you know sometimes you just look back at your whole life and realize how many times you’ve been duped by superficial kindness... like you spend years thinking you have these real connections with people but it’s all just transactional at its core and it really makes you wonder about everything that came before this point... i remember this fitness instructor i used to have... bright young woman... so full of energy and she was always so friendly to us during class... calling us by name... asking about our weekends... you genuinely thought she cared... and then you’d see her outside the gym... at the grocery store or something... and she’d completely look through you... like you were invisible... a ghost... and it wasn't just once... it was consistent... every single time... then later i figured out why... everyone in our class would get these little discounts on her private sessions because we were "regulars"... and suddenly it clicked... the smiles... the chatter... it was all just a performance for the bottom line... for the future business. and it makes you wonder about all the other times... all the other people... like when you’re a student now... and you see the way people act... you see the way they smile and engage... and you can’t help but think... is this genuine... or is this just because we’re in the same study group... or because we share a professor... is it because they think you have something to offer... some old knowledge... some experience... that they can exploit... you just get this creeping suspicion that most human interaction is just this thinly veiled exchange... and that real... unconditional connection... is vanishingly rare... almost mythical... it’s a pretty bleak thought when you’re trying to build a new life... make new friends... but you just can’t shake that feeling that everyone is just sizing you up... looking for the angle. it’s like you spend all this time... your whole life almost... believing in the good... in the sincerity... and then little by little these moments accumulate... these tiny betrayals of expectation... and they form this mosaic of disappointment... and suddenly you’re 70-something and sitting here at 2am trying to write a paper on postmodernism and all you can think about is how much of your past was probably just an illusion... a carefully constructed illusion... and you wonder if you’ll ever really truly trust anyone again... not in that naive, open-hearted way... just really trust... and what that means for what little time you have left.