[I am convinced that/please don't put your face into your hands] we could be friends

you don't fool me for a second.  you're just as insecure, unsure and confused as the rest of us.  you put up a good front.  impressive, really.  I bet you fool a lot of people.  not me.  I see through the façade.  does that make you nervous?  I bet it does, but it's okay.  I won't tell anyone the truth.  It will be our little secret.  I want to be the one to scare you and then tell you everything will be okay.  it's scary to let someone in past the wall you've spent so much time building.  lucky for you, I don't need you to tear it down completely; I've got x-ray vision.  I suppose I could use your façade against you.  or I could hate you for it.  I'd rather not.  I would rather ask you why it's there at all.  It makes me sad that you think you need it.  I just want to understand why.  I want to understand you.  I want to understand everyone.  does anyone really want anything more than to understand and be understood?  I think that's what love really is--understanding.  I refuse to pretend anything less than being understood is enough.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."