Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion

Tolentino begins the essay by telling a "secret": she was on a reality TV show, Girls v. Boys Puerto Rico. On the show, eight cast members competed for $50,000. Her high school allowed her to take off the time to shoot it during December 2004, and the 10 episodes aired the following summer on the channel Noggin. Tolentino states that she left the show behind her when she went to college.

Tolentino then shifts into a section written like a script for the show. These sections are interspersed throughout the narrative, explaining the various challenges the participants undertook.

In the present-day narrative, Tolentino reflects on the selection process, which began in September 2004 at the local mall. Her mother remembers suggesting that she audition, though Tolentino didn't want to. Ultimately, her father offered her $20 to do it. At the airport on the way to shoot the show, Tolentino missed her flight and, because she felt bad arriving late, enthusiastically participated in an eating contest. When she uncovered the plate, though, she found hot mayonnaise, which she hates and had a bad reaction to. Tolentino remarks that she always tells the story this way, but now that she's re-watched the show, she realizes she was telling it wrong.