Fitting in, huh?
Are you sure you want to do that?
Is it something we've all tried to do at some stage of our lives. With, usually, mixed success.
I say mixed, I mean all over the place.
Sometimes you’re accepted.
Sometimes you’re scorned.
Sometimes you just don’t know either way. But, you know, they’re someone to hang out with.
Sometimes the hoops we jump through are good for us because we get to experience new things, like a new show, a new band, a new perspective of ourselves and our place in the world, a new STD…
Sometimes they just make us question the nature of reality and why the universe would create such lunatics that seemingly have no self-preservation instinct/ridiculous taste in music/profound Mean Girls™ streak.
Mostly the times where we just seem to fit in fairly smoothly. Not necessarily great, but well enough. Most people are amicable enough to just let things be what they are. Which is a blessing when we’re in school and we all suck at being social. Frankly, I’m sometimes surprised there’s not more knife fights at those places…
Anyway...
What about those times we don’t know enough about ourselves and what we like and won’t be treated like? Where we aren’t secure enough in ourselves and our surroundings? What about them, huh? Where you feel like you have to force yourself to take on some attitudes and postures and likes and lingo and stuff? Because that way these new people might like you enough to tolerate your presence and awkward dumb dorky clothes and quotes and weirdly specific and frequently brought up opinions on the best kind of kale to have in specific dishes (Not bitter. Not bitter at ALL... But who’d get upset about that, right? Some weirdo.)
Mostly I’m talking about those times where we’ve felt like we needed to force the acceptance, MAKE the fitting in happen on your part.
How did it leave you feeling, regardless of if it was successful or not?…
Yep, that's what most people say Steph: blegh.
Why do you think that is?
Is it because we are being "asked" to be something you know is not us, just to hang with those rich and attractive upper crust bohemian yuppies with more friends, fancy dinner reservations and cheekbone structure than they know what to do with?
Could it possibly feel that way because you know, on a fundamentally human level, that regardless of how tribal we are deep down, if it’s the wrong tribe, we know its wrong. And we are torturing ourselves in order to avoid the stress and pain of exile, in preference of a different kind of pain relating to our inner world rather than outer?
Is that their fault though? I mean, those kinds crew and their life certainly LOOKS appealing, but have you ever asked yourself what it feels like to stay fitted in with them? Obviously, there are times where it is their fault. Mean Girls™ as an example. But a set identity that is demanded of its members might be fin for the few who genuinely live and are just like that, but maybe there’s more who have to sand off the edges of their personality or have likes and preferences that they have to leave out of that group in order to stay fitted in. And what happens if they get so enmeshed in that set identity that they consciously forget who they were, even if their subconscious and conscience doesn’t?
That felling I was mentioning before? Blegh? What if that snuck up on you? What if it was there, vomiting its blegh-ness all over you and your thoughts and emotions, but you had no idea anymore of where it was coming from and why, but you just felt blegh anyway with no context? Sounds pretty shitty too, to me anyway.
People live their whole lives like that… Friends, partners, work, school, sports.
Just checking if you do, but don’t know it.
I’ve asked this many, many times before, but this as always boils down to this question.
Who are you?
If you don’t know, at least slightly, the drive to be with people who will define that for you because they seem cool is pretty hard to ignore, being the social animals we are. But all that fun stuff of blegh vomit I mentioned before will happen, its just a matter of when and if you care. And if you’re lucky enough to have it happen in such a way you realise this unknowing of self (sorry, it was the least clunky way I could think to say it…) within yourself and can make sense of it rather than be ostracised by the cool clan, it means that we can learn a lesson and do something about it. Hopefully that’s what you have happen. Otherwise it’s a shit sandwich cycle that doesn’t leave you in a better place…
That place is covered in blegh vomit…
But, what if you do have the realisation? What then?
Asking those annoying questions I keep throwing out is a start. Genuinely considering your past experiences and the contrast you found in those. What you like, what you don’t like, who has more things you like than things you don’t. Pay attention, because that stuff tells you something about you.
That tells you about you. Cool. Is nice. High five. Keep winning dude.
It tells you about your people too. Or clan, or tribe, or crew, or squad, or freestyle interpretive dance collective.
So, what happens when you find your people? I mean, ideally, you just click. And it can start over something small, like making fun of the way that creepy dude just hit on the waitress in the restaurant while you’re standing around in the bar waiting for your own table while also making a mental note not to hit on the waitress and look like that creepy dude too. You know, little things. That turn in to less little things. Big things. I mean big things. That just feel right. And make sense.
How does that feel? How does it feel when the universe sorts you out? Getting a metaphysical and transcendental hug with a warm blanket?
And how did you feel when found them? Or maybe more appropriately (when you look at this with yourself finally, as the rightful center of your own tribe), when they found you?
Did it feel even close to having fitting in?
Less blegh vomit? More warm blanket?
You don’t HAVE to fit in with everybody. You’re not supposed to. Promise. That shits boring.
But be patient. If you fit in with yourself, you’ll at least have a tribe of one. And if you stay honest with that tribe and what matters to it, it’ll have other members sooner rather than later. Double promise.
But you need to start with you.
Who are you, what do you want, what doesn’t that look like, blah blah blah.
Just answer the damned questions already and I’ll leave you alone!!!
Be kind, be smart, be your best you. No bar fights.
“Taking into account the public's regrettable lack of taste, it is incumbent upon you not to fit in.” Janeane Garofalo
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