The Day I Discovered Everyone Was Pretending

It happened during one of those lectures where the hall was unusually quiet.

The lecturer was explaining a topic that I had not read before.

I was trying very hard to look like I understood what was happening. Not because I wanted to deceive or impress anybody, I just did not want to be the only one looking confused. So, I did what everyone else seemed to be doing. I nodded occasionally, looked at the slides, wrote things down in my note.

Every now and then, I even made that serious face people make when they're trying to convince themselves that they're following.

Inside my head, however, there was absolutely nothing. I might as well have been listening to someone speak another language.

Then the lecturer asked a question.

And there was silence in heaven.😂

I looked around. Nobody moved.

The lecturer asked again.

Still nothing.

I thought, Okayyyyyy, maybe I'm not the only one.

Then someone at the back whispered,“Please, what did she just say?”

Omo I nearly laughed.

Another person whispered back,“I have no idea.”

Someone else leaned forward and said,“Same.”

That was when I started looking around properly.

The person beside me had three pages of notes. I had assumed she was following everything. She wasn't.

The person in front had been nodding confidently throughout the lecture. He turned around and whispered,“Do you understand this thing?”

I stared at him.“No.”

He sighed. “Thank God.”

I laughed under my breath.

And just like that, the atmosphere changed.

People started admitting what they had been too embarrassed to say out loud. "I haven't even read the topic.”

“I read it yesterday and still don't understand it.”

“Wait, are we supposed to know this already?”

“Which textbook are you guys using?”

“Please, somebody explain this part.”

Within five minutes, the classroom had transformed.

The people who had looked completely prepared were asking questions.

The people who had seemed confident were confused.

The people I had assumed were far ahead were apparently struggling with the exact same thing I was struggling with.

And I sat there thinking about all the times I would looked around the classroom and decided that everyone else had figured it out.

They hadn't. They were just better at looking like they had. That realization was strangely comforting. Not because I wanted other people to struggle, but because I finally understood how little I actually knew about what was happening inside someone else's head.

You can look at somebody's notes and think oh they're ahead.

You can see them answer one question and assume they understand the entire topic.

You can watch someone walk confidently into an exam hall and assume they are not scared.

You can see someone laughing in class and never know that they were up half the night studying.

Everyone carries things you don't see.

That day, after the lecture, a few of us stayed behind to go through the topic together.

Someone brought out their textbook. Another person opened their notes.

We started comparing what we each understood.

There was a lot of, “Wait, so that's what this means?”

and “Ohhh, I thought it was saying something else.”

At some point, we all started laughing. The same topic that had made everyone look so serious thirty minutes earlier had become a group discussion full of confusion, corrections and terrible explanations.

But somehow, by the time we left, it made more sense. I walked back to my room thinking about that lecture. For weeks, I had been comparing myself to people based on what I could see.

Their notes, confidence, answers, speed.

I had been using those things as evidence that I was behind, but I had never considered that I was comparing my private struggles with somebody else's public appearance.

And that is not a fair comparison. I still get intimidated sometimes, still walk into lectures and wonder whether everyone understands something except me.

But now, I'm a little more willing to ask. “Does anybody actually understand this?”

Because sometimes, the answer is the most comforting thing you can hear: “No.”

And then somebody laughs. Someone opens their book. Another person pulls up their notes.

And suddenly, you realize you were not as alone as you thought.