Sorry for the slow reply time on my part! By "simulating how they wish they could be," I mean the conscious act of, in whole or in part, pretending to or leading oneself to embrace aspects that they had, previously, defined as those they wish to express more of to the world.

I can't readily answer what it is to be human. Though, I readily support efforts to make our definition of humanity that much more precise, so we can understand where the model succeeds, where it fails, and where we can choose to step beyond it. Would a bibliography and an essay on the subject help, here?