire to be admired by my peers, I have convinced myself that people will dislike me if I am not entertaining, thus warping my personality into what I think people would like. I am performing, on stage and off.

It’s like social media has crept its way into my day-to-day life. I was born in the late-90s. Social media quickly became a staple early in our lives in middle school, and continued on into our early twenties. Through this, I learned the importance of social media clout. Now people can give some bullshit about how it “doesn’t matter how many followers you have or how many likes you get.” In reality, it does matter. Hell, people have made full-time jobs out of having clout. It just should not affect how people see themselves. When people like me start altering their online persona to gain that clout, it becomes so much more confusing. Changing the types of photos we post, what we share via Instagram stories, or what we tweet, allows “likes” to become some form of validation for those with rooted insecurities (i.e., me). Somewhere along the way, the line between me and my online persona faded. Now I am constantly performing for other people, and not performing particularly well.

Looking at how I dress, how I interact with others, the cadence I speak in, what I share and what I don’t share; it’s all been altered by what I think people want to see and hear from me. I have taken traits from people I admire and put it into this character that I am consistently personifying. This has been so ingrained into my brain, I don’t know how to act otherwise. I don’t know who I am otherwise. It’s no longer a personification but it’s my personality. I don’t even know if I’m nice to people because I’m a good person or because that’s just what people want from me. It’s more appealing to be kind than to be mean. It applies to everything. Do I not lie because it’s unethical or because I do not want to be caught? Am I wearing this shirt because I think it’s cute or because other people will think I have a cool fashion sense? Do I like this song because it brings me joy or because it gives me an edge?

Every action and choice I have made and continue to make is directly correlated with how other people would respond to them.

It gets to the point that if I do something “out of character” or I don’t get the response that I was expecting, I dwell on it for ages and it affects my performance for the next show. I create this idea that people don’t like me, and they will continue to not like me until I change their mind. During COVID, I have had limited face-to-face social interactions, so when I do have one, I overcompensate just to stop them from disliking me.

I am not blaming social media for my insecurities. I am not blaming it on how I go about my life. Just because that was my response to social media doesn’t mean it’s inherently bad. I guess the best version that you could use in social media is being unapologetically yourself and having the followers and likes come through that. In that case, the likes are for you and not for some character that has been created.

This is manipulation. In this case, I am the victim and the perpetrator. Using a fear of something, being disliked by people, to control me and my behavior. And the sad part is that I don’t even think it even works. I am still disliked or even just not perceived at all.

I am aware of this flaw that I have. The lasting effects caused by manipulation can only be rectified once you’re aware. I am getting better at it, ever so slowly. I’m gradually realizing that nobody really cares if you are not constantly entertaining them. They can entertain themselves. But now I am left to figure out who I am without the need of validation from others. Perhaps, one day I hope to become a better, kinder and funnier person on my own terms.