Haveo · Networking when you are ADHD, autistic or dyslexic
Masking at work events
Masking is why a two-hour event costs a whole day. You cannot switch it off on command, but you can shorten the evening and drop the parts nobody is checking — eye contact, matching energy, the face you hold between sentences.
Where the cost actually comes from
Not the conversations. The continuous background monitoring — your expression, your volume, whether that was the right amount of enthusiasm.
That is why you can leave an event having spoken to three people and be unable to do anything else that night.
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Drop what nobody is scoring
- Eye contact is the big one. Looking near someone's eyes is indistinguishable from across a table and costs a fraction as much.
- The neutral face you hold between sentences is doing nothing for anyone. Nobody is reading it.
- Matching someone's energy is optional. Calm and interested is a perfectly normal way to be at a work event.
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Shorten the evening instead of improving the performance
Ninety minutes masked is a different object from four hours masked. Deciding the end time in advance is the single biggest lever here.
Two real conversations and out beats a full evening of holding it together for people whose names you will not keep.
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Plan the day after
If the event is Thursday night, do not schedule anything demanding Friday morning. This is not indulgence, it is the actual cost of the thing you just did.
Treating the recovery as part of the event is what makes it sustainable rather than something you dread and cancel.
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Preparation reduces masking directly
Most of the effort goes into improvising — producing a sentence about yourself, finding the next question, judging when to leave.
Written and rehearsed, those three stop being live performance. That is the mechanism, and it is why preparation helps here more than confidence advice ever does.
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Rehearse it before you walk in.
Haveo builds your intro, lets you practice out loud with an AI coach, and keeps your notes one tap away in the room. Free on iPhone and iPad.
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