I watched Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion earlier today. It’s a movie that really touches a nerve. Because at it’s heart it’s a movie about being good enough, about impressing people. If I’m being honest that is something that weighs on my mind a lot and dictates a lot of my actions. I want to impress people. Infact I find myself avoiding people – even people I really like – if I feel like I haven’t done anything impressive recently, and have nothing to report to them. I saw my old high school year advisor in an office supplies store last week. I should’ve talked to her, but I didn’t. I was worried that my response to the inevitable “What have you been doing?” question would be frankly uninspiring.
In the movie, the lesson is ultimately to be yourself. Everything blows up in their faces as Romy and Michele pretend to be successful business women (having invented Post-It Notes, no less). When their facade is removed, they decide to be themselves. They decide to confront the people who made them miserable. The whole social dynamic has changed. And everything works out happily-ever-after in true Hollywood style…
I’m not sure things will necessarily work out as well for you and I if we embrace our true selves. (Though it would be nice if some old high school colleague, now a millionaire, was romantically pining for me.) But it really speaks to the energy – mental, physical, emotional – that goes into keeping up appearances and constantly evaluating yourself from the vantage points of others.
I probably would’ve gone to my ten year high school reunion had I been able to impress people. And again you sort of have to wonder what the drive is to want to impress people you don’t even like…
I guess people are always casting expectations upon us. Sometimes we shake them off, sometimes we internalise them. We want to prove to others – but especially to ourselves – that the unkind aspersions are indeed untrue. Our concept of self can be a little murky. We might not be certain that it is untrue. We hope it is untrue. Our ego wants to demonstrate for all and sundry that is untrue. But what if (gasp) it isn’t…?
That doubt can make us crazy, and that doubt can be used to leavage us by unscrupulous people. Remember Romy and Michele didn’t look foolish being themselves, they only looked foolish when they felt so inadequate that they misrepresented themselves and were shown to be untrue.
A lot of ‘stuff’ is attached to social standing, to popularity. What does it ‘mean’ to be popular? What does it mean if you aren’t, or weren’t? What does that say about you? Of course it could mean anything you want it to mean. And it some ways it doesn’t matter what it means, or what you decide it means. It doesn’t have to have an obvious conclusion. It just has to introduce enough doubt to make you crazy. It just has to make you doubt your likability just that little bit.
So maybe it isn’t about proving them wrong. Perhaps it’s about affirming for yourself that you’re a worthwhile human being. It’s not that their opinion is particularly important, it’s just that that’s the origin of the doubt you’re trying to reconcile.
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Good post John. You summed it up nicely