The Artificial Smile at the Office Birthday Gathering

Dear Delyara, I sat at the very edge of a long, noisy table tonight for a colleague's birthday dinner, completely surrounded by people who were sharing drinks and telling loud stories about their weekends. I spent three full hours performing—nodding at the right cues and forcing my face into a polite, empty smile. But inside my own ribs, I felt a vast, freezing distance that made the whole room feel like a hollow movie played on mute. The isolation you feel when you are physically alone in a quiet room is manageable. But the loneliness that hits you when you are surrounded by laughing faces while trapped behind a thick wall of glass is a heavy, suffocating ache that makes you want to disappear.