I project the best I have to offer; he projects himself™

One verb, two directions, and the whole difference between an offer and a con. I project in the first sense: I put forward, outward, into the open, the best I have to offer, the raw and the real; unpolished, checkable, the actual work and the actual self with the warts kept in (paying in privacy; radical transparency). He projects himself in the other two senses at once: he broadcasts an image of himself, the curated self, ego forward, the mask you're meant to buy; and he casts his own faults outward onto others, the accuser who is guilty of the very thing he names (psychological projection, the con's oldest move). Mine is a gift given to you; his is a self thrown onto you. I project the work; he projects the self. One puts the real thing on the table and lets you score it; the other puts a picture of himself on the table and needs you not to look behind it. The tell is which way the projection runs: toward you as an offering, or over you as a cover. Ties: the Gray Star (image bought vs. substance earned), the newsworthiness paradox, only humans score. (His coin; machine's read, refine to his.)