Who do you Think you Are&;#063;

Who do you think you are?

Sometimes I believe it to be first thing in the morning, when you
arise, roll or prise yourself from your bed. You will attempt to
flatten down your Woody Woodpecker hair enough so your flat mate does
not choke on their Cornflakes when you enter the kitchen. You attire
yourself in comedy slippers and a moth-eaten dressing gown and eat
breakfast which usually consists of a unique combination of foodstuffs
that only you can stomach first thing in the morning (note the vast
chasm that lies between the porridge eaters and the marmite on toast
nibblers). Yes, in the morning, you are truly at one with your
selfness.

And then you squeeze and you pinch yourself into the armour that hides
the fluffy-slippered you from the outside world. You can style your
hair, paint your face and choose fabrics to drape over your body to
tell a lie so big that no confession could absolve you. That lie
shouts: "I am...." Women of course have more overt methods of lying
with the range of beauty products available. All men can do is choose a
suit that may best portray them as someone who isn't wearing Bart
Simpson boxer shorts. In this vein, it could be argued that underwear
never lies, but stuffed in chests of drawers are pairs of lying pants
that are only aired on a "just in case" date night. But like underwear,
our true selves are hidden from the outside world - although not under
layers of cloth but under a mask of civility and etiquette.

So on the way to work, you hurl yourself on to a carriage with hundreds
of other faceless bodies and hide behind a book that you are not
interested in. To be interested in your reading material would be as
good as holding a neon banner up and saying: "This is me, and I am
interested in erotic art." So brave are the people that overtly read a
fingered copy of "Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway" or Lord Archer's new
effort, without giving it a second thought. Most chicken out and settle
for newspapers: something as neutral as the suits we wear, the height
of non-individualism - unless we talk politics but who is going to
bring that up in the rush hour? It's stressful enough. I usually just
sit and look out the window of my bus and think, thus I blend in nicely
to the seat - people with papers can identify territory and therefore
get sat on less than I.

Now and again, one's individuality cannot help but shine through. A
ring on someone's finger that tells you that they are (or were) loved
by someone, a fading stamp on a young girl's hand that talks of dancing
at a nightclub the night before, someone sneezes and takes out a
handkerchief that has their initials sewn into the corner. And when you
get off the bus and start to walk to work, every corner you take frees
you from a crowd of antlike clones in grey scurrying towards their
invisible goal. Step by step, you gain individuality, until, that is,
you enter the office and take your place at your desk - and you become
"professional", "efficient" or "managerial". These words are all
abstracts so it is no wonder that we feel quite abstracted most of the
week. Work regulations and 'focuses' can only enthuse you to feel like
a glorified robot half the time, avoiding topical issues on the news
for fear of opposition and not standing too close to your colleagues
for fear of harassment. There are different rules in the workplace
which makes the politics that much more difficult to bear. Hugo, in
operations where I used to work has a sign saying "No Jokes" in big
letters above his desk. This was to remind himself rather than anyone
else, namely because the jokes he knows may offend. And if you go for a
social drink after work, is there not usually a nagging anxiety hoping
that you will not drink too much and show your true colours?

The higher you step on the Corporate ladder, the more of an Alter Ego
you may create. I imagine it may become difficult in separating the
selves in this situation - doctors may diagnose their families and
police may stake-out door to door salesmen. But even if you are a
Director General of a multi-million business, you are still a nobody
when you step outside that door and wait in the cold like everyone else
for your bus home. For London is a city of anonymity.

In a city of anonymity; people rebel by identifying their individuality
through fashion, piercings, tattoos, haircuts and behaviour. In London
today, these things barely raise eyebrows. By trying to shout and be
heard, trying to deface the picture of conformity, people are
conforming to rebellions that have happened in the decades ending the
20th century. The 90s were about becoming bored of things that were new
- because that was the new (ironically) rebellion. And then we got
bored of being bored.

So we hit the 21st century and we are lazy in our freedom. We tolerate
individualism and at the same time conform to what is a fake freedom
when we notice the racial tension, homophobia and misplaced loyalties
within society. So much so that the majority of people box rebellious
teens into terms such as "Yobs" when all they are is frustrated. The
majority fakes freedom and exists within a voiceless, claustrophobic
unsurprise that clones us by the day into frowning, faceless lemmings
by the week and play-hard-spend-loads clowns by the week-end.

"London is no place to be single." I was once informed by a work
colleague, who was not single at the time and I remember feeling quite
persecuted at her foreboding statement. She provided no further
explanation - she said she was unable to. I believe she meant that
London could induce such misidentity that you need to be part of a
couple to remind you who you are from time to time. Knowing London's
ability to change faces is like experiencing a gas leak. Everyone knows
it is there, and it stinks - but few people can work out where it is
coming from and why it happened in the first place. Though, in being
single, I do not feel anonymous nor vulnerable. Instead, I remind
myself who I am when I come home to my flat mates, and strip my armour
office clothes off and replace them with comedy slippers.

For others, being themselves is even more complicated. Like my friend
Michael, who admitted to me two nights ago that I am the only friend
who knows he is gay. And it would be presumptuous of me to believe that
I am the only one who knows his true self. I may miss out on other
parts of his identity that he may share openly with others.

Maybe the traits that we mask are those that we deplore (rightly or
wrongly) in ourselves. People are like mirrors that reflect a different
image of you through their own reaction to you. Only when we are
comfortable with this reflection of ourselves do we let them out of the
closet. Some characteristics are hidden (like underwear) and some are
shown off (like wedding rings) on a day to day basis. Sometimes, with
so many masks of identity ready to be worn in a city that never points
and laughs, it is difficult to identify which one fits us best.