"Hello. It's me."

I think that I've finally figured it out. No, I think that I have. "What" you ask?? Me. I think I've finally figured myself out. 

Now this being my 150th post, I figured it would be as good a time as any to explore this new discovery. 

Specifically, I believe that I have finally figured out what continually holds me back in life. Or rather, the thing that I most fear. Yeah, let's call it that. I have finally understood what it is I most fear in this world, and, despite popular opinion, it is not spiders. No. What I feel is the thing I am most scared of, is being a stereotype. And let me explain...

Throughout my entire life, I have always attempted to hold myself up to other people and be able to say, in at least some small capacity, that I am more of my own person than they are. Well, maybe not "MORE my own person" but the word DIFFERENT would at least have to appear in there anyway. And in this self-comparison with other people, I have noticed that I have continually held back for things that I otherwise may have actually liked. Take an example, shall we??

From as early as high school, I have known myself to make conscious decisions to try and not dress like everyone else around me. I have always been aware of attire being associated with specific image/cultural definitions and have always felt that one should dress in what he/she wants to without having been influenced by any outside sources. So, in this time of my life when fashion has been as important as anything else going on around us, I have always dressed the way I wanted to, being very careful not to emerge looking similar to any one "social clique" that existed around me. And I still do this. I refuse to develop into a scenester, or hipster, or whatever you will. 

It is not just fashion though. I refuse to give up my music tastes to the greater good. I maintain that I love my country music, and my soft alt-rock and so on. When I am recommended a new "Arcade Fire" record or something by "Vampire Weekend" (which, by the way, is one of my most hated band names of all-time), I just can't bring myself to give it a decent chance because that's not really representational of my own, unique personality. That doesn't mean that this particular brand of music is bad, or anything like that, it's just that I am able to make a strictly conscious decision to make sure that I'm not associated with the common stereotype who does in fact like this type of music, and these particular bands. 

I have never been able to understand this desire to conform to a specific taste that a massive group holds. I see all of these people around me in university and in shopping malls and pretty much everywhere else, wearing their big, lens-free "Buddy Holly"-esque glasses, with their secondhand "vintage" clothing discussing who is the greater visionary, Wes Anderson or Tim Burton, or the bleach-blondes in their tiny white tank tops with sweat pants, flip-flops and giant bug sunglasses followed closely by their jacked, Aviator, polo'd boyfriends who look as though they should be a villain in an 80's high school movie, or choose whichever group you wish, there are plenty, and I can't help but question their own choices. I can't fathom their thought process when they look around them and see eight other people dressed almost identical to them, listening to the same band, making fun of the people who, in turn, are making fun of them. I have just never understood this. I don't get it. Why would you ever want to conform to these standards, when you have the opportunity to be something unique. It just doesn't register with me. 

And this is what has finally struck a cord with me. My goal in life is to avoid being a stereotype. And I constantly worry that I am falling smack dab into the middle of some larger mass group of people, which I need to get out of as fast as possible. That is why I am friends with the people that I am friends with. Because no one else I know can interact with the polar opposite people that I do. No one else can be friends with the jock of the year and the head of the drama club. No one keeps completely separate company from a minimum of half a dozen "groups" and/or "cliques". 

I don't want to be like everyone else. I want to have my own voice. And I think this is why I am the way I am. I am a very mediocre student because I don't want to end up in that "arrogant A-student" who thinks they are better than everyone else. I am a recreational sport guy only because I couldn't stand to end up like the "professional" athletes, who take it all too seriously. I am an art student, because at my school, you could hold the visual/creative art talent in one regular sized classroom. And I am a drama/film student because I like the idea of being able to fulfill these particular stereotypes without actually having to BE any of them at the same time. 

So does that make sense?? I really think that my goal in life is to be my own person amongst everyone else. It's a simple idea really, but I've only just stumbled upon this realization as of late. I can't really tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing, or whether or not it is holding me back or not, but I guess now that I recognize this fact, the answers will all come into fruition sooner or later. Well, here's hoping anyway.

I can't really help but feel though, that wanting to "be an individual" puts me right in the middle of a far greater stereotype... Shoot.