Doge

You are the one who does not get swept up. Whatever the room is doing, you are half a step behind it, noticing the shape of it, and the line you eventually say is the one people repeat afterwards. It is not coldness. You have already worked out how much of this will matter in a month, and the answer is usually not much.

That distance is also where you hide. Irony is cheap armor: you can say the true thing in a tone that lets you deny you meant it, and after enough years nobody can tell when you are serious, so they stop checking. You end up commenting on your own life instead of living inside it — present for everything, committed to nothing, waiting for somebody to insist. Nobody is going to insist. Your entire manner is a sign telling them not to.

Once a week, say something with no tone on it at all. No joke at the end, no hedge at the front, no escape route. It will feel exposed and mildly stupid. That feeling is what being taken seriously costs, and you have been avoiding the bill for a long time.