I have what I like to think of as a "layered personality." I'm a mixture of spare parts and a network of paradoxes. I am often distinguishably quiet, but I can be obnoxiously loud at other times. I can be either the most hardworking, persistent person or the laziest bum you know. Sometimes I think before I speak, analyzing and qualifying the words to verbalize, but sometimes my mouth runs and does jumping jacks to no end.
It all depends who I'm with.
As an introvert, I'm virtually silent in a group of people I don't know well. In the classroom, I don't answer too many questions, and I'm never the one volunteering to present a project before my peers. Yet, when I'm with my friends who I'm comfortable with, I have abundant things to remark. I make jokes, even if half of them aren't funny or don't make sense. And that, I think, is the real me.
Yes, I'm quiet in group situations, but not because I hate everyone. Sometimes, it's frankly because I have nothing to say. But even if I'm exploding with thought and idea, still, I oftentimes don't speak in group situations. Why? My shyness is a multilayered, complicated defense mechanism, a combination of my excruciating self-consciousness, my acute fear of being ignored and the invisible societal pressure to stay quiet when I hold that reputation already... It all makes me stay mute.
Because of this, many people assume I'm reserved all the time, and they equate this with "boring."
But it's not just this inference of theirs I've wrestled with—there are others. Because of my crooked glasses and my good grades and the classes I take, they'll take my supposed intelligence and label me as "logical, mechanical, left-brained, work-oriented, not-good-with-emotions."
Because of my naturally round face and unassuming stature and nerdy appearance, I'm automatically "unathletic," and people are surprised that I like to run.
But they don't even know me.
I don't want to think that I'm totally flat and uninteresting or that I just study mathematical formulas and historical dates all day. I'd like to think that I at least have some form of a sense of humor, even a pale ghost of one, and that I do other things in my life that are less rigid than schoolwork. I love to write because I want to create poetry and lyrics to express what I feel and to hopefully relieve some of the intense emotions I always seem to be caught in the midst of—something no one expects of me until they know me.
Many of my friends, too, have different aspects to their personalities or passions that they don't outwardly portray. They are quirkier, funnier and kinder than I'd initially thought when first meeting them. There is so much depth to the human character that these social inferences can't unravel.
When people take their perception of social positions or physical appearances and hold others to expectations based on this, it deters them from being truly and fully being themselves. For many years in elementary school, I thought I fit the quiet, intelligent archetype I was placed under (but no one is really, because we are all so, so much more than just a stereotype.) I thought it was my true personality.
Even when I realized that it wasn't, little changed. In the interest of amiability and smooth easygoing, in keeping the atmosphere light, I find myself adjusting the way I behave to fit my reputation, even if I don't want to. I subconsciously do not want to upset your expectations, even if they are wrong. I can't say anything at all provocative or noteworthy, or I must shut up, because that "not who I am."
Sometimes, when I dare to be weird or stray somewhat out of the line from the social perception started by me but ultimately fleshed out and finalized by others, I find people raising their eyebrows and asserting they never would have expected this behavior of me.
Also, often when I'm expected to be quiet, I have to be quiet because with the anticipation of me saying nothing, people unintentionally won't face towards me, will carry the flow of the conversation in a way that is impossible for me to change. I can't speak for others, but I imagine someone with a reputations for being funny all the time sometimes may feel pressured to be comical all the time, or face drawing attention from deviating from the "standard."
By making these quick inferences about someone you don't really know, you also inadvertently either close yourself off from that individual or feel inclined to be their friend. You may be avoiding somebody amazing, based solely on your expectation of them. (Or, on the other side, you may be wishing to get close with someone who could be a total jerk on the inside... But let's try to keep things optimistic.)
To get down to the core of it, even if it doesn't affect your relationships with others or social behavior, most people simply want to be evaluated fairly by others. Most of the times that can only be after talking to them. The majority of people don't want false portrayals of them floating around. I know I've surprised myself by surprising others when they find out that I think logic is overrated and that I experience emotions so much that it fuels my poetry and musical taste (even if I bear a blasé expression) and that I have one million faults but not ones others expect of me.
It's not to say that I also haven't "created" the personalities of others in my mind based on superficial knowledge. I have committed this crime so, so heavily in the past. But after just a single conversation with some of these people, sometimes my whole perception changed. One girl that I believed to be loud and condescending was non-judgmental, sweet and we had similar interests.
Why can't we just act like are true selves then, the same way all the time, to clear all this confusion and live happily ever after? But this proposition is absurd for many reasons. As seen by me, introverts find it hard to completely reveal their character with a first encounter or out in public—asking them to change this is again a breach of personality that is just as bad if not worse than the issue at hand. For extroverts? Well, though extroverts may carry themselves in ways that prompt the social profile as a talkative person, there is still abundant diversity among their personalities, and there are too many components of a person than can be offered without talking to them.
I know it's impossible to stop making these social inferences totally, or we would be lost. I understand that the human brain jumps to conclusions at its earliest convenience because hey, we're the smartest animals and our lightning thought are what helped our ancestors survive. Many of these assumptions might even be truths. But I implore you—the next time you meet someone new you vaguely were wary of, don't judge them or sketch a mental caricature of them till you start to get to know them.
And I know some conclusions based on facts seem so obvious, like direct connections. I took this math class as a sophomore, so I must love math, right? Well, math is okay, but it's not one of my favorite subjects, as evidenced by how I chose to study history over it.
Please, let's be adventurous and try something different. Let's hold back all of our expectations and judgement of others, consciously tell ourselves "no" when we instinctively start making inferences again. Let's push back millennia of human impulse with thought, even if doing so feels like brandishing an umbrella in the face of a hurricane. Let's really try.
