QUOTE : To communicate an identity requires some degree of self-delusion. A performer, in order to be convincing, must conceal ‘the discreditable facts that he has had to learn about the performance; in everyday terms, there will be things he knows, or has known, that he will not be able to tell himself.’ The interviewee, for example, avoids thinking about the fact that his biggest flaw actually involves drinking at the office. A friend sitting across from you at dinner, called to play therapist for your trivial romantic hang-ups, has to pretend to herself that she wouldn’t rather just go home and get in bed to read Barbara Pym. No audience has to be physically present for a performer to engage in this sort of selective concealment: a woman, home along fro the weekend, might scrub the baseboards and watch nature documentaries even though she’d rather trash the place, buy an eight ball, and have a Craigslist orgy. People often make faces, in private, in front of bathroom mirrors, to convince themselves of their own attractiveness. The ‘lively belief that an unseen audience is present’, Goffman writes, can have a significant effect.