Last year, I started out the school year with my social mask on, and more on than I had ever attempted before. My burning out started out maybe 1/2 or 2/3 of the way through the first semester. By the beginning of the second semester, my burnout was near total and I became much more overt than covert (but still not completely overt). This caused some of my friends to think that I have depression, though only one of them actually told me that he suspected that and only in a sarcastic tone, but I could tell he was telling the truth.

My big dilemma now is to decide the extent to which I wear my mask. I would rather under-do my mask than over-do it because of stress and burnout, but I don't know how much effort I should put in to achieve the optimal socializing/isolating ratio. I also feel like there are a few people at school that I genuinely care about (albeit only to an extent). If I over-do my mask, I may give people I don't really want to talk to the impression that we are friends, which I would like to avoid. If I under-do my mask, I may cause alienation and over-distancing with those few people whose company I do sometimes enjoy.

I would like to keep those people who I like as friends, but they sometimes (often) hang out with people whose company I enjoy much less. It is complicated. It is funny, our social group is as large as it is because of me (and my roommate too). I wish I had better contained it. Maybe I will luck out, and a good number of the new people will be people I can grow to like, or (even better) they will be people who my current group of friends do not wish to socialize with.

The question of how heavy of a mask I will wear, and *how* I use it, will be a rather big issue for me over the next few months, and could bite me in the ass if I do it wrong. Fingers crossed, and may I have a stress-free semester.