How To Be Authentic

Ahaha. This is probably one of the topics I’ll enjoy writing about the most, especially because the person I’m writing to, the one who asked me for this piece, is asking me something as if I had a magical formula hidden in my pocket. Alright, jokes aside, let me go straight into my fully formed opinion on authenticity.

Authenticity lives inside us. There is no simpler way to say it. Even then, it is relative. What feels like a genuine expression of self to me might be completely unimaginable, or even slightly performative or unnatural, to someone else. That is the whole point. It is about embracing who we are as a whole. It is about choosing, every single day, to act in alignment with what we feel or believe. Whether we express that through the clothes we wear or the music we listen to does not matter much, because at the end of the day, the only thing that truly counts is feeling good about who we are, or at least about the version of ourselves we allow others to see.

And here is where most people get lost. They confuse authenticity with rebellion, or with being loud, or with being different for the sake of being different. But authenticity is quieter than that. It is subtle. It is the way you speak when you forget to impress. It is the way you laugh when you are not trying to be charming. It is the way your eyes soften when you talk about something that matters to you. Authenticity is not a performance; it is the absence of one. And that is why so few people manage to hold onto it. It requires comfort with being seen, even when what is seen is imperfect.

Another thing people rarely admit is that authenticity demands courage. Not the heroic kind, but the everyday kind. The courage to say no when it would be easier to say yes. The courage to walk away from what does not feel right, even if it looks good from the outside. The courage to disappoint others in order not to disappoint yourself. And above all, the courage to accept that being authentic will not always make you liked, but it will always make you real. That is a trade‑off most people are terrified to make.

And then there is the vulnerability of it all. Being authentic means exposing the parts of you that are not polished, not curated, not strategically placed. It means letting someone see the chaos behind the calm, the doubts behind the confidence, the softness behind the sarcasm. It means admitting that you are still figuring things out. And that is why authenticity is magnetic. Because when someone dares to be real, it gives everyone around them permission to breathe.

You, yes you, my dear, are a dilemma. I still struggle to understand whether you are completely out of your mind, emotionally bruised, or simply the strangest, most unexpectedly original, and therefore authentic person I have met in the last six months.

Crazy to process and even crazier to coexist with, your presence and your entire package have taught me a lot about how wildly different people can be. And on the other hand, being with you has proven something important. When people strip away the superficial layers, they become unmistakably unique. For better or worse, you can finally see how special they truly are, or could be.

Does that make someone authentic? Hmmm, controversial. But as much as it annoys me to admit it, yes, you are.

Not because I like you a little more every three days and a little less every four. But because you are genuinely special. The irony in all of this is that authenticity is not about chasing some mystical state. It is about living faithfully to who we are, without fear of being judged for showing what we are made of. That is the path. And it is precisely because of that, among other things, that I am certain of the authentic person you are, someone who is searching intensely for answers that will eventually appear with time.

Maybe the recipe is a mix of self‑confidence and the desire to become better based on who we choose to be or what we aim to achieve. Waking up every day and owning our moment. Expressing ourselves without second thoughts or hesitation. Being ourselves when we look in the mirror and when we look at the world.

I believe I have always been authentic in my own way. I have always looked at certain people and wondered what they had, how easily they made certain things seem. But that never made me want to replicate something that was not part of me. And that is exactly where you stand out. You do not replicate. From the very first day, you were someone who never tried to impress me in the usual ways, which was strange and honestly surprising. I have always been with women who, even subtly, tried to impress me somehow. You showed me something else. An unreal ability to be raw. Spontaneous, even when spontaneity might seem like a sin. A wide range of interests that have nothing to do with what I was used to. Everything I mentioned forms your authenticity, not as a recipe that leads to a final product, but as a path you walked unintentionally that made you, in my eyes, one of the most authentic people out there. And your interests pulled me in so much that I wanted to explore them just to keep you close.

Authentic or not, crazy or not, I would rather have you than not have you.

Au revoir.