This is probably an unfair title.

LinkedIn is just the easiest symbol for something broader I have never been very comfortable with: professional performance.

Not professional work.

The performance around it.

Maintaining visibility. Building a personal brand. Posting frequently enough that people remember you exist. Meeting people because networking is strategically useful. Turning ordinary thoughts into content. Announcing every small achievement in a tone that suggests a bell should be rung somewhere in the town square.

I understand why these things matter.

That is partly what annoys me.

You can build something excellent in your bedroom and reality is under no obligation to discover it. People need to know the thing exists. At some point they also need to know you exist.

Historically I have been much more comfortable with the first half.

I can spend a long time making something privately. I can explain it endlessly if somebody asks. I can discuss why one decision was wrong, why another one survived, what I still dislike about it, and exactly which part broke at 3 AM.

Then I am supposed to voluntarily write:

Hey, I made this. You should look at it.

And somehow that is the difficult sentence.

There is probably a mix of introversion, self-consciousness, habit, and plain lack of practice in there.

I also think I have spent years treating attention as something that needs to be justified before I ask for it.

Which creates a wonderfully circular system:

Nobody knows about the work because I do not show it.

I do not feel justified showing it because nobody knows about the work.

Very efficient.

I’ve joked recently that I need a PR buddy.

Not a code reviewer. Literally somebody who likes the public-relations side of making things more than I do. Someone whose brain works enough like mine that we understand each other, but whose strengths happen to live somewhere near my weaknesses.

Maybe they like positioning, communication, marketing, community, or simply saying the sentence I keep avoiding.

Maybe in return they have a technical problem they are sick of staring at.

The more I think about it, the less ridiculous that sounds.

We spend a lot of time talking about becoming well-rounded people. I am not sure that is how most good things are actually made.

People are uneven.

Sometimes they are uneven in compatible directions.

I still need to get better at showing my work. This website is one attempt. So is writing this instead of waiting until I have some triumphant success story worth posting about.

But I do not particularly want an audience for the sake of having an audience.

Five people who understand what I am building, know what I am good at, and occasionally think of me when something relevant appears may change my life more than ten thousand people who vaguely recognize my avatar.

Maybe that is still networking.

I may simply have spent years hating the word more than the thing itself.