IDENTITIES

I have just read a great article on how a transgender has been allowed to run for prom king. High school years… Some of us may believe that the world is changing for good, or we could be pessimistic and say it is all going down the drain. Older people look at the younger ones and think it was all better back in their days. However as I watch my younger sister go through her schooling years and get ready for university, I wonder: was it really that different back then?

I clearly remember being invisible in high school. I blended with the yellow tatty walls, and so did my friends. However, we were never so sure about this fact until we recently befriended the most popular guy in our teen years. He couldn’t remember a single one of us. As our suspicions were confirmed, we ended up having a good laugh about it. It was all about the looks, you see. We knew everything about the attractive popular student: his whereabouts, his (always pretty) girlfriends, we even knew what he had done in University. Me and my friends probably remain a mystery to our former classmates, and for those who were not in the same classroom, we didn’t even exist.

You really couldn’t class us as “ugly”, we weren’t even “plain”. In my case, I wasn’t unpleasant to the sight and, though my eyebrows from back then can only be described as hideous, and instead of hair I had a mop, I wasn’t too bad-looking. I did love wearing my father’s jumpers (picture me drowning in a gigantic pullover, long enough to reach my knees…gorgeousness personified…) trying to resemble Alanis Morissette as much as I could. Extend this attire throughout one’s university years and yes, everyone, including some members of your own family (I think only my beloved dog dared thinking otherwise) will believe you are a repressed lesbian. Of course, having my bedroom completely wallpapered with pictures of Madonna didn’t help. Fortunately I really didn’t care and never went out of my way publicising every guy I dated.

My point is, people are constantly judged by their looks, what they wear, their manner when walking… And it is during those teen years where not only you develop your own identity, but others do it for you. Whether these two identities resemble each other even the slightest, is a completely different matter. In my personal case, having such split personalities has been hilarious. A certain ambiguity can be quite fun. It is all about labels. You may think you are a quiet, studious and fun-loving wannabe hippy-girl, completely normal except for a healthy obsession with certain female pop stars, but for the rest of the world around you…just imagine ;)