Recently in one of my classes we discussed about “Single Stories”, a very fascinating phenomenon of the 21st century. Having (mostly) abolished the concept of racism and clear-cut sexual orientations, you might say that we are more inclusive as a society than we have ever been before. However, despite our conscious efforts to better ourselves and the outlook we have on the inner world of others, we still find ourselves creating backgrounds for people simply by what they look like or other characteristics that we may stereotype them by. I pride myself on being completely detached from discriminatory mannerisms, yet through our talk on single stories I realized that I have been both a victim and a culprit of these descriptions.
One experience that has really shaped my understanding of “single stories” came from meeting my now best friend in Cyprus. I had heard a lot about him and his background through mutual friends from before I had even met him in person and categorized him into a group of people that I normally would not align myself with. He is a “villager”, my small countries’ equivalent of a redneck. When I did finally meet him at a bar I was a regular at, I found that he was covered in distasteful tattoo’s, had a long beard and spoke with – putting it lightly – an unrefined air. I immediately reaffirmed my classification of him and moved on with my life. As luck would have it however, circumstances made it so that I had to meet him a little more intimately than I would have originally liked, only to find out that we had a lot in common. His views on the world and his general outlook on life were very similar to mine, but they were just harbored in a body whose upbringing happened to be much different than mine. Since then, we’ve become inseparable. We still go on about how neither of us liked each other at first glance as we visually categorized the other into stereotypes we created from our interactions of other people. To this day, our friends will still ask us how we managed to create such a strong bond while being so – seemingly – different.
After giving the subject a lot of thought, I realized that I was the victim of this single-story classification when I was much younger. As a tall athletic-looking individual, people always expected me to be adventurous and adrenaline-seeking. From their past experiences, they created a story for what my interests should be and let that reflect on their opinion of my true character. When they eventually got to know me better, they would compare me with that initial image and were quite obviously somewhat disappointed. What they didn’t know however, was that at the time I was suffering from a severe anxiety disorder. The social events they had planned for going out and bonding (such as theme parks, scaffolding-climbing, building tagging etc.) as many teenagers do, would give me incredible panic attacks. It’s not that I didn’t like to do those things, it’s just that at the time my body would physically react to the idea of those experiences in a very negative way. Trying to live up to those peoples’ expectations while also juggling a mental illness was very exhausting to say the least. Their ‘disapproval’ left huge scars on my self-confidence for a long time, keeping me indoors and away from social interactions for a good chunk of my initial teenage years.
Knowing what I do now, I decided that I will do my best to personally engage with, and find out more about, the individuals in my life that I find myself unconsciously categorizing. If I can push past their initial single story and find out more about the real novel of their lives, I’m sure I would really grow as a person, while also maybe making some incredible friends along the way.
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