I remember reading women’s magazines at
the end of high school and after I started college so I could learn about
clothes. Until the very end of high school, I refused to notice clothing or
fashion. I wanted only to cover my body—the more covered the better. I wore
loose jeans and oversized t-shirts and grandpa sweaters. I hadn’t yet heard of
the term “body conscious” but I certainly wouldn’t have been interested,
either. My standards in high-school were modest and utilitarian. The image I
wanted to present (insofar as I was even aware that I was presenting an image) was
that of someone who couldn’t be bothered to care about something so trivial
(and sensual, and sinful) as apparel.
Just
before I went off to college, I decided I didn’t want anyone to know I was
poor. I don’t think I was motivated by embarrassment so much as by pride: I
wanted to be ambiguous; I wanted it to be clear that I wanted for nothing even
though I was not wealthy. I bought my first pair of pants that actually fit me
and this was somewhat momentous.
Currently,
I buy a little above my means. The clothing I want is just a little nicer than
it needs to be. There is an image I want to present and it is important to me
that others see or sense the image I want to project. I want to look Put
Together. I want to be All Set. I want to look Appropriate.
It makes sense to me that I want, for
myself, to be Put Together, All Set, and Appropriate. What is less clear is why
it matters that anyone/everyone else see this as well. Do I really imagine that
people will notice me and think to themselves, or tell their partners over
dinner “I saw a woman on the street today who was very Appropriately dressed,”
and that somehow I will earn credit for that acknowledgment?
Certainly what I want is approval. I do
want credit. I want a grade. I like grades: they have usually been quite good
and report cards full of As and +s are so gratifying. I want to be gratified. I
want to feel as though I am making progress and succeeding.
This makes relationships hard. I don’t
know what success looks like. I don’t know how to earn As and +s. I don’t know
how to graduate from kindergarten to first grade, let alone from college to
grad school. I do not know which skills to learn or how to learn them. In
school, one starts at the very beginning with the alphabet and numbers and
things. Amazingly difficult and complex concepts presented as though they were
elementary. I suppose they are, but they are also worthy of abstruse disquisitions.
But what is the equivalent to the alphabet here? Have I got the hang of the
alphabet, though, and am I actually already ready to start writing words and
doing simple addition? How do I know?
This feels even more difficult because I
know I am not an easy person. I tend toward nervousness. I overthink
everything. I make people uncomfortable. I am a little too intense. I am
awkward and aloof and introspective but I am also bossy and opinionated and a
know-it-all. I don’t pay attention or want to get involved, but I have a real
salesperson/missionary personality. I can sell myself, but I don’t know how to
give myself. Once I’ve convinced someone I am just the thing they need, I am
surprised that they’ve bought my sales pitch and…I can’t deliver on the
product. The pitch is the product and there’s nothing left to do but run away
and try the pitch on someone else.
I have been hoping, without acknowledging that I have been hoping, that my
future job will make good on my sales pitch. That I will have some Self to
offer to others when I have a job. When I am self-supporting, I will be Real
and will be able to back up my pitch.
It isn’t true, is it? Just like I learned
over three years ago that I had to choose to be happy before I would be happy,
and that no boy, friendship, doctoral position, job, book, dress, etc. would
magically push me over the mental fence that demarcated where happiness was and
was not; could and could not be. I had to move myself to “happy” first and then
expect different boys, friends, jobs, etc. to come. And they did come. And I am happy about that.
I have a hard time believing myself to be likable because I don’t even believe that there is any “me” to
like. At the same time, I want very, very much to be likable, and I
feel strongly that others should make the effort. But when they do, I am not sure how to believe them: I know that they just bought a lousy sales pitch. How can I trust their
judgment? That is precisely what I need to do: trust their judgment. There are
some people who claim to want to spend time with me. I need to believe them.
And so other peoples’ opinions can and do and should matter to me. Not about
the dresses I wear, but about the reality of my existence.