Categorical

I like to mess with people’s minds.

I am not willing to fit into the boxes people are so ready to place me in. (yes, I know it’s bad to end a sentence with a preposition and I don’t care.) I am not willing to play along just so they can simplify their own definitions of the world and its people. I am not willing to be a representative of anything but myself. I am not all women. I am not all Turkish people. I am not all managers. I am not all anything. I am only me and I am not generic. (wow, Rony would be proud.)

I curse. I tell people that I am going to ‘pee’ or that ‘I have my period’ just to see their reaction to the words being uttered. I have true male friends. I hate to shop. I am overly emotional and extremely analytical all in one. I can be incredibly mean and truly compassionate. I say it like I see it. I don’t fuck around or play games with people. I like to wear heels. I am clumsy and not dainty. I am not your typical woman. I don’t believe in the existence of a typical woman. While I understand that stereotypes exist for a reason, I am frustrated by the way in which people use them to make people feel alienated.

When I moved to the United States there were several circumstances in which people assumed I’d like a particular food because I was Jewish. Examples? Bagels and Chinese food. I had never had the former and hated the latter. Expectations lead to disappointment. And I’ve spent too many years not meeting other people’s expectations of me.

So now I fuck with them.

I say it out loud. I do it in public. I force the judgmental people in my life to face their incorrect assumptions. It is my punishment for their not taking the time to get to know me as a person. If you’re placing me in the same box as everyone else, if you’re going to be lazy, you deserve it.

If there’s one common theme across all my friendships, it’s that these people aren’t simple. I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t have layers. Some hide it better than others but all humans are less simple than we often assume. And I am tired of other people making the call on what I should and should not do. What’s okay for me to feel. What’s acceptable for me to say. What’s acceptable for me to think.

The sad thing is we all do it in some way. We all have assumptions about categories of human beings and we all categorize humans, as an intelligent commenter noted earlier this month. But what we don’t do is to rethink it. We don’t work all that hard to get to know an individual. We don’t allow for people to be multi-faceted, living in multiple boxes, having multiple sides.

Somewhere in our childhood, the norms become clearly defined and straying from the norm becomes a sign of abnormality, and therefore, inferiority. The funny thing is that by the time we’re adults, almost all of us have strayed from the norm in one way or another. For many years, I’ve handled my abnormalities with a sense of shame and downplayed them as much as possible.

Not anymore. Somewhere along the line, I decided that ‘I’m me and if you don’t like it, tough’ and I’ve also decided that what makes me me are those abnormalities. Those exceptions to the rules. So I wear them with pride and mess with people’s assumptions. That’s my way of letting them know it’s not okay to categorize and then chastise people for not fitting in.

I am so much more than a category. Aren’t you?

Previously? Jitters.