A Memory Experiment

One year in high school, I had to take an SAT prep class at a learning center during the summer. I was really angry about this class interfering with my summer, and I told my parents that I didn't want anyone else to know about it. At the time, I didn't understand much about how my memory worked, but I had this feeling that I could sort of "contain" the class, so that it didn't touch the rest of my summer. I knew that if I told people about the class, they might ask me how it was going.  A normal question to ask, but I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want to think about the class outside of class at all.

My first experiment of trying to contain an experience and keep it away from the rest of my experiences actually worked. I have memories of the learning center, but they aren't linked to my life memories. If I think about that summer, the class doesn't even enter my mind. I have a very clear memory of my life, and what happened when, but when I try to recall everything that happened between sophomore and junior year of high school, this prep class doesn't show up anywhere. In fact, the only reason I remember which summer it happened is that I've thought a lot about this memory experiment. Before that, I actually had to count back from the time I took the SATs to figure out which summer the class must have been.  Even that was difficult because I don't have much of a memory of when I took the SATs - studying for them was something that I tried to keep quiet for the same reason - I didn't want it interfering with my life. By not talking about these things, I was able to contain them and keep them from spilling into my life and my memories.

I have a clearer memory than a lot of people. (I say "clearer" rather than "better" because memory is reconstructive. My memories are clear in mind because I've thought about them and reconstructed them so many times, but that does not mean that they are 100 percent accurate). When my friends or cousins are talking about something that happened a long time ago, I'm usually the one who has the clearest memory of what happened when. When my parents are trying to remember what year something happened, I'm usually the one who knows. Because even if I don't associate an event with a particular year, I will associate it with what grade I was in or something that was going on in my life at the time, which I do connect with a particular year. By not talking about  SAT preparation with anyone, I prevented myself from linking those memories to anything else that was going on, which is why I can't instantly recall which year I took the SATs. 

I love the idea of containing memories like that, but I don't see myself doing it anymore. I really like to tell my friends everything that I'm doing and I don't like to keep anything to myself. What really enabled me to keep the SAT stuff a secret in high school was that I cared about my image - I wanted to be seen as the girl who spent her summer practicing singing, dancing, and acting, not studying for the SATs.  I got instant gratification out of keeping things private, because I got to present myself as someone whose only focus was getting to Broadway, and that made me feel really good. Now that image doesn't matter to me as much, having someone think that writing is the only thing I do doesn't make me feel as good as it once would have.  And without that positive feeling, I don't have any real motivation for keeping something private that I'd rather tell. I don't see myself containing memories again in the near future, but I thought I'd share the experience. I'd be interested to see if this method works for anyone else.

No Excuses for Sexual Assault

I'm really tired of hearing people's excuses for rape and sexual assault, as if it was the fault of the person who was assaulted. NO ONE has the right to push you into something that you don't want to do, whether it be by physical force or social or psychological pressure. My friend Eli created a webcomic about affirmative consent, which you can read here: Click here to read about affirmative consent

The important thing to keep in mind here is that, as Eli says, if you ask someone to do something 49 times, and they say no each time, but the 50th time you ask them, they say yes, that's not consent. That's pressure. It means that having to do the thing isn't as bad as whatever pressure the person will experience if they don't. If someone wants to have sex with you, they should be actively  interested, not just going along with what you want them to do.

Think of it this way: if your friend calls you and asks if you want to go with them to eat at a restaurant that you hate, you can tell them that you don't want to eat there. But what if you're already in the car with your friend, and without asking you, your friend pulls into the restaurant, parks the car, and says, "Is this okay?" Sure, you can still say that you don't like that restaurant, but wouldn't it be harder in that situation? Wouldn't you be more likely to go along with it even if you really don't want to eat there? The same is true with any activity, including sex, except sex is more complicated because people are uncomfortable talking about it, so most of the time, people will just start kissing or touching the other person and try to figure out if they like it. Because there is no actual discussion, it's much easier for someone who doesn't care about the other person's feelings to pretend that they thought the other person wanted to have sex when they didn't.

People use code to talk about sex - they use terms such as "hanging out" to involve sexual activities. The problem is that people will use this code against other people, to make them feel like they consented to sex when they really didn't. Imagine that a friend invited you to hang out, but when you got to their house, they were expecting you to go canoeing with them.  You hate canoeing, but your friend is acting as though you already committed to doing it, like somehow, agreeing to "hang out" meant that you also agreed to go canoeing. This sounds silly, but it is the sort of thing that happens with sexual activities - one person was expected to know that the other person invited them over to have sex, when the other person never said so. Again, someone in this situation would probably feel more pressured to go along with a sexual activity than someone who was asked in plain English whether they wanted to have sex. It makes it easy for somebody to take advantage of another person by making them feel guilty about not wanting to do what they supposedly committed to.  Again, in order to have consensual sex, everyone involved must actively want to have sex, with absolutely no pressure involved.

That said, there are still a lot of excuses that people use to justify rape and assault. Here are some rules that everyone needs to know:

Rule 1: A person must be mentally with it in order to agree to something. If you broke into someone's room and robbed them while they were asleep, most people would agree that it was wrong. You would never get away with saying that it was okay to steal because the sleeping person didn't say anything to stop you. The same would be true if you stole from someone's purse or pockets while they were drunk and passed out, or if you asked someone "can I have your phone?" while they were drunk or very sick, and they said nothing or responded with an "uh-huh" that indicated they didn't really hear the question. This same act gets excuses when it comes to sexual assault, but it is not an excuse at all. You can't have sex with someone who is  asleep, passed out, or out of it for any reason and is unable to give consent. Remember: the person must actively want to have sex with you.

Rule 2: You need to be mentally aware in order to know whether someone else wants to have sex with you. You know it would be wrong to drink before you drive, operate heavy machinery, perform surgery, or anything else that might lead to someone getting hurt. If you are so drunk that you are unable to tell yes from no, that you don't have enough self-control to stop performing any sexual acts if the other person tells you stop, then you should not be having sex all. Being drunk is not an excuse for killing someone in a car accident, and it shouldn't be an excuse for forcing sex on someone.

Rule 3: What matters is what the person actually wants, and how they respond when you suggest having sex.  Anything that YOU perceive as asking for sex, such as the way a person dresses, dances, or flirts with you, has nothing to do with actual consent. Thinking that someone wants to do something based on how they are dressed DOES NOT give you the right to pressure them into actually doing it. Of course clothes give off a message, but you still have to ask someone whether or not they want to do something, and their word is final. If you ran a school dance club and met someone who always wore an "I ♥ dance" t-shirt and jazz pants with "dancer" written on the back, you wouldn't just sign them up for the team. You'd ask first. And if their answer is that they have no interest in the dance team, you may be surprised, but you wouldn't (or at least, you shouldn't) think that you have any right to push them into it, or that they owe it to you to join the dance team because they dress like someone who likes dance. It works the same way with sex - what a person actually says (or doesn't say) is final. Thinking that someone was "asking" for sex with their clothes or behavior is YOUR interpretation and has nothing to do with what the person actually wants. And most of the time, the idea of someone "asking for it" is probably not a misinterpretation, but an excuse for sexual assault.

Rule 4: A person can change their mind at any time, no matter what. Even if someone really indicated that they wanted to have sex with you, even if you have already started, that person has the right to say no at any time. It's not a contract. You may be disappointed that the person changed their mind, but that DOES NOT give you the right to push someone into something that they don't want to do. Think of it this way: if your friend promised to go to the movies with you, but then decided that they didn't feel like going anymore, you might be disappointed. You may even think that they should have gone anyway because they made a commitment to you. But would you ever think that you had the right to drive to their house and physically force them into your car, or threaten to hurt them if they didn't come with you? Probably not. Probably if you did either of these things, everyone would recognize that what you did was wrong, even if the other person had originally said they would go. So why is it that anyone accepts this excuse when it comes to sexual assault? Why does it matter someone said earlier if they are saying no right now? All the excuses that someone had previously consented to sex are invalid because those were all things that happened before you got to the point of being ready to have sex, and the only thing that matters is what the person wants right now, not what they seemed to want earlier. Again, this is probably used more often as an excuse than an actual misinterpretation.

If you have been sexually assaulted, don't let anyone make you think that any part of it was your fault. You could be wandering around naked for all I care, and if you didn't say that you wanted to have sex with someone, then they had absolutely no right to do anything sexual to you. There is no room for misinterpretation, because when you don't know what someone wants, you ask. It's that simple. There are no excuses for sexual assault.

To Hear What Isn't Said

Reading between the lines has never been my specialty, but I want to make a serious effort to hear what people aren't saying, to understand what people actually want even if it is different from what they're asking, because not everyone is comfortable asking for what they want directly.  I mean, when was the last time you told someone that you wanted attention or to feel cared for? Probably, you didn't ask for these things directly - you found another way to try to get what you were looking for.

One time in college, I told a classmate that I thought the school should provide us with milkshakes during finals, because some of us were unable to swallow solid food. My classmate said, "Well, suggest it," and sort of shrugged it off. But what I really wanted was to talk to someone about how sick to my stomach I felt all the time. I wanted someone to ask why I had trouble eating solid food.

I realize now that I have probably given similar responses, without meaning to blow the other person off. In high school, a friend of mine didn't like that her hair was curly, and I said, "Why don't you straighten it?" I was trying to help solve her problem, but looking back now and realizing that she never did straighten her hair makes me think that she didn't want styling advice any more than I wanted a milkshake - she wanted reassurance that her hair was beautiful just the way it was.
  

I am not always the best at reading people, but my new goal is to be able to figure out what people really want, and give it to them.

Types of Pain

The way I see it, there are 2 types of physical pain:

Type A: The pain you feel when you fall off your skateboard, burn your hand on the grill, or have a headache - pain that you do not want to experience again. You may be willing to risk some pain in order to learn a new skill, such as riding a unicycle, but you still wear safety gear and try to avoid falling.

Type B: The pain you feel when you're stretching your muscles or doing something physically active that you enjoy, where even if you are in pain, you feel good at the same time.  Continuing to feel the positive feeling is more important to you than avoiding the negative feeling, and the two are linked together to some extent. Continuing an activity such as stretching will actually reduce the pain, rather than making it worse.

Things do not automatically fall into one category or the other - whether pain is Type A or B is different for each individual. One person may be okay with some muscle pain that they experience going for a run, whereas another person may not be, even if the degree of pain is the same.

I think that these same classifications exist for emotional pain as well. Although it is a little trickier to define, most emotional pain or distress can also be divided into what you want to avoid, and what you don't mind or are okay working through. In this case, there is probably and even wider range of variation in terms of what people consider Type A and Type B. It doesn't really matter, but what matters is that we all recognize that there is a difference, that one person's Type A pain could be another person's Type B pain, and vice versa.  After going through the same stressful situation, one person may feel exhilarated in a positive way, like they just finished running a race, while another person may feel more like they've burned themself and never want to do it again.

Next time someone is talking about something stressful or emotionally painful, listen closely and you can probably tell which type of pain it is to them.

Reasons to Bond Over

People often like to bond over things they have in common. The first kind of thing you might have in common is something that you both like. You may enjoy bowling or knitting or playing dungeons and dragons with someone who shares your interest. You may like to talk about your favorite books or watch a marathon of your favorite TV show together.

Another thing you might have in common is something that you both hate. Maybe it's a required class or an obligation. Maybe it's a popular series that everyone expects you to like. Maybe it's the way something works in your culture, or in the world.  But whatever it is, common dislikes seem a bit more complicated then common likes.  Common interests usually involve doing something - even if you and a friend have different reasons for liking an activity, you can still do it together. Even if you disagree about a topic, the fact that you both enjoy discussing it keeps you together.

The difference about bonding over something you don't like is that it involves a third type of bonding, which is bonding over values, beliefs, personality traits, and experiences. In my experience, when you bond over something that you don't like, even if it's something you are actively protesting against, your reasons for not liking it are more important than just the fact that you don't like it. Your reasoning may be what you actually bond over.

Take this example: Suppose that Ashley has a very hard time tying her shoelaces. And let's assume this is a fixed factor (in other words, she can't simply practice and learn how to tie her shoes). As a result, Ashley hates gym class because it's really embarrassing to not be able to tie her sneakers. Now, many people would say that Ashley isn't alone because a lot of kids hate gym class, but the truth is, someone in this position would not necessarily be able to bond with someone who hates gym class for another reason.

First of all, a lot of kids hate gym class because they don't like sports or aren't good at them. We don't know whether Ashley fits this description hates these activities or not - Ashley may be really good at sports. She may love to try out for a team if only they didn't require her to wear sneakers.  If this is the case, Ashley would never fit in with a group of kids who are bonding over their dislike of sports.

Another reason that students hate gym class is that they get picked last or are teased for not being athletic. While Ashley is also being teased, there is no guarantee that other kids who are picked on will bond with her. It is possible that everyone in class teases Ashley about her shoelaces, including kids who get teased for other reasons. It is also possible that Ashley picks on kids who are not athletic. 

Finally, the popularity of the students who don't like gym class would also play a role in whether or not Ashley would fit in with them. The kids who don't like gym may be popular and consider themselves too cool to participate, and we don't know whether Ashley would hold the same attitude. She might be perfectly willing to participate if she didn't have to wear sneakers. On the other hand, gym could be considered cool and the kids who don't like gym are outcasts, in which case we still don't know whether Ashley would fit in. Outside of gym class, Ashley is probably able to hide her problem by wearing shoes without laces, so we don't know whether she would really bond with a group of outsiders if she doesn't consider herself to be one.

This is just something to keep in mind, before you tell someone that they are not alone because there are other people who feel the same way. It's one thing to find a partner for something you like to do, but it's another to find someone to bond with over something that you don't like. Just think about it this way - if everyone loves a particular type of lemonade, and you hate it because it's not sweet enough, your first thought might be to bond with other people who hate it also. But what happens when you learn that the other people who don't like it think that it's too sweet, that they're petitioning to make it even less sweet than it is now.  Would you still be able to bond with them, or would you actually have more in common with people who like the lemonade the way it is? When it comes to disliking things, it may be our reasoning that we actually bond over.

Pride and Other Emotions

Back in high school, I participated in a state theatre competition each year. High schools from all over the state would prepare a play to perform and compete against the other schools. There were three rounds of competition, and at each round, a certain number of schools were selected to advance to the next round. My classmates and I never made it past the first round. Most of us had a high stake in the competition play and were very disappointed about not advancing. But to me, advancing was never about winning - it was about making the competition last longer.

Theatre at my high school was a seasonal event. We had the all-school play, which rehearsed from September to mid-December. If you had a speaking role, you could easily have your entire fall semester revolve around the play (which was what I liked). After Christmas break, we were focused on the state competition at the end of February, and the inter-class plays, which were preformed in the middle of March and which were less of a big deal than the all-school and competition plays. But after that, theatre was over. Three more months of school without any theatre, just waiting for summer vacation. After that final date in the middle of March, the fun of school was over. But I knew that if we advanced in the competition, theatre would last longer. If we ever went all the way to the third round, it would carry us through April.  It would be the most fun semester ever.

That was why I wanted to advance. Not for the achievement, but because it meant more theatre. The competition day was one of the most fun days of the year. I imagined what a fun year it would be if we had two more days just like that. That, to me, was the award, more than any medal or trophy we would have won. I still liked the idea of winning, but if there was no advancing, if the first round of competition was the only round, and the play ended there whether we won or lost, I would not have cared as much as I did about winning. And if the rehearsal period and competition day were stressful for me, rather than fun, if there was any reason that life would be more enjoyable once the theatre competition was over, then a part of me would have been happy that we didn't advance.

I'm bringing this up because it is relevant to some recent experiences in which I've been told that I should feel proud about things that I don't feel good about at all. This was a question on a personality quiz I took in high school:

If you got accepted into a very exclusive high school, you would feel:
a. Nervous
b. Bummed
c. Proud
d. Excited

(Of course it is possible to feel all or none of these emotions, or to feel something entirely different.) My answer was "bummed" because I loved my public high school and wouldn't have wanted to transfer to an exclusive school. But I also knew that if I did want to attend the school in question, my answer would have been "excited." I never would have answered "proud" because my reaction would be based on how much fun I expected to have at the new school. I would still feel proud if I had worked hard to get in, but pride wouldn't trump excitement. And if I didn't want to go to the school in the first place, then I wouldn't feel good at all about getting in.

There's nothing wrong with feeling proud of your accomplishments, it just doesn't happen to be a dominant feeling for me. Pride is something that I experience if it is linked with another positive emotion. I don't feel proud when I hear something positive about my college because I didn't like my experience there. I don't feel proud about getting a good grade if the process of getting it was miserable.  I wasn't proud about getting into graduate school because it was not a fun experience that I was looking forward to. But I am proud of the things I do that I love, that I really want to do.

I know that the definition of pride has nothing to do with whether or not you liked an experience, but for me it has everything to do with it. I feel proud of an accomplishment if I loved the experience of achieving it, and I don't feel proud of things that I wish I hadn't done. It doesn't work that way for everyone, but this is how it works for me.

Holistic Experiences

This is sort of an add-on to my previous post about vegetables. Basically, I have holistic experiences with many things, including food, meaning that everything about the situation is taken into account. In the case of food, it's not just about the flavor, it's about the entire experience of eating, my ideas of the food and how I think of it. Like I said in my last post, part of the reason I like hummus is because I think of hummus as a party food rather than something healthy.

Here's an example. There are these Odwalla drinks that taste kind of like fruit smoothies. Most of them have some type of benefit - they're packed with certain vitamins or are designed to boost your concentration or immune system.  Do I like them? It's hard to say. Because it's hard for me to focus exclusively on the taste of these drinks.

My first introduction to Odwalla was during my preparation for the SATs in high school.  My mom found Odwalla drinks in the store and bought them for me to improve my concentration and keep my immune system intact during all the stress. From that moment on, I though of these drinks as medicine. Even when I bought them in college, I just couldn't drink them like soda - I couldn't get past my initial impression that these drinks were like medicine and not something that a person drinks for the taste.  To this day, I don't really like Odwalla because it will always be medicine to me.

This is probably the most extreme example, but generally speaking, what I like depends not only on taste, but on my perception of the food, whether I've always thought of it as something that tasted good vs. being told I should eat it because it was good for me.

I would be curious to know how this affects other people's likes and dislikes.

Vegetables

For most of my life, I didn't like many vegetables.  It was only in the last  four or five years that I started to like them. I wasn't born hating veggies. My mom said that when I was young, I loved peas and carrots so much that she would add more of them to my soup.  She said I began to reject vegetables when I started watching Sesame Street and other kids' shows and got exposed to the idea that kids don't like vegetables, but you're supposed to eat them because they're good for you. I was too young to remember this transition, but I believe my mom, because I still feel that way to some extent. I mean, if someone's pushing something on you that you should do, I automatically assume it must not be fun, because if it were fun, we wouldn't need pushing - we'd be doing it already. And I feel the same way about food - if someone is pushing, pushing, pushing you to eat something that's good for you, it couldn't possibly be something that tastes delicious, because otherwise you'd want to eat it on your own. That may not be true, but that's how it felt for the longest time. How could I like vegetables when the phrase "eat your vegetables" means doing what you're supposed to do before you can get what you really want?

Once the whole "kids don't like veggies" phase died down, the cool thing to do was eat salad. I don't like salad that much because I don't like any salad dressings, nor am I interested in trying to like salad.  But there's been pressure to eat salad, which turns me off to it even more. I wasted a lot of food in college by taking salad like everyone else did, picking at it, and throwing it away. 

It all began with avocados. Homemade guacamole, more specifically.  See, unlike broccoli, carrots, and green beans, I was never exposed to avocado as a vegetable. My parents made guacamole often, which I refused to eat for the longest time simply because it was green, but they never put in on my plate like a side vegetable. They never indicated that I should eat it because it was healthy. Guacamole always seemed like a fun food for my parents, and I had no other exposure to avocados as vegetables. So one day, I decided to try my parents' guacamole, and I absolutely loved it. Nachos for me used to be just cheese, meat, and salsa, but now it's refried beans, cheese, salsa, guacamole, and pico de gallo. Sometimes I'll just pile the refried beans, cheese, and guacamole onto some lettuce and not even eat the chips. And even though nachos/taco salad has evolved into something healthier for me, it doesn't taste any less good. It actually tastes better, because I just really love beans and guacamole. The whole "vegetable" aspect of avocados just never phased me.  

Discovering that one of my favorite meals - a meal that could be made into a seven layer dip for a party - was actually a healthy one, made me reconsider my judgement of vegetables, and of healthy food in general.  Sure, I didn't like salad, but that didn't mean I couldn't try other things. My dad always made his grilled cheese sandwiches with tomatoes, which I had never tried before. One day I took a bite of his grilled cheese with fresh farmer's market tomatoes, and that was it. I was sold.  And the crazy thing is that now, I only like grilled cheeses with tomatoes because they're just too plain the regular way. I also learned that there is a huge difference between the taste of farmer's market vegetables and the kind in the grocery store. I"ll still pick the bland tomatoes out of prepackaged sandwiches, but if I have fresh tomatoes,I will especially make a sandwich just to use them. 

The more foods I tried, the more I realized that some really, really good-tasting foods just happen to be healthy.  I love hummus not only for the taste, but because it's just a fun food. Since I don't like dip or dressing, I never really had that experience of dipping raw veggies into something.  My first impression of hummus was that it felt like a party food.  Since I started liking new foods, my mom started cooking more vegetable-based foods like as spinach pie and eggplant parmigiana, which I would have rejected when I was younger but now I absolutely love. My mom always amazes me with her cooking.  Watching her makes me realize how many possibilities there are for everything. I don't normally like peppers, but my mom makes a mixture of roasted onions, peppers, and eggplant in the oven to mix into a pasta salads in the summer. Caramelized vegetables are so delicious. I like carrots already, but when my mom roasts them in the oven, they are just incredibly tasty. I have never liked cauliflower because it's bitter raw and bland cooked, but when mom roasted it in the oven, it tasted completely different, more like something from the grill. It had that savory, umami flavor, which I've discovered that I love. 

I'm still a picky eater, but I have more foods I like and a better understanding of what I like and don't like based on the actual flavors of the food, not whether someone is telling me I should eat it. I understand that foods can taste very differently based on the way that they're prepared.  And if I had kids and wanted them to get the nutrition they needed, I would introduce vegetables as foods that tasted good, the same way my parents did at the beginning.  I wouldn't push anything as "good for you," I'd just try making things in different ways, like my mom.  With all the unwanted pressure to care about calories, there are still  times when I want to reject all vegetables, but then I remember all the foods I love. And at the end of the day, guacamole is still at the top of my list.

The Trouble with GPAs

I never knew how to calculate my grade point average until I started applying for college. We didn't have GPAs in elementary or middle school (just letter grades), so when I got to high school, I didn't see any reason to try to figure out my GPA. I was happy with my grades, so why should I try to calculate my average?

I was okay with having to calculate my GPA in the second half of high school, but college was another story. College calculated your GPA for you, and I would have given anything to just see my grades. Because if I just looked at my grades alone, I would have felt great. I would have been proud of myself.  But looking at my GPA had the opposite effect. I got some bad grades during my first year at college, but I did well after that.  Looking only at my grades, I felt proud that I had improved so much, but my GPA always reflected those bad grades from the beginning. With my GPA, I would have had to get all As to overcome that first year, but with my grades alone, I felt like I had already overcome it.  

The other thing is that the 3 range always feels like you're in the Bs (even though an A- is a 3.7), and the 2 range always feels like the Cs. So even if you're getting mostly Bs, just a few Cs will put you in the 2 range. And if you're getting a mix of As and Bs, you'll be in the 3 range. When you average it all together, grades just don't feel as good as they do if you look at them alone. I was never happy with my GPA in college, but I would have been very happy if I had only looked at my grades

I applied the same principle to theatre with a "line-point average," an average number of lines I'd had per play that I was in.  It seemed like a great idea at first, but I soon realized that it had the same issues as my grade point average. I had been in so many plays where I had no lines, I just couldn't bring my average up. My current line average in high school was about 15-25, which I felt great about, but the line point average would never reflect it. Even when I got my first lead role with 300 lines, my average only moved up by a little bit. That was when I ditched the idea. 

I've learned my lesson not to calculate averages anymore and to measure success in a way that feels good to me. I think in smaller terms, like looking at my blog posts per month and thinking, "That's good, it's about one post a week or every other week on average," without performing any calculations for all time.  But still, when I see my grad school grades at the end of the semester, I will probably be given my GPA and my class rank, neither of which I want. I just want to feel good, and averages don't feel good.

Perfect Unbalance

I have never been interested in living a balanced life. Yet a lot of people I've met don't believe me when I say this; they can't let go of the notion that everyone must want balance.

Here's an example that comes up a lot. Let's say there are three activities that a person can spend their time on: A, B, and C. So I decide to devote most of my time to thing A, but also do a little of B and C. People try to convince me that I want to do more of B and C. They'll tell me that one day I'll look back and regret that I didn't do more of B and C. But I can usually predict what I will regret, and I know that if anything, I will look back and regret that I spent any time at all on B and C, that I didn't devote all of my time and energy to thing A.

"But you're already doing so much of A!" they'll argue.

"But it is only so much," I'll try to explain. "It's not everything. It's not all of A that I could be doing." And did it ever occur to anyone that if I wanted to do more of B and C, I would? Why would I spend so much time on A if I had any interest in living a balanced life?

The Unwritten College Dress Code

If you've ever been in high school and planning to go to college, you've probably heard that clothes and fashion are less important in college, and that there's less pressure to dress a certain way in college than there is in high school.  And for a lot of people, that is true. It is much more acceptable in college to wear t-shirts, sweatpants, and other causal clothing. It's more acceptable to dress comfortably and not put effort into how you look.  For many people, this is a blessing. But for some of us, the casualness of college has actually made it less socially acceptable to wear whatever we want.

In my college there were only two groups: people who cared about what they were wearing, and people who didn't. And that sounds all-inclusive, but it really isn't. Almost all of the people who cared about style wore preppy clothes. (There were a few who wore hippie clothes and a few who wore more formal high-fashion clothes, but that was it). Then the rest of the students were more causal and just wore jeans and t-shirts.

The problem with this unwritten college dress code is that it leaves out tons of styles that were present in high school - styles like goth, emo, punk-rock, funky, glam, creative, and tons of personal styles that didn't have a name. Styles that people put a lot of effort into, but do not fall into the category of dressing "nicely." I knew plenty of kids who had styles like goth and emo, who put just as much effort into their appearance as kids who preferred preppy clothes. But in college, you hardly ever see goth or emo styles, and styles other than preppy aren't acknowledged as styles, no matter how much effort the person put in.

"Effort" is a strange word when it comes to style, because we use effort to mean looking nice by societal standards, regardless of how much time a person actually spent on their appearance. Take layering for example: if you wear a tank top under a long-sleeved v-neck shirt, it looks nice.  If you take that same tank top and wear it over the long-sleeved shirt, it looks much more casual, even though both choices take the same amount of effort.  Here's another example: Since I don't wear makeup or do anything time-consuming with my hair, the main thing that takes effort for me is picking out clothes. I will often spend days or weeks thinking about what I'm wearing to a particular event. Most of my clothes are informal. I have some nicer things, and a few very formal outfits. The more formal an event is, the fewer choices I have, and less time I spend deciding what to wear. The more casual an event is, the more choices I have and more time I will spend mixing and matching outfits.  So in reality, I put more effort into getting dressed for a pool party than I would for a formal event, but everyone would assume I put more effort into dressing for the formal event because I would be wearing formal clothes.

The other thing to realize is that casual is a style. It's not a lack of rules. It's not an anything-goes attitude. It is an actual style, like any other. And like any other style, there can be casual cliques with unwritten rules about how you can and can't dress.  There's a feeling that you're supposed to reject fashion, that you don't really belong if you plan your outfits a week in advance. I remember the awkward glances I got when I asked people what they were wearing to a theme dance that weekend, or when I was excited about a special outfit I was putting together. I toned my personal style way down in college because I felt self-conscious, like everyone was staring at me because it was weird for someone who wasn't preppy to show that they put any effort into their appearance.  It was weird to wear anything that got attention and made you stand out. Even if you go to a college that's less preppy, alternative styles are usually hippie or artsy/sophisticated.  It's rare to come across the younger, more rebellious styles that you find in high school. Colleges aren't more accepting of personal styles in general - they just have different socially acceptable styles than high school.

A Piece of Advice

I was flipping through American Girl's new book, A Smart Girl's Guide to Knowing What to Say, and came across a section about being supportive to someone who is grieving or going through a very difficult time.  It gave examples of helpful and unhelpful things to say, and one of the unhelpful things was to compliment the grieving person on being strong and saying that you couldn't handle the situation as well as they are handling it.  This is unhelpful because:

1. The person may seem okay on the outside when they're broken inside, and complimenting them on being strong may make them feel like they need to act like they're okay when they're not.
2. This compliment may be appropriate for a person who chose to do something challenging, but it's not appropriate (and a little insensitive) to say to someone who is going through something horrible that they never would have chosen.

This is what I thought all along. Kind of nice to see it in print.

Keeping it Real

I've always felt a little uncomfortable when I read suggestions on what to do on a first date. Not because I was afraid of doing what was recommended, but because it would have been false advertising for me to do a lot of the behaviors suggested; I would not have been being myself.  Now that I'm in a relationship, I can already see problems ahead for people who follow that early-stage advice blindly, without giving consideration to whether or not the suggested behaviors would be an accurate reflection of who they are every day.

Take this example: Cosmopolitan magazine once said that a good way for a girl to impress a guy is to show that she is laid-back. They gave the example of getting the wrong order in a restaurant and eating it anyway.  Well, that's fine if that's what you would normally do, but what about those of us who aren't laid-back? Those of us who wouldn't eat something we didn't order? Is it really fair to the other person to behave differently around them?

Some time later, a woman wrote into Cosmo asking for advice. She said that guys like her at first because she acts chill, but once she reveals that she's actually high maintenance, they don't like her anymore. Instead of telling her to be herself from the start, Cosmo suggested that she solve the problem by trying to be more chill so guys would like her. That was the end of my subscription.

But what's silly about this situation is that the woman may have gotten into that mess by taking Cosmo's advice in the first place by trying to act chill.  It's a common problem in relationships that people start to act differently as time goes on, especially after marriage. It's like, they were behaving a certain way to attract each other, but once they knew they had each other, they could go back to normal. But I don't think the problem here is that people stop what they were doing at the beginning; the problem is that they ever started something that they didn't really want to continue.  We're told we need to do A, B, and C to attract someone, but what if those are things that we just wouldn't normally do? There's no point in getting someone to like you on your special dating behavior if you're not like that in everyday life.

My first date with my boyfriend Eric was a walk in the woods. It didn't have the pressures of a normal first date because we hadn't officially called it a date. We didn't know each very well back then, so there wasn't as much at stake. We were able to speak normally, like friends. I was a bit revealing on that first date; I had my suspicions about whether anyone would really want to date me, so I gave Eric a taste of what someone might not like about me. Not your typical first-date behavior.

Well, it's been almost a year since that first walk in the woods, and my boyfriend and I are madly in love. Eric supports me in everything and we can talk about anything - it's so weird to think about what I was once afraid to reveal.

So, my dating advice? Act naturally. Because you will attract people who like you as you are, not as you happen to be acting on that first date.

A Not-So-Happy Ending

In the book Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult, a character explains that the ending of "The Three Little Pigs" story is not a happy one at all.* We assume it's happy because all three of the pigs survive inside the brick house, but they won't live happily ever after because they would never get along living together based on their different personalities demonstrated by the types of houses they have built. Just thought this was an interesting insight.

*Here is a link to the original story of The Three Little Pigs for anyone who is unfamiliar with it.  In this version, the first two pigs get eaten. The character is referring to a new version of the story that many of us have grown up with, in which the first pig runs to the second pig's house, and then the two of them run to the third pig's house.

Where You Don't Have to Be Yourself

Acting involves taking on the role of someone else, someone who may come from a different country, culture, time period, or background than your own. A kind person can play an evil character. A smart person can play a foolish character. Yet for some reason, people just can't imagine that an introvert can play a more outgoing character, or sometimes any character at all. For some reason, directors think they should take who you really are into account when deciding who to cast.  I've filled out many audition forms that asked irrelevant questions to show how extroverted, funny, creative, or charismatic you are, but none of those things have anything to do with acting. If you're playing a character who is the comic relief, the director should look at whether you can perform that role in a way that will make people laugh.  Whether you have a joke of your own or can make up a funny story on the spot has no relevance unless you are auditioning for an improvisation group.

Upon entering college, I had been in more than 20 stage productions, and out of all these shows, only once had I performed as myself. My senior year, I sang a song in our school talent show that was dedicated to all my friends. But aside from that, everything else I did was acting.  Even if I was primarily singing or dancing, I was still acting, and there was nothing wrong with that. That was how it was supposed to be.

But for some reason, almost all of the student-run performing groups at my college expected you to be yourself on stage. If you were auditioning, they needed to know that you were funny and interesting and bubbly in real life - it wasn't enough to just be able to act that way. It's true that not all of the performances were plays - some were singing or dancing shows that didn't have to involve acting.  But the fact is, most of the time you are acting when you're singing or dancing, even it's not as part of a bigger show. When I sang in my high school chorus, we were told to be enthusiastic and fun with the songs, but it was always about the singing. It was never about being enthusiastic or energetic in real life; our teacher wanted us to have good stage presence and also have fun singing.  When I was in dance class, our teachers told us how to act based on the song and the story that we were telling; we weren't expected to have a personal connection with the song and perform the dance as ourselves.

There was one particular group at college that performed songs from different musicals, including some that were parodies written about our school. In the breaks between songs, students would come out and have funny conversations an routines, addressing each other by their real names. But these pieces were scripted, so there was absolutely no reason why those students had to be acting like themselves onstage. They could have very well been acting, but I'm pretty sure they were being themselves based on the questions asked on the audition form and my general impression of what that group is about. I was in a summer program for four years in which we performed the exact same kind of show, and we were always acting during the break scenes - you were never expected to be yourself onstage.

Even if being a certain kind of person is not a requirement for joining a show or group, it seems inappropriate to expect someone to be themself onstage when they signed up for something that should be acting. I've been in some dances where we were supposed to perform with a sexy attitude, and were told to be ourselves and express our own style and sexiness in the dance. Well, that's fine if the dance is "you," but it really wasn't my style or my kind of sexy. That was perfectly fine because I love acting, but I felt awkward because we were told to be ourselves. Even after this experience I did the same thing with my own dancers. The two dances that I choreographed most recently meant something personal to me, and I just assumed that my dancers would relate to it the way I did and just naturally know what their facial expressions should be. But it was wrong to assume that everyone else would be themselves onstage just because I was. I had had no idea how to look in those sexy hip-hop dances, and maybe expressions my dance were just as new to people who hadn't done a lot of lyrical dancing.

The bottom line is that it's okay to be yourself onstage, but it shouldn't be a requirement, and who you are in real life should not affect whether you get accepted into a show.

Influence

Back in middle school, a lot of my classmates had braces and used to complain about them all the time. One day, my friends asked me if I would ever get braces, and I said no. I said that even if I needed braces, I wasn't going to get them because it sounded like a really bad experience. My friends then tried to tell me that braces weren't really that bad and were even kind of cool, after they had complained about their own braces all year.

I did end up getting braces the following year, and they weren't as bad for me as they were for most people. (They weren't as tight, so they didn't hurt as much. Also, chewy candies aren't my favorite, and most crunchy things I could chew in the back since my braces were only on my front teeth). But if they had been that bad, if I complained about braces as much as my friends did, then I would be happy to know that someone else decided not to get them because of what I had said. The braces are only one example; there have been many times when I said I wasn't going to do something if it was as bad as another person made it sound, and the person almost always backtracks immediately and tells me that it's not that bad.

Sometimes, a person is just in a bad mood and is complaining about something that they don't really consider to be that bad, in which case they wouldn't want someone to be influenced by their complaining. I get that.  It also makes makes sense that you wouldn't want someone to follow you blindly or make a decision based only on your experience.  But when that happens, I don't back down; I explain the specific reasons that I didn't like a particular experience so that the person can decide whether or not they would be bothered by the same things. I also explain that my situation may not be the same as what they will experience, and what they should look into if they have concerns about their situation.

If a person is reconsidering something based on your complaints about the same thing, it means that they're actually thinking about their decision. They're not automatically yielding to the expectations of their family, friends, or society to do something that they may not want to do. They aren't blocking out anything negative that they hear in order to convince themselves that it will be okay. Don't worry about interfering with someone's plans, because if they really wanted something so much that they were willing to go through a lot in order to get it, then they probably wouldn't have questioned their plans based on someone else's complaints. If there is any doubt in a person's mind, you would be helping them by bringing those doubts to the table before they begin something that they might not want to start.

Making it Easier to Say No

Whenever someone asks me "Are you free on Monday?" my response is always "Why?" or "What did you want to do?"  I won't reveal that I am free at a given time until I know what I'm being invited to do, because it's much harder to say no to something you don't want to do once you've revealed that you have the time. It doesn't give you the freedom to decide whether to make time for an activity based on what it is.

After years of being asked whether or not I'm free on a certain day with no further details, I have developed a better way of inviting someone to do something.  I say, "If you're free on Monday, would you like to come to the party/ help out at the fundraiser/ hang out?"  This way, the person knows the event and the date at the same time, and can make a decision based on whether they want to go as well as whether they want to do something on Monday.  Sometimes I even expand the question and say "I don't know what you're doing on Monday, but if you are free, would you like to..." It's a bit drawn out, but it makes it even easier for the person to just say "No, I'm not free on Monday," and leave it at that because you've built into the question that they might not be free.

Of course, wording invitations this way is only a temporary solution to our issue of  "No" not being a complete sentence, but it would make things easier for people who feel pressured to say yes.

Absolute Validation

What is absolute validation anyway? The term does exist already, but I came up with this particular meaning.  Basically, absolute value + validation = absolute validation.  Let's explore these terms a bit further...

Validation - When you validate someone, you're letting them know that what they think and feel is legitimate. Validation is letting someone know that it's okay to feel the way they feel about something, and that if something matters to them, it matters.

Absolute value - (I use this to mean something different from the mathematical term).  Absolute value is the opposite of comparative value.  For example: a person can be called tall in a room of shorter people or short in a room of taller people, but their actual height stays the same, no matter what other people call them.  Tall, short, and average are comparative words, but a person's actual height is an absolute value.  It doesn't change based on their surroundings.

Absolute value gets complicated when it comes to things that aren't measured as easily as height.  So many qualities are measured on comparative scales that I sometimes question whether absolute value is even real.  But my goal is still to only care about absolute value. Caring only about absolute value means caring about what you're doing, but not in relation to what anyone else is doing. It means being satisfied with your good grade regardless of how many classmates scored above you. It means feeling free to complain about how much work you have to do even if other people have a heavier workload.  It means posting what you're in the mood to post even if everyone else is talking about something more important.

So when you put the two together, absolute validation means validating people (letting them know that what they feel is legitimate) using absolute value (not comparing them or their situation to anything else).

• Absolute validation means that if your friend feels x because of situation y, you consider that perfectly legitimate even if you would not feel the same way in their situation.  It means not telling them that they should feel z instead, even if that is how most people in their situation would feel.
• Absolute validation means that if your friend indicates that something is of a certain importance, you accept that importance at face value, even if the same thing wouldn't matter as much to you.  It means treating the situation as seriously as your friend indicated it should be treated.
• Absolute validation means not telling your friend that they shouldn't be so upset about something because there are bigger problems in the world.  It means not intentionally using your own problems or someone else's to one-up them.
• Absolute validation means not telling someone in an earlier stage of life that their problems aren't that bad because things will get harder when they reach a later stage of life.
• Absolute validation means paying attention to both the objective situation and the subjective story that your friend tells you. Understanding the objective situation can help you solve a problem, but only if you combine that knowledge with the knowledge of your friend's personal needs.  Absolute validation means not losing sight of your friend's feelings, even if their feelings don't match the situation in your mind.
• Absolute validation means not thinking any less of your friend when they find something stressful that you find fun.  It means not trying to help your friend get comfortable with the activity unless they personally want to do it.
• Absolute validation means being happy for your friend when they're psyched about getting a B, even if you thought the class was an easy A.
• Absolute validation means supporting your friend's goals when their focus is different from your own.  It means taking a friend's dance show as seriously as they do, even if you're focused on applying for jobs.
• Absolute value means respecting your friend's priorities. It means not criticizing your friend for passing up an opportunity because they didn't want to move, have less free time, or anything else that you would have been willing to do for the same opportunity.
• Absolute validation means not telling your friend to suck it up, tough it out, or get over it. It means accepting that your friend's situation is not okay if they tell you that they are not okay with it.  
• Absolute validation means focusing on what will make your friend feel better or solve their problem.  It means not pushing what you normally think a person should do on your friend if your friend does not share the same values.
• Absolute validation means believing your friend when they say that they were harassed, assaulted, or raped.  It means not asking them if they're sure or if they may be imagining things, but believing them without question.
• Absolute validation means not telling your friend that things aren't bad enough for them to kill themself.  Obviously things are that bad, or your friend wouldn't feel suicidal.  Absolute validation is helping a friend find other permanent solutions or ways of dealing with what they are going through, not trying to tell them that things are temporary or that they shouldn't want a permanent solution.

Legitimacy

I said in a recent post that I don't approve of the term "legitimate" and thought I should explain further, because there are plenty of times when it's perfectly okay to talk about legitimacy.  If you receive a phone call telling you that you've won a free car, you may question the legitimacy of the offer.  If you're doing research, you want to make sure your information comes from legitimate sources.  In both of these cases, legitimate means real: You wonder if you really have won a car.  You want to make sure your sources provide true information.

People lie sometimes.  And people know that people lie.  So only makes sense that sometimes a person will suspect that another person is lying.  For instance, you may suspect that a person is lying or exaggerating about not feeling well in order to get out of something they were supposed to do.  This is really unfortunate because a lot of people who really do feel bad, either physically or mentally, get accused of faking it, since there are people who will lie about things like that.

A few of the dictionary definitions of legitimate are "conforming to established standards of usage, behavior, etc." and "based on correct or acceptable principles of reasoning," but I don't think either of those things should be up for judgement, and I don't believe in "acceptable principles of reasoning."  In the above situation, it's okay to question whether someone is exaggerating if when you say "exaggerate," you mean that the person is saying that they feel worse than they actually do.  But if you know that the facts are true, if you believe that the person actually does feel the way they do, then it is not okay to say that their situation is not a legitimate reason for feeling the way they feel, or that the way they feel is not a legitimate reason for acting the way they are acting.  That's for them to decide, not you.  


Finally, it can be hard to believe what people say at face value if you have been lied to before. I get that. But think about this logically: a person who is lying wants to be believed. If someone is going to lie about why they can't do something, they would be more likely to say that they are physically sick than to say that they are depressed, because being physically sick is a more acceptable excuse in our culture.  And if someone says that they can't work in a room because the walls are yellow or people are typing loudly or anything that seems unusual to you, they are probably telling the truth because someone who is lying would come up with a more socially acceptable reason.  Keep in mind also that some people have to lie because no one will accept the truth.

Don't Be Careful What You Post

We've all heard people say that you should be careful what you post, that you shouldn't write anything online or even in an email that you wouldn't want your parents or teachers or future employers to know about.  Well, that doesn't work for me because there is not a single thing I post online that I would want future employers to see, unless I am actually talking to them.  It gets really annoying to see all these things about all the stuff you can't post  - hasn't anyone heard of privacy settings?

I understand that privacy settings have issues, and that facebook in particular has applications that sell your information to people like market researchers.  That is annoying, but when it comes to privacy against people you know in real life, the privacy settings can pretty much do the job.  On facebook, you control how much of your profile people who aren't your friends can see. You control who of your non-friends can search for you on facebook.  And within your list of friends, you control who can see what.  If you feel obligated to accept a friend request from someone with whom you don't want to share all your information (such as a boss or family member), you can accept them but keep them blocked from what you don't want them to see.  I have quite a few facebook friends who can't see anything that I post.

My facebook page is friends-only, meaning that anyone else who searches me will only see my name and picture.  I also set my profile so that only friends of friends can find me when they search, which decreases the odds of employers or grad school admissions directors even finding my page. Some of my friends only use their first name with their last initial, or change their last name altogether to prevent themselves from being found.

I don't know as much about other sites such as twitter, but most sites will at least let you make your page friends-only, or allow you not to use your full name.  I do not reveal my full name or any identifying information on this blog; the only people who know who I am are those who can see the link to this blog on my facebook page, and those whom I have personally given the link to.

I understand that not everyone wants to keep their websites as private as I do.  It makes sense that if you're using something like facebook to meet new people, then you may want to reveal a more information to everyone.  But the point is that there are so many ways to make your information private from individuals whom you don't want to see it. Of course there are ways for people to steal your information even with your privacy settings in place, but that is called hacking, in which case I don't worry what someone can find out about me because I would not want to associate with someone who hacked me in the first place.

So no, I won't be careful what I post in case employers are watching, because that's what privacy settings are for.  I won't present myself in a professional way online because I'm not professional.  Post what you want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else*  Use your facebook status as your diary if you want to.  Don't get pressured into acting professional in your personal space.  Don't let anyone in who would make you compromise what you want to share.

*After rereading this post, I realized I should specify that cyberbullying - posting hurtful things about other people, sharing other people's private information, sending harassing messages, sending unwanted sexual messages, posting as someone else - is absolutely not okay.  The "don't be careful what you post" statement only refers to personal things that are yours to share.