just be yourself
I am a girl, and thus it is an accepted fact that it would be embarrassing for me to admit in general society that I like cars, Formula 1 and motorbikes. It would also be a social faux pas for me to proudly thrust hand upon heart and declare to all and sundry that I also do not possess one iota of interest in fashion, clothes, or anything pink.
First impressions: one would assume that I am a bit of a tomboy, or a lesbian. Incidentally, I’m not either one. I don’t quite slot into either of those categories. However, and this brings me neatly to my main contention: it seems to me that social conventions and stereotypes in modern life have become so strict and restrictive that, while we weren’t looking, our lives have suddenly become entirely ruled by them.
I hesitantly use myself as an example. I, who according to friends, dress like an old man trapped in a woman’s body, quite like cars and driving them. I can change the spark plug in most vehicles, and I know that a ‘chassis’ is not some Edwardian form of restrictive undergarment. Yet, in juxtaposition to all this, I like doing my hair, putting on mascara, and I take pride in my appearance. Although I thought Manolo Blahnik was an ice-cream flavour and not a shoe designer, I enjoy dressing up in a sexy little black dress and hitting the town with my girlfriends. I also enjoy reading 19th century English literature, and spend a lot of my spare time watching BBC documentaries and dreaming of the day when I have enough money to re-trace Phillius Fogg’s steps around the world, in 80 days.
Depending on what day you meet me, and what sort of mood I’m currently sporting, you could easily describe me in one of three ways: a tomboy, a girly-girl, or a nerd. I’m ever-changing, and my personality and dress-sense is as ephemeral as the weather. I’m happy with this, but for some obscure reason, society is not. And this bloody annoys me. Why do I have to slot into one distinct category? Surely, at the end of the day, we’re all human beings?
I remember studying the play ‘Hedda Gabbler’, written by Ibsen, when I was 17 and in school. To give you a brief run-down, Hedda Gabbler was basically an attractive, wealthy aristocrat who was strangled by the strict social conventions of her time and has suppressed her true being to the point where she married some bloke that she wasn’t happy with, grew to hate him, and ended the play abruptly by emptying a gun into her brain. To a point, Gabbler’s life somewhat mirrors my own. Well, without the suicide. And the wealthy husband. And the aristocratic life-style. But, apart from those minor details, basically the same. We are both square pegs being forced into the circular hole of society. And, unless I want to suffer the same fate as Hedda, I’d best sort myself out from…um…myself.
Surely, there is a way that all the aspects of my persona can co-exist in peace and cheerful harmony without wreaking death and destruction upon our strictly ordered and socially sound lives? The answer is no, because I’ve tried it, and my male friends from the local motorbike club hit on all of my pink girlfriends, who are too busy looking down their noses at my debating club friends and their acne. It gets too confrontational.
And, another point, it’s simply too hard and too ridiculous to attempt to isolate one element of my personality. I tried a little home experiment in which I tried to do just that, being a typical girly-girl before trying to exclusively be a tomboy, before embracing my inner geek. Even though they’re all part of who I am, they’re not quite right on their own.
They say, ‘just be yourself.’ But do you have to pick just one self?
By Madeleine Stuchbery
(Image credit: 1.)
Whilst I hate over-categorisation, I think people need to categorise to an extent as a way of making sense of what’s around us. To use a rather simple (perhaps too simple) example, we know how to differentiate the colour Green from other colours because we have learnt how to identify and categorise the spectrum of Green. We can identify different shades within that spectrum, even mix them with other colours (like ‘oh that’s greeny-blue’) but if you point to orange and try to tell me it’s green I will obviously disagree with you because it does not fit in with my experiential categorisation…am I making sense? I guess the same applies to people but on obviously a more complex level, in a way categories can be seen as a way of trying to understand other people because the only way we can try to understand something is to place it in the contexts of our other experiences. I think the problem is when categories become rigid conventions which lead to narrow-mindedness(like if I refused to believe lime green was green because according to me forest green is the one and only colour green).
Whoo long comment, basically, who cares!? Be yourself and accept there are as many facets of oneself as there are shades of green and people can just bloody deal with it! ^_^