I’ve always prided myself as someone who couldn’t be influenced by anything or anyone. I shouldn’t have been taking pride in it but I did. In every person’s life from when they were little till whenever, there would always be pressure. From family, from relatives, from friends. It’s something you can’t avoid. What you can do, however, is to decide whether or not you would be influenced by the pressure you’re getting.
It’s a different thing when you see your friends every day in school, but at the end of the day, you go back home, to your family, and subconsciously be rid of whatever influence you may have gotten from school, compared to when you’re constantly there, surrounded by your peers. Your values, beliefs and even personality are tested at every turn.
Dorm life showcased a lot of things. And I remember a week after I’d gotten in, I removed my school uniform to change into dorm clothes when a gasp startled me. I turned to see the amazed face of my side mate as she gawked at me. My first instinct was to cover myself hastily since I’d been facing body insecurities then.
“What?” I asked. Hoping she wouldn’t ask some embarrassing question about my body.
“Why is your body bare?”
“What do you mean? I have clothes on.”
“That’s not what I mean. I mean why don’t you have beads?”
I guess I must have been dumb then cause I brazenly asked, “Is it Cultural Day? Why would I have beads on?”
I think she muttered something along the lines of “.....and they said you were smart.” Then, she lifted her dress to show me the array of beads adorning her waist. They couldn’t have been less than six.
My eyes bulged out. “You wear that to school every day? And it isn’t discomforting?”
She shook her head with a smirk and pointed around the room. “Look around you.”
And that’s when I saw it. I’d always known that my eyes did this selective sight thing where it looked like it only saw what it wanted to see. So, I wasn’t surprised to see that ninety percent of the ladies that were either coming out of the shower or putting on their clothes had these beads on. How odd.
She assessed my figure. “I could give you some of mine if you want. It helps shape you up and you can’t say no to something like that.”
To be honest, I had nothing against waist beads. I still don’t. But something about that eye-opening realization didn’t bode well with me. Call it pride or overthinking but it felt like everyone would notice if I started wearing them and promptly call me a copycat. Plus, I had always liked to be different, even for the minutest things. Being among felt good but was it as satisfying as standing out? It may be a silly line of reasoning but those were the thoughts that ran through my mind as I politely declined her gift.
But it was like the universe wasn’t okay with my request because the pressure mounted after that refusal skyrocketed. It was in every conversation, which to buy, what colour, what style accentuated the figure more, and so on. It was kind of infuriating and if those were the signs that I should also wear, it had a backward effect, because I was even more resolute not to wear if it was going to make me a part of generic conversations.
Believe it or not, that eventually died. The next thing was a particular type of footwear that everyone seemed to have. Sometimes I asked myself why I didn’t happen to have these things. I even wildly thought once that maybe they usually had a meeting excluding me and came up with different trends because one second everything was fine and in the next, everyone was wearing or possessing something I didn’t. It didn’t matter though. If it was something that was supposed to be mine, it would be eventually.
And till now, it’s the same narrative. Everything trending all at once and I only realize these things when they’ve already died down or it just never interests me enough to try them. I couldn’t be sure if it was pride or just my personality but it did save me a lot of times, not submitting to influence. And so far, I’ve not missed out on something amazing because I didn’t join in, so I guess I’ll continue. But one thing is certain, if I wasn’t influenced by anything in that dorm where everything seemed to happen, there isn’t much that could influence me. Or if there is, I’m yet to find out.
Image is mine.
