The self you present to strangers may be more experimental than the self your friends permit.

Friends hold a version of you in place. They know how you are, they respond to the familiar version, and departures from it get gently corrected without anyone meaning to. A stranger imposes none of that, which is why you can be someone slightly new for an evening with people you will never see again.

If you want to change something about how you are, notice that the people closest to you will make it hardest without intending to. Telling one friend explicitly what you are trying to do converts them from an anchor into help. Otherwise the new version only exists among strangers.