I was watching some of my coworkers chat in the lobby today and I realized that I don’t fit in at all. I don’t wear pointy shoes, my hair could best be described as “creative”, I prefer wearing jeans to fancy pants, and I’m more likely to speak my mind that shut up and make nice.
I have plenty of friends at work so it’s not a social thing, but they’re all just so, I don’t know, sophisticated?
I don’t even know how to go about finding my people, but I am getting tired of feeling like the odd one out. If only there was a personality map, so you could see that Oh, here is where all the hipsters live, and the snooty yuppies are over here and the hippies are off in this corner etc.
I don’t fit in either. I feel slightly intimidated by women who seem always put together with their perfect outfits and hair. If I try to be more put together I think I look wrinkly and dumpy. At least I live in an area where everyone isn’t fashion concsious.
Ok, at least there are two of us It’s not just the fashion stuff, because even in my jeans I look nice. There is just some thing that I don’t have or understand.
I think I can say the same thing, however after 23 years doing what I do no-one can knock my talent in my industry, so they can collectively go pound sand. I’ve earned the right to be myself and I don’t give a flying fuck what anyone else thinks.
I don’t fit in, either. Our company dress code does not require a tie for daily wear, but I often wear one anyway. Sometimes a bowtie. Suspenders almost as often as a belt. Real shoes made with real leather.
I believe I look “professional,” and my co-workers have learned that I am not “aloof and condescending” (taken from an actual performance review) but it is just that I do not watch nor have any opinion on Survivor, pro sports, or many movies.
It doesn’t bother me since I became the eccentric old fart of the office.
I work in a small office (6 people). All of my co-workers are extremely conservative, republican, Obama-hating, right-wing religious fanatics.
I’m a liberal atheist.
When they start talking politics, I keep my mouth shut and just keep on working.
I’m glad I don’t fit in but I’m also thinking I need to find another job. (but not just for that reason, for other reasons as well)
I’m also intimidated by women who look perfectly put together. Even when I try to look nice I’m very self-conscious, especially about my weight. I bought a pair of heels recently and discovered they are very hard to walk in, especially when the ground is covered in ice. Baggy sweaters and sneakers it is, then.
Doesn’t everyone? or are these secrets only New Yorkers know?
I’m not flashy but I don’t find “conservative good taste” to be much of a strain to achieve. I have some shortcuts, for example, my hair is processed so it always looks sleek without any work or styling in the AM (Japanese Thermal reconditioning). I keep my pumps at work (of course) and I also very often wear heeled loafers.
There are a few very well put together women in my office (one is the head computer nerd for the office) and I admire them, but I don’t feel like I need to be them. I do fine with my collection of black, grey and navy Anne Klein suits with appropriately colored oxford shirts. I guess it helps that I work in a very conservative industry where “stylishness” is not expected or necessarily approved of.
There are also plenty of shoes that are neither heels nor sneakers and which are perfectly acceptable for work and which help you look well-put-together.
I’m far from fashionable, but I’ve taken the time to find clothes that fit me well and make me feel good, and I love wearing them to work and feeling professional in them. I don’t have a perfect body, but I don’t feel the need to hide it behind clothes that’s too big for me, and I have no talent with hair styling, so I keep a simple haircut that looks good enough with a quick blow dry but looks amazing if I take the time to straighten it.
You know who else thinks that they don’t fit in? Everybody.
Last night I was talking to a young lady who must have been wearing 7" heels. I commented that it must have been hard walking on the street in those. (Where we were walking was very uneven and trecherous even in sneakers.) She said that she was coming home from work and was not allowed to wear flats at work. So do what Eve does!
Well, ok. So I’m a weirdo but so are a lot of people. I’m very good at my job, maybe I need to get on board with that pound sand policy I just wish I lived in a town where more people were weird like me, rather than my current home where your car and handbag and job title are the measurements people use to judge you.
My name is moejoe and I’m a weirdo. I didn’t finish college until I was in my late 40s, I drive an ugly car, my handbags come from Target, and I work…downstairs. I don’t pretend to like stupid people and you’d have to be smart to get my sense of humor.
Also I wear those glasses that are great for seeing the computer screen but I have to look over the top of them when someone talks to me in person. That’s so hot right?
The world is full of people mostly like you. Unfortunately the folks with the loudest voices tend to fit certain molds, and they create an illusion that the world is mostly them.
Normal? That’s just a setting for a laundry machine, don’t let it bother you.
I never fit in either, sure I could smile along and play nice, but it made me feel like a fraud, ick.
But it left me wondering why I wasn’t motivated by what clearly motivated others?
In the end you just have to recognize, I think, that if the Gods had wanted you to be otherwise, they’d have made you otherwise.
Nothing for it but to assume it’s all going to come together, at some point, in the future, wherein you will suddenly blossom into ease and comfort with all that you are, and all that you are not.
IMO trying to fit in when you don’t not only makes you feel miserable but makes other people uneasy. They don’t know what you’re hiding but they know something is off. Far better to be what you are and let others come to terms with it (or not, but then at least you know who those people are, right?).
It’s not just the fashion stuff, because even in my jeans I look nice. There is just some thing that I don’t have or understand.
I just wish I lived in a town where more people were weird like me, rather than my current home where your car and handbag and job title are the measurements people use to judge you.