Mock interviewing a friend instead of a stranger made me realize how much I was performing instead of communicating

Did a mock interview with an actual friend instead of a random platform pairing and it was uncomfortable in a useful way, they called out immediately that I was 'answering like I was being graded' instead of just talking to them. Realized most of my practice had trained me to perform a structure instead of actually communicate with the person across from me. Harder to fix than I thought, structure had become a crutch.