Peer Pressure Tightrope — The Dark Side of Poking Fun
The dinner party was winding down. Empty bottles of wine and picture-perfect remnants of crumbled food posed on white plates set against the backdrop of a just-wrinkled-enough linen tablecloth, flushed cheeks, and eruptions of laughter. It had been a pleasant one, flowing easily, meandering an array of topics, never once slamming into those abrupt hiccups when everyone goes silent for a second to mentally fast forward through the possible responses to an unexpected point of view, a particularly crude joke, or an insensitive stereotype. And the hiccup that I slammed into wasn’t one that was relevant to anyone else, so the screeching brakes were only in my head.
iPhones circulated; photos were being pulled up and pointed to, accompanied by enthusiastic laughter and jeering. The context was lost on me, but the subject was men with mustaches, as in why do they just randomly grow them sometimes? More laughter, more poking, good-humored fun, and then, yeah, it’s pretty much the same thing as women with bangs.
The screeching brakes moment. I have bangs.
The conversation around me didn’t miss a beat, but I was having another one with myself. My wine-tinged brain wondered, bangs? Bangs — and mustaches? The connotation had been negative; did someone say desperate? I was busy replaying it, trying to retrace the course of the conversation. I was abruptly self-conscious and whooshing through that familiar, shrinking feeling of being on the wrong side of something.
Until I caught myself. Are you kidding me?! Not again.
I know the feeling well; I’ve written about it plenty, and this time, I was determined to dismiss it and move on. But in the weeks that followed, I found myself standing in front of the mirror, determinedly pushing my bangs to the side, pinning them back, tying them up in a scarf. Am I really that fragile? I asked myself. Still? So fragile that a single comment made in jest at a dinner party can send me spiraling into this twister of self-loathing?
No, of course not; at least, it looks different than it used to. I’ve spent years growing past caring, past giving a damn about what people think. Apparently, not altogether successfully, but definitely well enough to be instantly aware of the pattern.
When I was fifteen, I was baking cookies with a woman who was significantly older, a dear friend and mentor, when I broke a nail. I’d spent precious, tedious time maintaining and growing my nails to a length I’d never achieved before and was skating very near the sin of vanity because of it. When I bemoaned the broken one, she didn’t miss a beat with her sidelong glance and dismissive, “I don’t know why you grow them anyway; you’re the only one who likes them.”
At the time, I didn’t know to be incensed by it, I just assumed she was right, that if I was the only one who liked them, there must be something wrong with me. I reflexively cut them all short and kept them that way for years. It wasn’t a surprising declaration after all; it went hand in hand with the incessant pressure I’d endured for years to be more of a tomboy and not a miss priss.
Miss Priss. That was my nickname as a kid. I loved ruffles and lace and pastels. But I wasn’t supposed to. Could I milk the cow in decent time without my forearms burning, or chuck a bale of hay, or not mind the grotesque stench of squished beetles in the garden? Could I get a grip on myself and not screech and flee when the boys chased me with spiders and lizards and snakes? I became hyper-aware of being too girly, not strong enough, tough enough, dirty enough — caring too much about the wrinkles or stains or tears in my dress.
I forced myself to hold the snakes and the lizards.
A few years after leaving my home and its restrictive upbringing, I was invited to a wedding for the first time in the real world. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I knew it would be fancy, and I was thrilled by the chance to dress up. I knew exactly where to find the perfect outfit — at our local vintage shop, which had become a cherished hangout spot for me because, happily, the owner loved for me to come in and try on the clothes because I happened to have the perfect body shape and size for all those clothes.
I chose a dark blue satin number with a deep V in front and back, a nipped-in waist, and a full, tea-length skirt with a shawl collar that elevated its elegance. It was, if anything, slightly ahead of the curve toward the vintage-y trends of the last twenty years or so. Slipping into that dress was akin to slipping into a new skin, one that at the same time shrouded and magnified my true self.
I relished the rare feeling of confidence, adulthood, and the assurance that, for once, I would fit right in — blending in was my ultimate goal; I’d stood out my entire life up until that point for all the wrong reasons and I longed to just be normal — I know, no such thing, but I was young and naive.
I didn’t wear the dress. I allowed myself to be convinced that it was too fancy, silly, and overdone and instead wore a midi, polyester floral skirt and an off-white tee shirt, topped off with a blazer that was easily four sizes too large. When I showed up at the wedding, it was instantly evident to me that my initial choice would have been perfect, and I wanted to shrink down until I just disappeared.
It wasn’t the first time I’d succumbed to the pressure of what was all around me. I was quickly learning that the real world wasn’t as free choice as I’d assumed but riddled with the same kind of unwritten rules, pressure, and ridicule in order to fit — Wranglers and crop tops earned me stares and smirks, L.L.Bean jeans, fleeces, and turtlenecks awarded points of belonging.
As most of you know, I write when something knocks incessantly at the door. So what’s the point of all this babble about bangs, long nails, dresses, and Wranglers? It’s about how, often, even in the context of something as insignificant as how we style our hair or the clothes we wear, we censor ourselves, rework, or malign what we want because it’s easier than standing out.
It’s about the things we do to belong, personalities we flirt with, mantles we don, postures we contort to, to convince ourselves and those whose approval and company we covet that we’re worth it. It’s about the ways we diminish ourselves and hold ourselves back, whether it’s the girl in seventh grade who is abruptly aware that it’s not cool to be smarter than the boys or the high school boy who discovers his sensitive nature and compassion incites scorn or the way I wipe off my red lipstick when I leave the house, instead of the other way around.
Fitting in isn’t a trivial pursuit; it is birthed in a desperate, primal drive to know that someone has our back and that we will journey through our lifetime carried along by the current of our people. And in order to ensure we have people, we bend, we contort, we diminish, or whittle away at our self.
But this does not serve our people at all. It is no way to contribute to or enrich the whole.
So I wonder, what is the terrible need we have to diminish people who fracture our molds? And why do we fold so easily under those opinions? How can we build and maintain our people — a vibrant pollinator garden for the purposes of this metaphor — and celebrate, nurture, and appreciate all of the colors and species that are contributing to the overall health of the whole? What will it take for us to understand that even harmless poking and good-natured jeering can sometimes land as just the opposite?
Our differences are in the spotlight these days, and we are dividing ourselves based on tedious specifics into warring factions over the tiniest variations in taste to the most impactful, deeply held beliefs. My premise is that we will never find the courage to untangle the big things until we embrace the fact that ridicule is divisive and peer pressure can strangle, even if it is just bangs.
