Being friends with only one type of person hinders ones growth as a person themselves. Cliques--that’s right, groups of people who refuse to broaden their horizons by letting those who are so-called ‘different’ into their social circles--are cheating themselves out of being bigger, more interesting people.
“Different from what?”, I find myself wondering. Different from normal? What constitutes normal? Does normal mean traditional? Who or what defines traditional? Are there a number of different ‘traditionals’ depending on your social class? Of course, if you even try to suggest to a person that labelling someone or something ‘different’ is completely offensive in itself, you run the risk of being labelled a crazy person.
The same goes for people who label themselves ‘different’--plenty of people do it--but I’ve always wondered, are they labelling themselves to lessen the chances of others doing so? It hurts less to acknowledge parts of ourselves that we’re uncomfortable with than having them pointed out to us by someone else.
Take a look at some of the world’s comedians. Jo Brand has more than once labelled herself fat. It doesn’t stop people calling her such names but it is fair to say that many find it hysterical that she does this herself. For Brand, it means the attention she receives is more “she’s so funny” than “she’s so fat”--surely exactly what is desired, and intended.
Labels are such a big part of life, no matter where in the world you live. People want to be able to identify other people as part of a genre, whether it’s “working-class”, “preppy”, “camp”, “butch”. Why is this? Because we just love familiarity. Why else do we go to see the same movie disguised as a new movie several times every year? Why else do some people become aggravated when a movie dares to do something different?
Whilst it’s fine to acknowledge that most people fit into a genre, surely it’s completely wrong to expect for someone in any genre to replicate all of your connotations with the label. Does a working-class person have to live in a council estate and wear sports clothing? Do “preppy” boys have to date “preppy” girls and play polo? Do gay men have to wear clothes two sizes too small for them and act like women, and do gay women have to pierce their bodies and wear black?
No, they do not. It is indeed a case that people in each of these genres, and others, decide to play polo or to wear black, and once a person sees this of a similar type person on more than two or three occasions, they assign a label. At the same time, when we choose our friends, we look for similarities to ourselves.
We want to be able to share good conversation. We want to have people laugh at our jokes. We want to be able to sit in silence with our friends and for it to be the most comfortable thing in the world. We want not to have to explain ourselves and feel that our friends are working against us when they should be helping us. In truth, we want it all, which is why we are so careful about who we let in.
It would be untrue to say that genres can’t be mixed, and that they can’t compliment each other. But it’s difficult to get along and connect fully with someone who has different beliefs and different ideas of life, and so in our lives, we settle for the same, because we are afraid.
Afraid and lazy, to step out of the box. “What box?”, I find myself wondering. The answer is, there is no box, and there are no boundaries, only those which we set for ourselves.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Affluenza - The 21st Century 20-Something
Once upon a time, it was all about keeping up with the Jones’s. For today’s generation of Irish 20-somethings, however, it’s all about keeping up with the Gilsons, the O’Driscolls and the Davisons.
Unlike their idols, Ireland’s current generation of twenty-somethings have no real interest in working for the money. Having been supplied with all that their little heart’s desire, so much as a thank you to their suppliers—their parents—would be considered a favour.
They spend their days in college, attending sparse lectures and filling the time in between lunching, something the mother’s of these big babies had to wait sometimes up to ten years to devote themselves to.
Add to this a list that reads like a Jennifer Lopez request sheet: a car, nothing less than a VW Golf for him, a petrol-guzzling SUV if you’re anyone; designer clothing (changed seasonally, at very least)—and no, you don’t get away with this one if you’ve “got boys”. Haven’t you heard, whether you’re little Oisinn or Ciaran is a music lover or a sports enthusiast, there’s an image to be portrayed.
There are icons. For the girls there’s the string of Assets models, and for the boys there’s the Irish rugby team, who seem to spend more time in Krystle and Renards than on the actual pitch.
Then there’s Kate Moss and Victoria Beckham and the men who buy them salad. The bottom line is, the twenty-somethings of today are not so much influenced by their neighbours, but by the celebrity idols of their time, the real opinion leaders.
“Kate mixes designer with high street and vintage pieces”, says your darling daughter—meaning she’ll get by on a €10 vintage top, €50 high street jeans, and naturally the designer shoes and bag—Chanel or similar—price: excess of €300 for the shoes, and €500 for the bag.
To her majesty, they’re priceless. “They’re not just shoes, they’re Jimmy Choos”, she says, in an accent that sounds more Orange County than South County.
The social lives of the South County crew are another cause of concern for their parents. While mummy and daddy pay college fees and expenses, their little babies are out having the time of their lives, sipping Cosmopolitans, all the while rubbing shoulders with accomplished thirty-something’s who they aspire to follow, but without the hard graft.
Trips around Europe are entirely essential. Paris, Milan, Moscow, the places that would have been a holiday and a half to their parents are seen as a mere mini-break by these designer-wearing demons.
One might wonder, does providing for your children to such unrealistic extents provide a pedestal for them to fall from when they finally have to do it themselves?
When this time comes around, it will be a great disappointment to realise that MasterCard is not a charity for 25-year-old children who are experiencing “vast social opportunities without the financial resources”.
Perhaps, it is already too late, for the tone of this decades twenty-something has already been set, and it is one of expectance, not acceptance.
Unlike their idols, Ireland’s current generation of twenty-somethings have no real interest in working for the money. Having been supplied with all that their little heart’s desire, so much as a thank you to their suppliers—their parents—would be considered a favour.
They spend their days in college, attending sparse lectures and filling the time in between lunching, something the mother’s of these big babies had to wait sometimes up to ten years to devote themselves to.
Add to this a list that reads like a Jennifer Lopez request sheet: a car, nothing less than a VW Golf for him, a petrol-guzzling SUV if you’re anyone; designer clothing (changed seasonally, at very least)—and no, you don’t get away with this one if you’ve “got boys”. Haven’t you heard, whether you’re little Oisinn or Ciaran is a music lover or a sports enthusiast, there’s an image to be portrayed.
There are icons. For the girls there’s the string of Assets models, and for the boys there’s the Irish rugby team, who seem to spend more time in Krystle and Renards than on the actual pitch.
Then there’s Kate Moss and Victoria Beckham and the men who buy them salad. The bottom line is, the twenty-somethings of today are not so much influenced by their neighbours, but by the celebrity idols of their time, the real opinion leaders.
“Kate mixes designer with high street and vintage pieces”, says your darling daughter—meaning she’ll get by on a €10 vintage top, €50 high street jeans, and naturally the designer shoes and bag—Chanel or similar—price: excess of €300 for the shoes, and €500 for the bag.
To her majesty, they’re priceless. “They’re not just shoes, they’re Jimmy Choos”, she says, in an accent that sounds more Orange County than South County.
The social lives of the South County crew are another cause of concern for their parents. While mummy and daddy pay college fees and expenses, their little babies are out having the time of their lives, sipping Cosmopolitans, all the while rubbing shoulders with accomplished thirty-something’s who they aspire to follow, but without the hard graft.
Trips around Europe are entirely essential. Paris, Milan, Moscow, the places that would have been a holiday and a half to their parents are seen as a mere mini-break by these designer-wearing demons.
One might wonder, does providing for your children to such unrealistic extents provide a pedestal for them to fall from when they finally have to do it themselves?
When this time comes around, it will be a great disappointment to realise that MasterCard is not a charity for 25-year-old children who are experiencing “vast social opportunities without the financial resources”.
Perhaps, it is already too late, for the tone of this decades twenty-something has already been set, and it is one of expectance, not acceptance.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Rebellion Has it’s Reasons to Return
Children and teenagers often rebel when they feel confined by rules, believing that they themselves should be able to make their own decisions, take their own risks, and make their own mistakes. What then, does it signify, when an adult rebels?
Between the ages of 18 and 21, depending on the culture one lives in, we are told that we are now old enough to make our own decisions in life. Finally, we think to ourselves, we can sit in the driver seat and decide for ourselves exactly where it is we go in life, the timeframe in which we undertake our life transformation in, and the location in which it occurs. We choose our choice.
It is no longer required for us to validate our plans via our parents. It is similarly no longer required that we seek approval of the places we wish to spend our time. It is no longer required that we seek approval of the people with whom we wish to spend our time--this perhaps, is the single most deadly change in being in charge of our own lives.
No longer are we drowned in remarks about not getting in with the ‘wrong crowd’, or hanging out in areas which leave a lot to be desired. In place of such remarks we find more subtle forms of communication from those who care about us, and frankly, often know best. The monologue which once drove us crazy with anger is now substituted with a watered down comment or in some cases, a simple shrug or similar nonverbal communication.
It is then that we realise, advice wasn’t so bad after all. Advice. That is what the lectures boiled down to, though at the time, this was not seen, for rebellion had been activated and had created a sort of tunnel vision experienced otherwise only by the narrow-minded and the colossally determined.
What if, rebellion had run its course and ended, perhaps prematurely in one’s teens? Is it a case that this individual is ready for responsibility and by the same token ready to take advice on board in an mature way? Or is it like a sickness that hasn’t quite reached a head, and will leave suspicions of a return later in life?
As a teenager, I would have said the former was true. Today, my opinion has been reformed. Now I believe in individual circumstances. Now I believe it cannot be concluded that rebellion will rear its ugly head once again if it hasn’t enjoyed a full stretch in the time it most commonly occurs.
Though I also acknowledge that if a container has been put on rebellion, this itself is enough to cause mayhem later in life. Perhaps it could be said that it depends on what happens to us in the phases immediately after our teenage years. Maybe it is about allowing the post-teenage freedom phase to run its course, knowing for an extended period that you, and you only, are sitting in the driver seat.
Possibly this is the time where one decides--consciously or otherwise--what they will throw away for good, what they will put away for later, and what they will keep for now.
Between the ages of 18 and 21, depending on the culture one lives in, we are told that we are now old enough to make our own decisions in life. Finally, we think to ourselves, we can sit in the driver seat and decide for ourselves exactly where it is we go in life, the timeframe in which we undertake our life transformation in, and the location in which it occurs. We choose our choice.
It is no longer required for us to validate our plans via our parents. It is similarly no longer required that we seek approval of the places we wish to spend our time. It is no longer required that we seek approval of the people with whom we wish to spend our time--this perhaps, is the single most deadly change in being in charge of our own lives.
No longer are we drowned in remarks about not getting in with the ‘wrong crowd’, or hanging out in areas which leave a lot to be desired. In place of such remarks we find more subtle forms of communication from those who care about us, and frankly, often know best. The monologue which once drove us crazy with anger is now substituted with a watered down comment or in some cases, a simple shrug or similar nonverbal communication.
It is then that we realise, advice wasn’t so bad after all. Advice. That is what the lectures boiled down to, though at the time, this was not seen, for rebellion had been activated and had created a sort of tunnel vision experienced otherwise only by the narrow-minded and the colossally determined.
What if, rebellion had run its course and ended, perhaps prematurely in one’s teens? Is it a case that this individual is ready for responsibility and by the same token ready to take advice on board in an mature way? Or is it like a sickness that hasn’t quite reached a head, and will leave suspicions of a return later in life?
As a teenager, I would have said the former was true. Today, my opinion has been reformed. Now I believe in individual circumstances. Now I believe it cannot be concluded that rebellion will rear its ugly head once again if it hasn’t enjoyed a full stretch in the time it most commonly occurs.
Though I also acknowledge that if a container has been put on rebellion, this itself is enough to cause mayhem later in life. Perhaps it could be said that it depends on what happens to us in the phases immediately after our teenage years. Maybe it is about allowing the post-teenage freedom phase to run its course, knowing for an extended period that you, and you only, are sitting in the driver seat.
Possibly this is the time where one decides--consciously or otherwise--what they will throw away for good, what they will put away for later, and what they will keep for now.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Circles of Communication
As I stood alone with everybody at a low-key leaving party of a friend of a friend, I got to thinking how there are many people I’ve met through the years, friends, lovers and perfect strangers, that I’ve had instantaneous connections with.
Most of my friends today were met through work environments where there was a shared interest. Did interests, age or cultural background have any real effect on the communication between people, I contemplated.
When interests are shared, a discussion is made easier due to the fact that both people are able to make contributions, and stimulate interest from the other person. You don’t need to know anything about each other, yet the conversation shared is enjoyed, and most importantly, it’s comfortable.
So then, is age an issue? Can you possibly enjoy a friendship, relationship or merely a conversation with someone who is years older, or younger, than yourself? Whilst taking into consideration that the age of someone often determines their history, the type of life and perhaps standard of life that they’ve led, and their feelings about society today, people cannot be defined by their age.
Just weeks earlier I sat at a dinner party at a table of nine. Two men and women aged in their 40s, a female in her 30s and two young, free, single 20-something women took their places. My connection with two of the 40-something women developed instantly and kept me entertained, if slightly surprised, for the duration of the evening. Why, out of everyone at the table, had my connection been made with these individuals and not the others?
I figured that I was interested in hearing what these people had to say. They had opinions, they had lives that interested me, and that interested themselves, and they weren’t afraid to talk about them. Details were of the utmost importance, and this was something that I could certainly relate to. I was stimulated.
Cultural backgrounds can bring individuals together in the same way interests do. When history and similarities in the environment we have grown up in are shared, there is a point of conversation. On the other hand, it is interesting to meet non-nationals, as well as people from other cultures. This too can create conversation, sharing alternative experiences and furthering our learning.
What is it, then, that allows us to connect with someone upon meeting? If it’s not age, and it’s not our backgrounds, can we conclude that we have a superior communication experience with those who share our interests? Surely, I thought, it had to be more than that.
Whatever it was, I figured that I had a long list of interests, and no-one in the room to share them with that night at the intimate, low-key party. And so I waited, with just my thoughts, for someone to stimulate me, and like clockwork, a similar-minded soul entered the room.
Whether there was such thing as “the one” or not, I hadn’t yet learned, but I had learned that there were lots of “ones”. And they would crop up every so often, willing to communicate.
Most of my friends today were met through work environments where there was a shared interest. Did interests, age or cultural background have any real effect on the communication between people, I contemplated.
When interests are shared, a discussion is made easier due to the fact that both people are able to make contributions, and stimulate interest from the other person. You don’t need to know anything about each other, yet the conversation shared is enjoyed, and most importantly, it’s comfortable.
So then, is age an issue? Can you possibly enjoy a friendship, relationship or merely a conversation with someone who is years older, or younger, than yourself? Whilst taking into consideration that the age of someone often determines their history, the type of life and perhaps standard of life that they’ve led, and their feelings about society today, people cannot be defined by their age.
Just weeks earlier I sat at a dinner party at a table of nine. Two men and women aged in their 40s, a female in her 30s and two young, free, single 20-something women took their places. My connection with two of the 40-something women developed instantly and kept me entertained, if slightly surprised, for the duration of the evening. Why, out of everyone at the table, had my connection been made with these individuals and not the others?
I figured that I was interested in hearing what these people had to say. They had opinions, they had lives that interested me, and that interested themselves, and they weren’t afraid to talk about them. Details were of the utmost importance, and this was something that I could certainly relate to. I was stimulated.
Cultural backgrounds can bring individuals together in the same way interests do. When history and similarities in the environment we have grown up in are shared, there is a point of conversation. On the other hand, it is interesting to meet non-nationals, as well as people from other cultures. This too can create conversation, sharing alternative experiences and furthering our learning.
What is it, then, that allows us to connect with someone upon meeting? If it’s not age, and it’s not our backgrounds, can we conclude that we have a superior communication experience with those who share our interests? Surely, I thought, it had to be more than that.
Whatever it was, I figured that I had a long list of interests, and no-one in the room to share them with that night at the intimate, low-key party. And so I waited, with just my thoughts, for someone to stimulate me, and like clockwork, a similar-minded soul entered the room.
Whether there was such thing as “the one” or not, I hadn’t yet learned, but I had learned that there were lots of “ones”. And they would crop up every so often, willing to communicate.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Honesty - The Best Policy?
They say that you can’t go wrong with honesty. Honesty allows everyone to identify where they stand. And the greatest thing about honesty is that it can be applied to not just your lover, but also your friends and family.
Some people find it inconceivably difficult to be honest. Saying I love you face to face for the first time can be a nightmarish experience, wondering if the response will be “thank you” or worse “I have to go”.
Honesty, for me, is not one of life’s problems. In fact, I care so much about honesty I insist upon voicing details which in certain scenarios, can be unwelcome to say the least. I realised this whilst sitting alone in a casual downtown bar on Tuesday night. My drinking partner of the evening had gone to the bathroom. I had a moment of silence to reflect on the pitiless monologue I had just recited.
Did I feel regret, I wondered. Arriving at the conclusion that I did not, I realised that honesty to me is more important than its effects. Some people, I have learned, prefer lies. This may be controversial to say, and god knows it will anger many to read, but it is the truth--and it is for this reason that people will be angered.
As a pro-honesty person, you would think that I wouldn’t be able to pretend play with a lover when I was experiencing a separate emotional journey myself. Not so. But it is not about being able, I have learned. It is about choice. Did I really want to conceal my feelings to enable another person to feel that everything is hunky dory?
I may be selfish, I thought, but I am not self-destructive. And I wouldn’t be changing my policy for anyone.
Some people find it inconceivably difficult to be honest. Saying I love you face to face for the first time can be a nightmarish experience, wondering if the response will be “thank you” or worse “I have to go”.
Honesty, for me, is not one of life’s problems. In fact, I care so much about honesty I insist upon voicing details which in certain scenarios, can be unwelcome to say the least. I realised this whilst sitting alone in a casual downtown bar on Tuesday night. My drinking partner of the evening had gone to the bathroom. I had a moment of silence to reflect on the pitiless monologue I had just recited.
Did I feel regret, I wondered. Arriving at the conclusion that I did not, I realised that honesty to me is more important than its effects. Some people, I have learned, prefer lies. This may be controversial to say, and god knows it will anger many to read, but it is the truth--and it is for this reason that people will be angered.
As a pro-honesty person, you would think that I wouldn’t be able to pretend play with a lover when I was experiencing a separate emotional journey myself. Not so. But it is not about being able, I have learned. It is about choice. Did I really want to conceal my feelings to enable another person to feel that everything is hunky dory?
I may be selfish, I thought, but I am not self-destructive. And I wouldn’t be changing my policy for anyone.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
No Pressure Over Cappuccino
My good friend Simon closed a door last week, but little did he know that several windows were about to be opened for him.
As Simon went shopping for stationary supplies with his friend Teresa, an errand that he actually enjoyed, the last thing on his mind was dating. Apparantly though, the same could not be said of his female friend.
“Let’s go for coffee”, Teresa suggested. Never one to decline an opportunity to sit down and catch up properly, Simon agreed that it was, indeed time for coffee. And sandwiches. As their orders arrived in a hip café contained within a period building downtown, Teresa stood. “Oh my god, hi!” she announced as one of her friends—good-looking, definitely—appeared at the tableside.
Simon sighed. A lunch interrupted sometimes felt like someone walking in on you having sex with your lover. It was that sacred. To Teresa, however, no such sacredness existed. “Join us”, she exclaimed. Since when did it become socially acceptable for lunch arrangements to be made without the fellow lunch partner being consulted, Simon had to wonder.
A few short minutes after the good-looking friend had joined, now complete with sandwiches and coffee also, Teresa realised she needed the bathroom. Simon, not known for his shyness, engaged in small talk and a little more with the new person.
“Would you go for a drink sometime?” the new person questioned. If Simon had been the sarcastic self that he is with friends he would have said something along the lines of “Oh, well, I like to go for drinks all the time”, adding atonally “Would this drink be something specific?” But Simon had good manners, and knew that while a drinks invitation over cappuccino meant that Dublin had come along, it may not be ready for sarcasm with strangers. Obliging the offer, Simon started to wonder where his original lunch partner had got to—it had been fifteen minutes, after all.
The new person didn’t seem phased. Simon wondered if maybe Teresa, head in toilet, required assistance. And then everything fell into place. Teresa, it seemed, felt that it was Simon who required assistance; in arranging a replacement for his recently departed Beloved. Or was it the good-looking friend who she was trying to help out?
As Teresa walked back to the table, casually, she remarked, “I’m so sorry, I was just so distracted by the new furniture downstairs…amazing”. Deciding against protesting against the arranged lunch date that had just occurred thanks to Teresa, Simon finished his sandwich.
Maybe it was the coffee, or perhaps it was the sight of the good-looking friend and the idea of drinks together that had required no effort on his part, but Simon decided that today; he was ready for whatever Dublin had to throw at him.
Saturday, February 17, 2007
The Reason to Rebound
They say that as one door closes, another opens. They also say that when you’ve split up with a partner, you should give yourself time to grieve its loss. I had to wonder, were ‘they’ perhaps generalising a little too much? Surely everything depends on individual circumstances.
One of my best friends, we’ll call him Simon, recently split with his partner. He didn’t feel the need to lock himself indoors for exactly half the duration of the relationship--that’s how long ‘they’ say it takes to get over someone properly--Simon felt that one and a half years would be too long a period to stay indoors. I had to agree.
On our first encounter since the split, a delve-in-deep conversation was likely to occur, but due to being in company, the content was monitored. Post-break-up discussion can be violent, and we understood that others in our lives not aware of each scenario that had taken place internally over the past three years, may be caused to run scared.
We did, however, discuss rebound, and the possibilities of introducing this powerful ingredient into the recipe of loss of relationship recovery. I, on one hand, love the concept of the rebound. If, like Simon and I, you are prone to returning to situations that are bad for you, the rebound can take you so far out of the said situation that not only do you completely forget its existence, you wonder what its relevance was in the first place.
On the other hand, the last time I rebounded, mere minutes after a VPB (Very Public Break-up), I somehow landed in a one-and-a-half year relationship. I still don’t know how it happened. I’m very aware that I didn’t chase this person, and so I think that the lack of chase perhaps has from time to time made me wonder how this person is here, opposite me, in life. It’s sort of like going out for drinks, becoming incredibly drunk, and finding yourself at home in bed. An ingredient is absent, and yet the final product tells you otherwise.
Either way, I entertained the idea of a rebound for Simon, but did not encourage it. Simon, in his mind, knew that there were other future relationship prospects outside of ‘the situation’ but his heart did not allow his mind to validate this thought. I got to thinking, “why, must the heart be honoured with such authority and opinion?” A rebound was the only way for the heart to be brought in sync with the mind, I concluded.
Three nights later, as Simon documented his weekend to me, sitting in the theatre during the interval of Julius Caesar, I realised that a new door had opened, but more importantly, that the one behind him had finally been closed.
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