Anything but cute
Right now my life is a mess, thought Joy to herself. Her mother didn’t think she had a purpose in life and had spiraled into a depression, her father had found his purpose in a 26-year-old hippie and had devoted his life to being a child. At school her teachers thought Joy was a genius, which only made matters worse. She never fit quite well in with her peers, but now they could hardly stand her. Joy usually never cared that much about what other people thought of her. Or were thinking of her. But right now it just seemed like a little too much. She just wanted to curl up in a blanket with a massive chocolate bar and imagine a different life. Where she would be in a different situation. She didn’t want to change herself too much in this imagination, just her surroundings. It was a nice way to pass the time.
It was a sunday evening and she sat in her window frame. She absent mindedly followed a child that was playing with a bicycle outside. It was a pink bike with ruffles attached to the steering wheel. Joy had always hated ruffles. And glitter. She absolutely detested glitter. But she did like pink. Her mom had always told her that she was the weirdest girl she had ever met and that she should hold on to her differentness. Her mom was a ballet teacher, so she had met many girls in her life. The girls in her ballet classes always wore a lot of ruffles and glitters. They always had these baby pink leotards on and in their hair they would wear hair bands with extravagant colors and glitters. Joy hated those hair bands. To her it was a sign of feminine oppression. The mothers had bought those hair bands and all the other girlish things as soon as they had found out the gender of their baby. Little girls always wore dresses, bows and two pigtails in their hair. It was disgusting. And everyone would compliment them on how cute and pretty they were. Like that means anything at all. What do you get for being cute, soft or sweet? Absolutely nothing. It would only mean that every one of those girls would grow up with the idea that being cute was all they needed to be.
Joy hated the idea of being cute. When she was about five she punched anyone who dared to say she was cute or pretty. Her mom had to come to school for a conversation with the principal at least once a week. It was a glorious time for Joy. The angrier her mom and her teachers became the more she attained the reputation of someone who wasn’t cute. Or pretty or sweet. Or anything that had to do with the stereotype of being a girl. Nobody dared to say anything to her that might upset her. They all tiptoed around her when they were speaking to her. It was an entire new experience for her. For the first time she felt like she could control her own life. She would not have to conform to the typical standards of being a girl. She could invent herself and how other people saw her.
That being said, Joy loved to practice ballet. She also loved the color pink and dancing in general. It was not that she hated everything that was considered girly, just because it was considered girly. She liked those things simply because she liked them. There was nothing more to it. People liked all sorts of things, not because they were assigned to their gender but because they just fit with their character. She had taken ballet classes ever since she could walk. Her mother had been delighted to find out that her daughter loved ballet, even though she was so against the girly stuff. Joy saw that it meant the world to her that she liked dancing. It was something the two of them connected over. Joy and her mother didn’t have many things in common and both of them treasured this common interest together. When they had nothing to talk about one of them would bring up dancing and they would chat away. Joy’s mom was aware that this interest may soon die out and that she had to come up with something else to talk to her daughter about, but for now it was good enough.
Joy and her mother also hated small talk. It just wasn’t a thing in their family. Joy’s grandmother had had an absolute aversion to smalltalk. Whenever someone would use that around her she would cut them off and ask them if there was something of importance they had to say. If not, they might as well leave or bore someone else. It took a bit of getting used to, but once you had accepted this it turned out to be great. Nobody really enjoyed small talk, but the majority of us just accept it because it is part of our society. Or at least, it looks like it’s part of it. Because each and every one of us has the choice to eliminate it from our life. Who is going to miss it?
The only thing is that it’s uncomfortable. We are afraid to ask each other the important questions in life. We are afraid to stay silent when there is nothing left to say. It’s like we must have something to say all the time or we are not worth it. When you think about it this seems like something out of a bad written movie. Why on earth would we have to talk with each other all the time? Why can’t I just be silent without it being weird? When you’re in a conversation and a silence falls someone has to fill it up as fast as possible or it will be awkward. The longer the silence, the harder it is to start the conversation up again and make it look natural. Why are we putting ourselves through this uncomfortableness?
