DEAR ABBY: I'm 15 and need some advice. I have tons of friends, but whenever I am around them it seems like I can't be myself. I act like someone totally different from who I really am.
I want to stop acting, but I'm scared they won't accept me for me. I have had a bad past with people. Let's just say that instead of being queen of the school, I was queen of the losers. So now I'm, like, popular, but it sucks because I feel so fake. I love my friends, so I'm hoping if I reveal myself they will accept it. I don't know what to do and would really like to know what you think. -- "FAKE" IN GARDEN GROVE, CALIF.
DEAR "FAKE": I say, go for it. But start slowly in revealing your true self, so your friends will have time to accept the "real" you.
This may seem like a hard choice, but you are paying a high price for your popularity. The way I see it, if you are pretending to be someone you aren't, then your friends aren't really your friends -– they are only friends of the persona you have constructed.
William Shakespeare said it best:
"This above all, to thine own self be true,
"And it must follow, as the night the day,
"Thou can't not then be false to any man."