photograph by RICENZ
"Jellyfish, are you Spanish?"
"How did you end up in Shanghai?"
"I could swear you were Chinese. Even your picture looks Chinese!"
"How's the weather like in Portugal?"
"I don't know why, but I was sure you were from Hong Kong!"
And it is not just my nationality, my occupation sparks a great deal of dicussion as well. I have to explain my interests, my CV, my choices, and to be honest, I haven't even thought of cool answers for those questions. In one picture and a timelines, people project whatever they want to see. So I realized that Jellyfish only exists for everyone as they want her to be. Because of these expectations, I find it hard to meet up with people offline or chat with them (for example for interviews).
I can't say I am bothered, but I do feel a strange vibe everytime I have to correct/contradict people. It is not what they wanted to hear, this does not fit in the picture they have made of Jellyfish. To some extent maybe they feel tricked. Then I often have to justify and excuse myself. Luckily, most people are very nice and kind, they recover quickly after the first seconds of confusion, are open minded and warm. But I know that from then on, to them I stop being Jellyfish.
2 comments:
Ahah, the last one could be from me :-p
I just to share a little thing here.
I know what you mean when you say you're feeling strange when you have to correct people. I used to feel the same. And I felt myself being too serious about trying to always give the right, or the best, or the most correct information. But in my mind state not giving the most correct answer was like not respecting people.
But that way of doing annoyed me more than anything else.
Then I've switched my mind state and I'm now a perpetual actor. Where I forced myself before to always honestly express... myself (or what I thought was myself) I'm now just putting a mask and playing with people. And for me it works much better. Everything is smoother, the meetings, the talks. I don't feel the pressure about telling exactly the 'truth' and at the end the communication and the relationship end up being much better.
People don't really remember information anyway, atmosphere/ambiance/feelings are much more important.
I feel much much better this way.
Guill,
the last one is actually from someone I met in Berlin ;-)
Thank you so much for the comment, it really helps to see things in a different light! After I finished the post I thought: "Maybe this is not bad, maybe it's better that they end up getting to know me rather than Jellyfish (which is something they have more or less made up). To some extent this is true.
But for short(er) interactions (like interviews) I think you are right.
Putting on a mask is my specialty, that is why I felt so free to be honest in the anonymity of the internet. It seems, that whenever we face the world, we need to be something other people can understand and if it fits their expectations then that's even better :-)
Thanks again, after I wrote the post I thought "What the hell is this, what are you trying to say?". But your comment really helped me see that my thought was undestood and even offered a very possible solution! :-)
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