The STEM mask. I look like your typical STEM-brained antisocial shitlib, and I have to hide my actual views on things to be able to even get my foot in the door doing honest tech work.

In reality, I’m an anarchist communist, a musician with a passion for death metal, and I’m tired of being reasonable with people who want to kill us. I’m bad at socializing, not antisocial.

But ironically I’m actually a lot more “math nerd” than I even let on because it turns out that engineers don’t know how math works and that makes them scared, so I have to keep all my serious math stuff to myself.

Edit: I’m also a lot more fragile, emotional, and fearful than I let on. I look (and act, and am) a lot like a “man’s man”, and I’m 100% comfortable with my cishet identity, but I do find it obnoxious to explain to people that I’m still human and feel feelings.