put up a front

“It’s very empowering for me to know that people are looking at me for what is actually me and not the façade that I put up in the cis-heteronormative world. I’m being witnessed without any effort from me to put up a front. I feel very safe, I feel very held by community.”

I feel like I’m the opposite — I’m the type of person who tends to hold everything in and bury it, and tries to put up a front and pretend to be tough like nothing hurts me.

I found it easier to put up a front of indifference and belittlement than to take a chance of there being a greater hurt later.

“He always told me stories about who he really was, and he never tried to put up a front to impress me.”

Because you got a lot of people who will put up a front, to save face.