You're Not For Everyone and That Is Beautiful

Have you ever had an awkward social encounter and assumed something was wrong with you?

As if the stranger you were talking to at a pretentious cocktail bar in Dumbo, was the arbiter of coolness and you failed their pop quiz of social acceptability? Do you ever feel responsible for uncomfortable pauses in conversation and end up believing you are the most uninteresting pile of millennial mush at your nextdoor neighbor’s game night? Have you ever told a joke at a friend of a friend’s birthday party, and when it didn’t land, you assumed you should get your head examined for believing that joke could be funny in the first place, replaying the encounter in bed like a peep show of your most embarrassing moments?

Do you ever watch the IG stories of the girl who showed no interest in being your friend, and find them eerily reminiscent of times when you gazed at the popular girls at the other end of your high school cafeteria, while scarfing down your mozzarella sticks? Have you ever been ghosted by a date and immediately saw it as an indication you are, in fact, undatable? Doomed for a lifetime of streaming Lifetime movies alone, trapped in a hamster wheel of DoorDash orders that conveniently supply your dinner and lunch the following day?

Why is it that when we are not for someone, we assume it’s because we don’t measure up? Why is it that when we don’t fit in, we feel like a walking apology? A streak of a crayon outside the lines? Crumbs on your mom’s new couch? A freak in the suburban streets?

There’s this thing that happens to us around 11, 12, 13…we get put under a spell. The I-need-to-fit-in-and-be-loved-by-everyone spell. This spell can be carbon-dated to our cave-dwelling ancestors who understood that not fitting into the tribe would lead to banishment and certain death by sabertooth tiger. In other words, to fit in feels like survival. Well, what happens when the tribe is your entire school or your entire job site or everyone at every social event you ever attend or the entire population of the internet? You learn to become your best editor, trimming the fat of your unwanted edges: the weirdness, the oddities, the parts of you that at some point you learned were too much or too little. All with the goal of becoming smooth like tap water, shape-shifting to every container you’re poured into, until you hardly recognize yourself, until what remains is merely the reflection of whoever is looking at you.

And who can blame you? There’s no better feeling than the feeling that you belong. That people see you and think to themselves, that person is great! Let’s include them! Every cult leader knows you can manipulate a person’s heart by offering them a draconian laundry list of do’s and don’ts for belonging.

The problem is, of course, that no matter how much you attempt to bend to a composition you believe will make you the most likable to the most people, someone will find some reason to think you are trash. Because that’s how human beings are. People see what they want to see. And you have very little control over it.

Neuroscience tells us that we exist differently in everyone’s brain. Because how everyone filters reality is entirely dependent on the context of their experiences.

People don’t see you; they see in you what their brain is wired to see. To expect consensus is like showing the entire population of New Guinea a picture of a cloud and expecting everyone to say it looks like your grandmother’s mashed potatoes.

The impression you leave on another human’s mind is as subjective as a piece of art hanging in a museum. Some people love it. Some are repelled. Some don’t know what all the fuss is about. Some people walk by without even noticing. Some can’t take their eyes off it. Some people’s lives are forever changed.

You are art. You are a reflection of the creative magnitude of the Universe. You are not for everyone. And that is beautiful.

Lately I’ve been thinking of myself as a walking Rorschach inkblot, going grocery shopping, posting pics of my dog, eating at my favorite taco truck, and being excited that I can’t control anyone’s interpretation. Not me basking in the freedom of not being for everyone!

Lately I’ve been noticing that when you let go of needing to be for everyone, you discover you don’t have to feel guilty when someone isn’t for you. That it doesn’t make you a bad person to not want to go to that party with the people whose energy feels like an itchy wool sweater (you know the sweater is cute, it’s well made, it’s vintage for god’s sake! But it just feels fucking bad.)

Lately I’ve been thinking about all the years I spent self-editing, and wondering how much of me remains buried treasure. And I’m getting excited about the new garden gloves I purchased to unearth the most unhinged, most bold, most courageous parts of myself.

But mostly I feel at peace. Because being for everyone is so exhausting. Because feeling inadequate for not meshing with people that aren’t your people is painful. Because telling yourself something is wrong with you for being the only flash of color in a room full of beige curtains is a soul-sucking nightmare.

We are not robots. We are not bowls of buttered noodles. We are not fuzzy pairs of slippers on sale at Amazon. We are not for mass market consumption.

We are not for everyone, and that is beautiful.

So, in the spirit of being some people’s stick in the mud, I wanted to share with you some recent journal reflections on how beautiful it is to not be for everyone, both in my personal life and also inspiring displays of this I’ve noticed in our culture. Perhaps they will be helpful, informative, or at least somewhat amusing.

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People are upset that Lupita Nyong’o is playing Helen of Troy in a fictional film adaptation of a fictional story. Can you imagine being upset about that? Can you imagine becoming enraged that Elliot Page, a trans man, is playing Sinon? Can you imagine being one of those talented actors and reading the opinions of thousands of strangers about how the casting of you ruined a film? On one side, it’s probably very hard, but on another, you know it has nothing to do with you. That what anyone sees in you is merely a projection of their limited reality. In fact, because you are so dangerous to their preconceived notions, you give them an opportunity for expansion merely by existing. You have challenged their worldview so completely that you are healing them and thus healing the world. Fuck, that’s beautiful.

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Not long ago I hung out with a friend whom I’ve known for a long time. And it became glaringly apparent as I stared into the pale milky green of my matcha that I’ve never felt myself with this person. That for years after we’d hang out, I’d