The party example is a good point. A very common thing is to go to a friends party as a show of support for their thing, and to, for lack of a better word, have numbers be good. But it's not inauthentic to support your friend's thing! Sometimes you do a thing because it's for someone else.

And when the wave of departures happen... there is a mix of "I also wanted to leave", but "oh I guess it's time to leave" is another, and "oh I'm not totally done but it's starting to end so" are all on the spectrum of possibilities, and ones that I've held.

I think this group behavior is ... authentic and human. Acting on what you are thinking, at its extreme, is kind of indistinguishable from having no impulse control.

I feel that people, these days, are more free to express their "inner voice," more often.

In some cases, this is good. In others, it is bad.

One of the rationalizations that I hear, for "hate jockeys," is "Hey, they're just saying what everyone thinks!".

There's a reason that we don't say everything that we think. We're actually experiencing object lessons, in exactly this, in society, these days.

In my case, basic courtesy is why I "behave unauthentically." It's not lying, or even dishonesty. It's basic human relations.

Extreme example:

I'm routinely dealing with the types of people many folks in "polite society" think should be euthanized. It sucks, when those people say what they think.

When we say "These people should be killed/hurt," then some folks take the rhetoric as support for their actions.

People are complicated animals, just because I have a personal preference or a personal tendency, doesn't mean it is inauthentic to exercise self-control in pursuit of a larger, different goal.