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I learned early in life that it was safer to pretend to like something than to fight the crowd. I lived a life of pretended behaviors well into adulthood. Almost overnight years ago something hit me and I haven’t pretended a single behavior since. I no longer care about fitting in and being with the in-crowd. In fact, I don't like the in-crowd and never did. I’m sorry it took so long but it’s so good to not care anymore.
It started in grade school. A group of my friends decided to start bowling. We didn’t belong to a league but we had a bowling alley close to where we all lived and we could get there easily and bowling was cheap and we loved it. It turned out that I was good at bowling. Too good. So good that the boys stopped being nice to me. I was heartbroken.
I remember coming home one Saturday and crying to my mom that the boys were being mean to me because I won. Mom scrunched up her face and we had a talk. It was, she explained, not a good idea to be better than the boys. At anything. Though I could tell she didn’t like sharing this information I knew she was telling me this for my own good. I had to lose when playing games with boys. I couldn’t believe my ears. I recall some of the explanation was about fragile egos and boys got embarrassed in front of their friends if a girl beat them, and that the boys wouldn’t like me if I continued to win and that the bottom line was, I had to start losing. And that included activities at school.
It took me a while to process this information but I started deliberately losing at all activities and not just bowling and suddenly I was their friend again. What a lesson to learn and to learn it so young. Pretending in other areas of my life started at that point and lasted for years. It also closed down my trust senses and led to being suspicious of everyone’s behaviors. Were they pretending too?
There were lots of things I didn’t like to do as I grew up but my friends did so I pretended to like the same things. I saw other kids being dumped by their little cliques and I knew it was because they didn’t like the same things their friends did. I suppose I could have taken them aside and explained “pretending” to them but I didn’t. It was every man for himself. Or woman as the case may be. Pretending had become a way of life for me.
In the 8th grade my friends all wanted to be junior high school cheerleaders. I did not. They began practicing for tryouts and nagging me to practice and I dreaded the entire concept. First, I hated sports and second, I didn’t like the current group of cheerleaders. But my friends wore me down so I practiced. As it turned out, my mom was a cheerleader in a large high school and she taught me all her old cheers. They were adorable so at tryouts I was unique with the old cheers and made the squad. None of my friends did.
So there I was with a group of girls I didn’t like cheering for sports that I didn’t like. I was miserable but I had a commitment for the year so I was stuck. I liked the cute outfits we wore and that was it. Fortune came my way and my family had to move north in the middle of the 8th grade and though I was very sad to leave my home of many years I was thrilled to leave cheerleading.
When I arrived at my new school it was too late for cheerleading tryouts. Hooray! Unfortunately, a teacher felt bad I had to leave cheerleading at my old school and told me she could probably get me on the squad and I politely told her I was way too busy with a new school to add cheerleading to my life. Whew!
When we got to high school there was a huge popular clique of girls actively involved in cheerleading and I was relieved that not a single soul suggested I try out. Had I tried out I am positive I would not have made it because I was in a new world of pretending and my skills were not honed to this level of pretended behaviors.
Throughout my teen years I found I pretended more than I ever had before in my life. I found myself doing countless things that I hated all to fit in. Prior to high school my grandma made all my clothes but in high school that was forbidden. I had to wear purchased clothing and clothing of a certain style. Sometimes I told my mom what we were doing socially and that I hated it and she said to just say I wasn’t allowed to go. Fantastic. My mom was helping me pretend. Any time I didn’t want to go somewhere and do something I hated I lied and said I was grounded. Mom backed me up if anyone called. It was fabulous. But it was more pretending. Pretending to be grounded. Everyone must have thought I was the worst child because I was always grounded.
As a young adult this pretending to enjoy certain activities continued and I often found myself in miserable situations. Parties, nightclubs, etc. A couple of times I found myself in scary situations and pretended I wasn’t scared. Sometimes I found myself doing something I hated when I could have done something with other friends that I would have enjoyed. In the ‘60s there were a multitude of decisions about behaviors that overwhelmed me and if I even slightly resisted I was met with a barrage of comments on my lack of “coolness.” It was heavy stuff. I usually gave in. I have no regrets because it was my learning curve. The more miserable I became then the more determined I became years later to never be miserable again.
At some point, about the time of my divorce, I had had enough pretending. Especially pretending to be married. Once the marriage officially ended I started removing myself from other bad relationships. Like marriage, some friendships do not evolve and some friends can bring us down and they never ever try to improve so the relationship consists of one person constantly trying to keep the relationship going while the other just wallows in their little world of self pity. Dumped them all.
Pretending to enjoy activities isn’t the only pretend behaviors some of us get trapped into. Another way to “fit in” is to alter one’s beliefs to match those of our peers. Or if we don't outwardly declare our beliefs then we remain silent. Sometimes it’s innocent like pretending to eat at a potluck only to ditch the food at the first possible opportunity. I know someone who does that to this day. I love potlucks but I have to say that after listening to her stories I am cautious about what I eat now and always find out who made what!
Politics, religion, relationship opinions, current events, all hot topics and some are best left alone. But when people discuss these hot button topics I once clammed up and just did a lot of nodding. No longer. Now not only do I comment I’m often the one leading the discussion/debate. Guess what? I have opinions! Who’d have guessed? Guess what else? Many people don't like my opinions because they are “different.” I don't like war, killing our environment, Congress, hunting, corporations, foreign control of our finances, religious fanaticism, any fanaticism, people who pontificate on topics they know nothing about, and so on. Huge list.
After dumping the bad relationships in my life I was careful to not invite new ones into my life that I hadn’t studied. It wasn’t as easy because as we evolve in life we change locations and lifestyles with husbands, without husbands, with kids, etc., and relationship dynamics pop up and we can easily be trapped into groups we don't like. I didn’t! Amazingly I started living my life more on my own with just a few close friends and I no longer sought the wider world for companionship. In fact, I preferred being home alone on a Saturday rather than going out with a group of women pathetically trying to connect with guys at bars. I always hated the bar scene and always went kicking and screaming and finally didn’t go at all! Wow.
Then there are the parent groups we are involved in when we have kids. Most parents I met in those groups were not people I admired in the general world of parenting. I stopped participating. I still participated as a parent at events but no longer with the groups. I found most of them unbelievably shallow and competitive and I didn’t like most of their kids. Why hang out with them?
Cliques in the work place are also another area of pick and choose. Sometimes it’s important to be seen or not seen with certain people within an organization if we are to have any hope at all for advancement. B.S. I had a tight little group of pals that I have to this very day and I’m retired yet we are still buddies. I never bought into the clique thing at work. I was always seen with weird offbeat employees. (You KNOW who you are.)
With all this I have come to like alone time. I love just being on my own doing exactly what I want to do and not what someone else likes to do. There are many things I like that others do not which is why I had to pretend for so many years. People with my interests are not as easily found. I don't like sports, but I love games, don't like drinking, love music, don't like TV, love movies but don't like going to the movies (rude crowds), don't like crowds, like small groups, don't like big clubs, like little restaurants, like naturalist vacations, not big resorts, like sightseeing, don't like vacation shopping, don't like any shopping, love animals, don't eat flesh, don't like fashionista mentality, like jeans and t-shirts, don't like most religions, don't like romantic relationships, love my family and friends, don't like “trends,” but love technology, don't like celebrity gossip (don't care), believe in live and let live, and the list goes on.
As Kermit says, it isn’t easy being green.
[No part of this content may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author. Blog series began in March 2009.]
