Chameleons

“Be yourself.” It’s a phrase that’s often thrown around, yet very few act upon it. I’m not talking about being yourself when it’s easy to (like when you’re a liberal talking about politics with other liberals), that doesn’t count. I’m talking about standing on your own two feet and backing yourself up around people who see things completely differently from you.

This post is going to sound very Holden Caulfield-ish, I’m just warning you. I sometimes find it odd how we try to mold ourselves to our surroundings. It’s as if we camouflage ourselves, so that we’re never the odd one out. Sometimes, it’s just something minor, like maintaining good etiquette or not being obnoxious at a professional event. However, these minor shifts are not what I’m writing about.

Some things are slightly pathetic, but forgivable: things like cussing more than you usually do around others who swear a lot too and desperately trying to crack a joke while your friends are joking around.

The more pitiful act of camouflage, however, is pretending to have values different to your own in order to agree with the people around you. Many friends of mine have tried to fit into conversations about topics they have no idea about (the main example is sports, but I’ve seen it happen in political discussions as well). Too many times have I been in a conversation with individuals who have different comfort levels with sex or alcohol. Person A brings up sex, while person B and C look down, pretending not to feel weird about it. Person X being scared to talk about stories with alcohol and marijuana because he thinks person Y and Z might think he’s a bad person for doing such things.

It’s fundamentally a fear of being different. But this is so fundamental that we have to examine why these fears are in place in order to tackle them one by one.

1)      Fear that your unique traits aren’t sexually attractive

In the end, we’re all human. We all strive on finding a companion with whom we will have a relationship and (eventually) take part in sexual activity. I can feel some of you conservative individuals cringing at the thought that my first reason is related to sex, but that’s what our body really wants when we look at attractive individuals, and not “Ooh, shopping buddy!!!” We just convince ourselves that there are conscious feelings and thoughts attached to it, but in truth, attraction is something that’s completely subconscious. But oh, I digress…

Anyways, sometimes people try to modify their behavior to attract other individuals. Some men pretend to be much kinder than they are, in an attempt to seem chivalrous. Others may act more aggressively in order to seem more cool or macho. With women, on the other hand, some act cold and play “hard-to-get,” while others get their ditz on. Some things, like alcohol, are common with both sexes, as both men and women sometimes pretend they’re crazy about alcohol in an attempt to add to their “wild” side.

These are all things that the opposite sex (I’m not necessarily sure about same sex, because I don’t consider openly gay individuals as people who are scared to be themselves) can see through. And it’s quite pathetic.

I’m not going to discuss what specifically is attractive, as that changes a bit with each individual, but I’ve personally found individuals with a genuine passion for something very attractive, whatever that passion may be. And that’s just an observation, not a conscious thought.

2)      Fear that your friends will not accept you (Social fears)

Every individual has different experiences. So no two people will have the exact same upbringing. I’m not going to say “if your friends don’t accept you, then they don’t deserve to have you as a friend,” that’s just too cliché for me. Rather, I must point out that people like it when you disagree with them every so often. It makes for interesting conversation, as opposed to “yeah, me too!” every single time something’s brought up. Hell, sometimes if you disagree, you can catch someone else bluffing if they start siding with you all of a sudden.

 And more importantly, the bonds we make are more because of the experiences we’ve shared together than the ideologies we share. I used to think that there’s some sort of “core compatibility” that completely dictates how every relationship, platonic or not, goes. I’ve had a bit of a change of thought though, as I’ve come to realize that it’s more a bare minimum of common values, and once you hit that, values don’t mean much anymore.

Experiences do. That’s why I’ve bonded more with the people I’ve went drinking with one time (bro-ing out, haha) than the people I had small-talk with everyday for a year. That’s why students who work hard on something together (like a math assignment or… other similar things lol) feel so much more comfortable with one another when they succeed.

[there’s a bit of a similarity between 2 and 3, but 3 is meant to be an internal fear that applies to all conflicting values no matter who it is, while 2 is more about companionship]

3)      Fear of voicing your own opinion/disagreement

This is the toughest one to deal with, really. There are a lot of people who may think something behind closed doors. They will say it to their friends. They will say it to people they know they agree with. But they just can’t say it to others. It’s a fear of confrontation, really. And it’s quite difficult to confront a fear of confrontation…

But really, it’s not confrontation; it’s discourse. Learning the reasoning of people who disagree with you is pivotal in learning, both specifically about the topic, and in general. Moreover, learning about opposing views gives you a chance to further develop your own views. And if you realize your old views were wrong, what’s so bad about that? We change, it’s something that naturally happens anyways.

On the other end, if the disagreement continues, and the confrontation gets worse, then so what. You have an enemy. But as Churchill said (and I think Eminem re-said?), "You've got enemies? Good, that means you stood up for something in your life."

I’m not sure why I wrote all that. Partly because I’m going through some changes, and partly because there are so many people I see every day that are guilty of chameleon-ing.

Let’s stop being phonies and be ourselves instead.

PS I know this post sounds very vague at times, but it would be much better if I was able to bring up specific examples, which I really don't want to do in a public post.