If a coworker who used to join group lunches suddenly starts eating alone every day, something more important than introversion is happening. They've likely hit the point where the gap between who they are at work and who they actually are became too expensive to maintain over a sandwich. - Silicon Canals

"Research suggests that individuals who report being unable to behave as their authentic selves experience measurably worse psychological and social well-being compared to those who feel they can. When someone who used to pull up a chair and laugh through a group lunch starts disappearing to eat alone at their desk, or in their car, or on a bench outside, the actual read, almost always, is that the performance required to sit at that table and be the version of themselves everyone expects became more exhausting than the loneliness of eating alone."

"I spent most of my twenties maintaining a version of myself at work that was pleasant, agreeable, always ready with a question about someone else's weekend so I'd never have to answer honestly about my own. The lunch table was the stage where that performance ran five days a week, forty-five minutes a day. And I remember the exact period when I stopped going. Not because I suddenly became introverted. Because I ran out of fuel for the character."

"There's a concept that gets tossed around in leadership and HR circles: 'bring your whole self to work.' It sounds liberating. But workplace culture observers have explored how that advice, in practice, often collides with the reality of what workplaces actually reward. Most environments reward a curated self, a self that knows which opinions to voice, which emotions to display, which parts of their weekend to narrate on Monday morning."

Research demonstrates that individuals unable to express their authentic selves experience significantly worse psychological and social well-being. Workplace withdrawal often signals not introversion but exhaustion from maintaining a curated professional persona. The author describes spending years performing an agreeable version of themselves at work, eventually abandoning social lunch gatherings due to emotional depletion from the performance. Despite corporate messaging about bringing one's whole self to work, most workplace cultures actually reward curated versions of employees—those who carefully filter opinions, emotions, and personal narratives. This gap between authentic and curated selves creates what is termed the authenticity tax, a cost paid by employees who suppress their true identities.

Read at Silicon Canals