Dare To Be Different

Well, the hot young boy/man didn't call. I'm actually quite relieved. Maybe he realised that he didn't fancy going out with Grandma. However, I still feel a bit despondent, even though I know that it could never have gone anywhere. Anyway, I needed a distraction from Hot FB Guy who is still ignoring me, and my brief flirtation with the boy definitely provided one.

Writing my last post has made me ponder on society's expectations and conventions and how they mould us and our behaviour. I've actually been thinking about this for the last few days. Not in an intellectual sociologist type way of course but more as a general kind of wondering. I've also been feeling faintly rebellious which is not good for someone who spends their working hours enforcing various rules on sulky teenagers. That purple haired, ripped jeans wearing grungy young Siani has revisited her older self and now it's almost like I've got her voice in my head asking 'But why?'

Then, right on cue, to add to my already unsettled mood, a leaflet from a certain holiday company arrived a couple of days ago. On the front of it reads 'It is the (insert my surname) family's perfect summer 2011 holiday.' Next to this insulting and faintly ridiculous title is a photo of a beautiful family on a beach - a blonde mum, a strong, manly looking father and two young children, one of whom is sitting on his father's shoulders. Right. OK. Yeah, this is my perfect summer holiday. Actually if someone was to make a leaflet of that, it would look very different. It would probably feature a picture of me and F dancing on a table in a cheesy nightclub in a low budget Mediterranean resort. In the company of a dodgy looking man called Luigi who owns a scooter.

Is this photo on the leaflet really an embodiment of what society expects of me? Is this what my life should look like by now? It's just so far away from where I am at the moment. And I'm not even blonde! And how do the holiday company know who to send it to? They don't even have me down as a Mrs, but as a Miss. Do they just send it to all their female customers who are over thirty? Maybe that's the cut off point. Maybe all their younger customers get an invite to some kind of crazy alcohol induced orgy on a tropical island. Oh yeah, 18-30. Right. I think I've answered my own question there. I forgot about that. But maybe, in the eyes of the holiday company, these are the only two choices we should get? That way, we're easily labelled.

Actually, I think we all have expectations and I think we do all judge too much. Everybody seemed to have an opinion on the boy/man who I met last week. Everybody wanted to tell me that it was wrong. Which kind of grated on me, maybe because I myself, deep down, agreed with them. I want to make decisions for myself – not because of what other people expect. I want to resist these stupid pressures and expectations and negotiate my own way through life with integrity and originality. It's just so bloody hard. Especially when you hate being judged, as we all are on an almost daily basis.

The women who have shaped history were only able to do so because they defied society's conventions. They didn't care about being judged. If they'd played safe, they wouldn't have got anything done. Take Queen Elizabeth 1, who had countless lovers but point blank refused to get married. Good for her! She knew that tying herself to a useless man who would leave her golden toilet seat up (oh, and take all her power) was a recipe for disaster. I'm sure if Elizabeth 1 had received that leaflet from the holiday company she would have ordered them to be burnt at the stake or beheaded for their impertinence at pigeon-holing her in such an insulting manner. Can you imagine it ...“Please forgive me Your Majesty, please, if you spare my life you can have a free all-inclusive to Falliraki.....aaaargh!”

I'm not comparing myself to Elizabeth 1, obviously, but what I do have in common with her is that I have got no chance of treading the 'traditional' path through life – it's pretty obvious that's shot to shit already. Divorced at thirty, living with a gay horse obsessed flatmate, uninterested in career progression and alternately ambivalent and faintly nauseated by the idea of having kids. Yes, that's me..... My life is regularly bizarre, unsetttled and uncertain. But at least I'm not spending my days colour coding my Cath Kidston tea towels and updating my Facebook status with reports on my children's potty training. (BTW, if I updated my Facebook status with an in depth report of my bowel movements everyone would be disgusted. C'mon people...!)

Did you just see that? I was just judgemental. I should be ashamed of myself. Lumping all stay at home Mums into child-obsessed Cath Kidston loving tea towelomaniacs... honestly! It's just that judging people is such an inherent part of our nature – maybe because we need a way to feel superior about our own lives, those chaotic, less than perfect lives that bear so little resemblance to that photo on the front of the holiday leaflet. Personally, I believe that we should just concentrate on ourselves, rather than gossiping about others who dare to tread a different path, or who choose to be unique.

I think it was Katharine Hepburn (a famous troublemaker and non-conformist) who said:

If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.

This was the woman who was suspended from school for smoking and going swimming naked in the middle of the night. She also got divorced very young at a time when society was even more judgemental than it is now, and built a reputation for being feisty and unique (and a great actress). And I bet she didn't gossip about others. I bet she was too busy enjoying herself.

Thinking about it, since I got divorced and regained my independence and my sense of self, I do have more fun. I spend more time with my friends, pleasing myself, rather than trying to play the part of the traditional wife, Mrs --------, the girl who always put her husband's needs before her own. Now I'm a Ms, making up my own rules as I go along, and it's much more me.

And while I'm having this fun, I'm just trying to figure out what I want from life. But I'm going to do it my way...is that OK?