In this world of celebrity culture, corruption and general idiots I will quite happily remain an outsider. When I was a child through to a teenager, I enjoyed being unashamedly myself which was a combination of dare I say it, embarrassingly immature, but also switched on to the world around me and I actively didn't want to be a part of it. Of course I was bullied for this. Now that I am older, I feel like I still can't escape the beady eye of some of my peers. If I don't contour my face every day i'm lazy, if I don't spend every waking moment of my life obsessing over obtaining a beach body, i'm not going to be considered attractive.
I didn't care to be the most popular at school, I just wanted to enjoy life which has stretched into adulthood. Metaphorically speaking, I sometimes look around me as though everyone's in a Sims game that I am not a part of, or like I am a creator of a Matrix world just watching over everyone with a large glass of wine and a raised eyebrow... a bit like how I imagine God would...not that I am putting myself in the same category!! What I mean by all this is, I am quite happy keeping myself to myself, reading a good book or even writing my own book and what gets me is that people find this so strange.
The amount of times people look at me questioningly when I tell them that I love science, quantum physics, fixing computers and trying to help fix my boyfriend's car, just as much as I love dressing up for nights out and talking about Mulberry handbags. I enjoy walking around museums, going to parks & discussing the meaning of life over (another) glass of wine with my boyfriend; getting no closer to the answer but closer to the bottom of the bottle, whilst revelling in the mystery of it all. Real life fascinates me and I find it sad that it doesn't do the same for quite a lot of young people now.
What's most important here is that liking all of these thinks is OK too. Having interests that other people find boring or not stereotypically something your gender is supposed to like is OK. If you let sheepy, jealous and insecure people dictate what you should and shouldn't be doing, you not only let them think they are right, you restrict your own happiness.
The older I get, the more averse I become to participating in the rat race that is life's popularity contest. I don't aspire to move into a posh 'bisous' / 'not even a studio flat' just off the Kings Road; that costs 80% of my monthly salary, just to look like I can afford a certain lifestyle. I don't want 1 million Instagram followers and I won't upload a selfie or butt shot every single day to keep them there. I don't pretend to love someone 3x my age to get money from them. I am not a social climber that uses and abuses people for my own gain- all of this instant gratification narcissism bullshit can jog on and for me to feel that is OK.
It's shocking what people are prepared to do to themselves to gain popularity and they don't see anything wrong with it. It's OK to have a boob job because YOU don't really like your boobs, but it's not ok to see a celebrity do it and decide you want one too- just because it's got that celebrity 999,999 likes on Instagram and a free supply of Triangl bikinis. In creating these images for themselves they are reinforcing this idea that conformity wins over everything, or that you can never succeed or be good enough if you are just 100% yourself. This is so wrong.
If it's not in seeing the likes of the Kylie Jenners of the world, morphing before our eyes into combinations of Blac Chyna and Jocelyn Wildenstein before they hit 20, or seeing the Daily Mail reporting on the rise of knee fat and cankles in women, it's going to be something else ridiculous. No one can win in this game once they start playing it. The only people who reap the benefits of increased social insecurity are the media, who keep churning articles and magazines out with the sole intention of making you question yourself, your body or your life choices aaaand the plastic surgeons who are getting all of this new business.
I'm going to end on this. People who seek to humiliate you for the way you do things are often intimidated by something...whether it's your confidence, your happiness, what you look like or what you have. Someone with a seemingly 'socially acceptable' & perfect life can be equally jealous of you, for many things and often times they will try and push you off course by making you doubt yourself. Lastly, comparing yourself to the people in the media; who are themselves, either trying to portray a certain image, or being criticised for not, is like chasing a rainbow only to find there is no pot of gold at the end. It is OK to be quirky and like other things. It's the people with something different to offer that will end up leading the best lives overall.
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