fitting in
I've been talking with a friend about 'fitting in' recently, and so I've been more aware than I usually am of how people go about fitting themselves in (or not) to their social group of choice.
{Oh . . . and I'm not sure where I'm going with this post, so we'll see if I come up with a point as I write it because I sure don't have one at the moment.}
But anyway . . . I went to the grocery store last night, and as I approached the checkout line a young woman turned into my aisle in front of me. This person was just about as classic a 'sorority girl' type as I've ever seen. Tall, thin, blond, deeply tanned, wearing the shortest of all possible shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt that gave full expression to her moderately large and probably fake breasts (they didn't move a millimeter in any direction no matter what the rest of her body was doing so I'm pretty sure they were either fake, she was wearing a million dollar bra, or else she just grew them over the summer), and very expensively manicured nails; toe and finger.
I was amused to see that everyone around me was either staring shamelessly at her, or else studiously avoiding looking at her in any way, and I could also see that she was very aware of this and that it was something she pretty much expected and considered to be her due.
Now I won't pretend to be immune to attractive women, and you can tell from the details of my description that I gave her more than just a passing glance, but in this case and in others like it, my interest was mostly academic, because I simply don't find women who look like this at all attractive. I don't mean to say that I think they're disgusting or repulsive, just not especially attractive, and certainly much less so than someone with an unusual or interesting face or figure, or my particular favorite: sad eyes. I'm a sucker for sad eyes.
But anyway, so instead of being all 'ooh baby' about it, I was thinking to myself that this girl had worked very hard to attain membership in that socially desirable group: the people who look the way they're supposed to.
This isn't an especially select group -- drive through any college campus or big shopping mall and you'll see dozens of them -- but it's still not the easiest one to get into either. There's something 'wrong' with just about everyone . . . we're too fat, too thin, too tall, too short, too dark, too light, too old, too young . . . something. And the fashion industry and the cosmetics industry and even the medical industry all make a fortune off of all these things that are 'wrong' with most of us.
A friend recently posted an article on her Facebook page about a new FDA approved drug for women who have insufficiently full eyelashes. Yes, this stuff will apparently increase the hairiness of your eyelids or something of that sort.
But what struck me most about this person was that even after all of this work -- the long hours baking in the sun or tanning booth, the repeated applications of hair coloring, possibly the expensive and painful surgery on her breasts -- she'd only managed to achieve the very minimum requirements for membership in 'the people who look the way they're supposed to' club, and that from here she had to go on to battle the most difficult thing of all which is somehow finding a way to be noticed in a whole crowd of other people who look -- more or less -- exactly like you do.
After she'd completed her purchases and left the store, I continued to think about this and what it must be like and it hit me that even though she'd been standing right next to me just seconds before, I couldn't recall a single thing about her face, the sound of her voice, her mannerisms or anything else beyond just the general outline of blond hair, dark tan, big boobs and tight shorts.
She'd so erased whatever personality or individuality she'd ever had so that she could be just like what society and the media and her friends all told her she was supposed to be, that there was nothing left. She was simply a clone.
'Fitting in' is just the opposite of 'standing out', and frankly, I want none of it.
{Oh . . . and I'm not sure where I'm going with this post, so we'll see if I come up with a point as I write it because I sure don't have one at the moment.}
But anyway . . . I went to the grocery store last night, and as I approached the checkout line a young woman turned into my aisle in front of me. This person was just about as classic a 'sorority girl' type as I've ever seen. Tall, thin, blond, deeply tanned, wearing the shortest of all possible shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt that gave full expression to her moderately large and probably fake breasts (they didn't move a millimeter in any direction no matter what the rest of her body was doing so I'm pretty sure they were either fake, she was wearing a million dollar bra, or else she just grew them over the summer), and very expensively manicured nails; toe and finger.
I was amused to see that everyone around me was either staring shamelessly at her, or else studiously avoiding looking at her in any way, and I could also see that she was very aware of this and that it was something she pretty much expected and considered to be her due.
Now I won't pretend to be immune to attractive women, and you can tell from the details of my description that I gave her more than just a passing glance, but in this case and in others like it, my interest was mostly academic, because I simply don't find women who look like this at all attractive. I don't mean to say that I think they're disgusting or repulsive, just not especially attractive, and certainly much less so than someone with an unusual or interesting face or figure, or my particular favorite: sad eyes. I'm a sucker for sad eyes.
But anyway, so instead of being all 'ooh baby' about it, I was thinking to myself that this girl had worked very hard to attain membership in that socially desirable group: the people who look the way they're supposed to.
This isn't an especially select group -- drive through any college campus or big shopping mall and you'll see dozens of them -- but it's still not the easiest one to get into either. There's something 'wrong' with just about everyone . . . we're too fat, too thin, too tall, too short, too dark, too light, too old, too young . . . something. And the fashion industry and the cosmetics industry and even the medical industry all make a fortune off of all these things that are 'wrong' with most of us.
A friend recently posted an article on her Facebook page about a new FDA approved drug for women who have insufficiently full eyelashes. Yes, this stuff will apparently increase the hairiness of your eyelids or something of that sort.
But what struck me most about this person was that even after all of this work -- the long hours baking in the sun or tanning booth, the repeated applications of hair coloring, possibly the expensive and painful surgery on her breasts -- she'd only managed to achieve the very minimum requirements for membership in 'the people who look the way they're supposed to' club, and that from here she had to go on to battle the most difficult thing of all which is somehow finding a way to be noticed in a whole crowd of other people who look -- more or less -- exactly like you do.
After she'd completed her purchases and left the store, I continued to think about this and what it must be like and it hit me that even though she'd been standing right next to me just seconds before, I couldn't recall a single thing about her face, the sound of her voice, her mannerisms or anything else beyond just the general outline of blond hair, dark tan, big boobs and tight shorts.
She'd so erased whatever personality or individuality she'd ever had so that she could be just like what society and the media and her friends all told her she was supposed to be, that there was nothing left. She was simply a clone.
'Fitting in' is just the opposite of 'standing out', and frankly, I want none of it.