I was at a party/gathering recently that I organized, and this one girl was giving me some IOIs. Kept looking at and chatting with me, hugged me before she left and texted afterwards. One thing she said was interesting though. She said that everytime I think nobody's looking I look sad. I'm wondering, does looking sad, or even openly talking about how I deal with my depression, kill my game? This is just an example. I'm obviously not going to explain why I look sad to this girl, if anything AA, but it got me thinking.

I wonder if there are two ways to portray sadness. The first is to complain about it, tall about how things are falling apart and how hard life is. This makes me look weak. But the other way would be to be honest about the struggles I've faced, how I deal with them and how I see beauty in them. This makes me look embattled.

Any thoughts? Obviously I could just shut up and act like I'm okay all the time, but I feel like there are some conversations and contexts where it's better to be honest.