It took me decades to realize that I was bullied, and it took me the pause that the pandemic gave me to understand to which extent we live in a society that enables and systematically normalizes bullying. Gay, straight, short, tall, fat, skinny, white, black, or brown. There's an endless list of the box that you should fit in, and if you don't, and most of us don't, it is enough reason to get people bullying you.
I recently came across this piece of data: Only 7 percent of men globally relate to how masculinity is depicted in the media.That is a shocking statistic, especially when you think that 93 percent of men don't feel comfortable with the same standards that they help promote in their daily lives.
Now think beyond masculinity. Think of how many people feel uncomfortable in just being who they are in general.I've always had a problem with fitting in any box. The idea of being categorized as something and then having to act according to a specific norm always made me cringe.
For example, for my straight friends and I was a little too gay, and for my gay friends, I was maybe not gay enough to their standards. That shows that prejudice, and its best friends intolerance and bullying, happen among any group of people. Refusing to live up to these groups' expectations added a lot of tension to my life, and many times it made me feel uncomfortable and self-conscious around any of them.
And then there's the clique effect. Cliques are like a curse. When we are very young, we want to belong to a group, and we eagerly try to look like others just to feel accepted. But when we grow up, sometimes, we don't grow out of this pattern. And there we go through life trying to be accepted by a people, burying deep down our own insecurities and authentic identity to be accepted and survive the environment surrounding us. Because I didn't follow the clique's playbook, most of them gave me a hard time.
My parents were an interesting combo. My father was a pragmatic atheist communist, and my mother was a catholic with an artistic spirit. While one liked to preach about what was right or wrong, the other chose to pray for the best. One was fascinated by politics, and the other loved the arts. I guess my choice of not fitting in any box came from my experience of trying not to choose sides and, at the same time, curious about both points of view on life. Although I'm thankful to have been presented with such diverse takes on life early, it wasn't an easy ride.
My father was a man of his generation. Pragmatic and uncomfortable in showing emotions, as much as intelligent and liberal, as he was, he was too critical as well. I think my first experiences with being bullied came from him when he would lecture me at the dinner table, dissecting every word from my mouth. It was a pure exercise of his analytical and logical skills, and I am sure that he believed it was education. Nevertheless, it fed my insecurities for life.
My mother was the opposite. Caring, sensitive, and artistic, she encouraged every creative aspect of my personality while at the same time unconsciously reinforcing the impression that somehow I was always in need of protection. This dynamic ended up forging a personality that, on one side, was terribly self-conscious,on the other side kept pushing back to any form of conformism.
Too tall, too sensitive, too old, too young, too skinny, too critical, too emotional, too cynical., too bold, too soft. Throughout my life, I've been categorized as so many different things, some opposite to another, that I lost count of them.
Does it sound familiar to you? I bet it does. That's because I'm not an exception; I'm the rule. We are the rule. Have you ever felt hurt or had your life opportunities blocked just because you don't fit the mold or don't belong to a particular clique? Who hasn't?
Well, for most of my life, I didn't even know I had been bullied. I just thought that this how things go. If you are different, things will be more challenging, and you better get used to it. I didn't know that the box that I don't fit in; most people don't fit in it either. And that those people making my life miserable were trying hard themselves to conform to something that only made them miserable as well.
That positive side of coming to the realization that there's nothing wrong with you is the feeling of self-empowerment. Yes, you might have been a fool to second guess yourself in the past, but now you know you were OK all along. And once you know, you can't unkown it.