The fear of being known
Being seen is observation; being known is vulnerability.

Sometimes, I forget I’m a real person.

Someone who can be seen, acknowledged, recalled. Someone who can be perceived by others. When someone says my name, remembers my birthday, or notices something about me, it feels foreign, like they’re talking about someone else with no ties to myself.

“I thought you hated me when I first met you,” are words I’ve often heard.

“You’re so smart!” “You have kind of a crooked smile.” “Are you always this quiet?”

Is this really how people see me?  What do they notice when they look at me? Is it what I choose to show them? Is it my little, subconscious habits, or the personality I’ve curated in the moment?

I don’t know which version of me people meet. I’m not sure if they’ve ever met the right one.

I can change my behaviour to accommodate the environment I’m in or the people I’m around. I can laugh a little louder, talk a little less, measure how much of my personality I let slip into conversations. But some think I’m anxious because I avoid eye contact. Someone else might think I’m cold and intimidating because I’m quiet. Others think I’m smart because I selectively contribute to the discussion.

None of them are entirely wrong. The most frightening part of being seen is that I am not the sole author of myself. My identity isn’t my designed personality alone—it’s also what others take from it. Being seen means being interpreted, and interpretation doesn’t belong to me. Perhaps this is why so many of us struggle to let people in, to show ourselves fully—because other people can decide for themselves who we are.

Being seen is inherently external. It’s other people’s observations, what other people decide to believe about us. If we want to be seen, it can only be through what others choose to see.

But being known is different. Being known means someone understands why I’m quiet before they assume what it means. Being known means they grasp the hesitation behind the silence before the silence itself.

I steadily manage what I want others to see, but being known means that someone can override that control. I can pretend, but they’ll know anyway. And that thought terrifies me.

What if they take too close of a look and know something I don’t even know? The idea of someone slipping past my veneer of composure and finding a piece of myself tucked away feels foreign, invasive, and vulnerable. Being seen risks misinterpretation, but being known risks rejection. It risks judgement. Being known means someone might not really like who I really am at all.

I used to think that meant I preferred being unseen altogether.

When I was in grade school, my classmates made a habit of checking up on me every day. I’d sit at my desk, quietly doodling eyes and hearts in the margins of my paper, when one of them would approach me. They meant well, asking if I was feeling sad or lonely, but the only thing I ever felt was confusion.

Did I really seem that upset? Did they see me as someone isolated and gloomy? Did they miss the times I’d laugh with my friends over corny novels we read, or when I was excited to wear my new shoes to school? Did no one see me when I smiled, but only took notice when I didn’t?

I learned quickly that if I smiled more, they’d stop asking. If I acted outwardly happy, they’d finally believe I was. If I performed well enough, people would stop worrying. No one would look any deeper. It was easier to manage perception than to correct it.

I didn’t realize how much I had grown used to being misread until someone didn’t.

It began with something small. I was apologizing to a friend over a joke I’d made, worrying that I’d offended them. People usually told me it was hard to tell when I was joking because my facial expression came off as cold or irritated. I didn’t want my friend to think I was taking a jab at them or pointing out a flaw.

But, my friend laughed it off. “Hey, I’m not mad,” they told me. “It’s okay. I can tell when you’re joking and when you’re serious. You make that face. There’s a difference.”

There was a difference?

I was unsettled at first. It felt weird, like I wanted to correct them, but there was nothing for me to say. I almost felt violated in a way, as if my friend had stuck their hand through the careful arrangement of who I presented and found something unedited. It was an odd feeling. Why did they know something about me that I didn’t?

I didn’t know how to respond, so I just laughed. It felt strange—yet somehow, a little freeing. For a moment, someone had known me, or something about me, without me having to show it to them. For a moment, all I had to do was exist. Not perform. Not pretend. Just act the way I did, and someone would understand.

Being known is uncomfortable. It’s vulnerable. It doesn’t make everything suddenly fall into place—instead, it feels like someone picked up a spare bolt I forgot to put back in.

But maybe that’s part of the point. Maybe it’s only in allowing ourselves to be understood that we can stop being invisible even to ourselves. Maybe in being known, I can reintroduce my name, my experiences, my own self back to me.

I’m still learning how to let people in, to be seen and known without fear. But when it happens, it’s a quiet reminder that beneath all the curated expressions and the careful management of perception, there is a self that is real; and that someone else can see it too.