Who To Be But Me

I was thinking yesterday about the notion of posing as someone else. There are many films, television shows and novels that depend upon the conceit of a person pretending to be someone that they are not. Such persons vary in the degree of success with which they carry off this attempt. In the episode of "Remington Steele" I was watching, the titular character managed yet again to maintain the show's central deception, but a guest star failed at the same thing.

I don't know that I would do very well at adopting a false identity. I never have tried really, outside the bounds of acting in character either on camera or on stage. A couple of months ago, I did give a fake name to the guy at a burger restaurant. It was on a night when I had gone in costume to a themed dance performance. Having taken on the garb of a yuppie, I thought it might be amusing to take the name of one as well, and 'Brent' seemed appropriate. I think I managed to pull it off, unless the guy listened to anything I said after that.

Outside of that one incident, I cannot think of another occasion on which I attempted anything of the sort, so you can see that it's not in my nature. People seem to agree that I have a rather indelible personality, and that it is one which serves me very well. It follows that I would have no good reason to want to be someone else, although I can't deny that there are people I could be who would have more money. I haven't yet given up on having that money in my own name yet, though.

Just who would I be? Well, if I'm discarding the idea of a new identity for money, that leaves only become someone else in order to adopt a different persona (if not, for the reasons above, a better one). I certainly would like to be at liberty to act out transgressive fantasies- to be someone who does the things that people wish they could do, but don't because they are wrong. I suppose that's why split personalities develop, if that's a real thing. Maybe that's what I would do: concoct a second personality to house my darker nature. That could be fun.