Death by Cosplay

Here is why the current human social operating system’s rules about intimacy and bonding are wrong. In the current model, people are expected to present enhanced surface personas as signals for attraction. Yes, there is a natural attraction component that is necessary for passion to emerge, but the story around which “identity roles” are perceived creates a proxy self that people attempt to bond with. This is no more than a fantasy of a person.

For example, pursuing social status or roles of fame and relevance creates a fantasy version of the self that must regularly perform in order to “stay real” through continued observation and approval. This automatically creates distance in intimacy, since these structures or identity overlays are themselves phenomena of perception dictated by arbitrary, unexamined assumptions. Intimacy requires vulnerability, transparency, exposure, integration, continuity, and responsibility. If the surface persona or “projected status identity” is the conduit through which one is attempting to receive another person, they are, by definition, not present in the way intimacy would need in order to be shared.

This is a form of cosplay that the human species engages in as a way of satisfying its underlying biological needs. To be “good at love” in this system is to be attractive, confident, composed, fun, high-status, interesting, socially successful, and emotionally stable. That is not intimacy; that is performance management.

The human mating system is itself a mixture of instantaneous biological responses and identity projection, designed to create a “container experience” for the underlying reality of need, suffering, existential anguish, and the unknown in which we exist. To have instincts that force need on the deepest level is the part of us we hide, because they represent unavoidable knowledge of “inherent need without reason,” which means that we exist in a determined way without any choice in the matter.

It is interesting that, even if one is attractive, if they refuse to portray any persona, they are perceived as giving “autism vibes,” since it collapses the narrative or container necessary to create the fantasy. If the fantasy collapses and the undeniable human need that we all know is the reality underneath our projections appears, desire can no longer feed on the surface image safely because the truth has obliterated the compartmentalization necessary to feast upon it.

Here is the truth: if you pursue surface persona or status identity, you will only become more attractive to those who seek refuge in fantasy. To work on the image or surface construct as a means to attain the intimacy you desire will only make you “more unreal.”

This does not mean that self-care and physical attractiveness are irrelevant. It means that the surface “plugins” and identity roles that portray specialness, dominance, or importance beyond what is truly life are distortions that create barriers to intimacy. The very means by which we attempt to solve our needs are the very behaviors that create constructs that obstruct the aim.

If you build an identity in this manner as a means to “attract intimacy,” you will only have created for yourself the ultimate test: can you now demolish the persona that is now the barrier between yourself and the intimacy you claim to want? This is the most difficult test, because it requires withdrawing investment from the world of illusions, and this itself feels like a terror of death. You will be rejected if seen as you truly are by the majority of those still trapped in the theater.

So I exist in a way that I did not choose, but I do not need to be ashamed of this imposition. What is truly desired is someone else who will not punish you for refusing to continue playing. Although, if you keep playing, you are the one who is refusing integration.

Years ago, I too went on the quest to enhance the exterior and its perceived status in an attempt to attract intimacy into my life. With the surface container I created—i.e., successful musician—I only became lonelier and more cut off from others. This is because I was the same person with the same needs that existed before the surface enhancement. It was this need itself that was leaking through the exterior construct, and it was detected by those in the fantasy world, who found it distasteful. If you appear to have that which is coveted as a means to be invulnerable, to still have vulnerability is a violation of the fantasy construct.

This is why I continually destroyed the image each time I felt it suffocating me, and would post long honest writings about the true anguish and paradoxes of life as a human being. My attempt to reduce distance by creating what is considered acceptable affirmed and solidified the very distance I was trying to collapse between myself and others.

I learned this around 2012, and have since been understanding more and more why I responded the way I did and why I made the decisions I did.

We have a problem in humanity and it is this: The very strategies we are taught (and incentivized) to use to “attract intimacy” are the precise mechanisms that make genuine intimacy structurally impossible.

• Surface persona + status signaling + performance management = fantasy container
• The fantasy container is designed to protect from vulnerability while simulating closeness
• Real intimacy requires the demolition of that container
• Demolishing it feels like death because it means withdrawing investment from the entire social theater of approval, observation, and projection
• Therefore, the majority will punish or reject the one who refuses to play — not necessarily out of malice (although this happens), but because the refusal collapses their own safe fantasy space

This creates a perfect inverted incentive structure:

• To be “good at love” in the current system = to be masterful at cosplay
• To be masterful at cosplay = to become more unreal
• To become more unreal = to become less capable of the transparency, integration, continuity, and responsibility that actual intimacy demands

Therefore, the better you get at the game, the further you move from the thing you claim to want.