The Perks of Being a Wallflower

It was in college when I came across this cute little green paperback with Emma Watson on the cover with two other white blokes by her side.

I’m not talking about Harry Potter.

I’m talking about a book titled The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.

A truly wonderful coming of age story. Amazing book. Amazing movie. One of the very few rare cases where the movie seems to do justice to the book.

I don’t remember the character’s name exactly, but there’s a scene where she explains what it means when you call someone a ‘wallflower’. It’s a person who’s basically too shy to be social, someone who stands in the side lines of a party, not talking to anyone or not having someone to talk to them.

That’s enough foreplay.

Let’s go deep. If you were an extrovert back in school having no problem ‘adjusting’ to environments around you, you’ll probably not relate. But if you were like me, wondering how did people around you were able to ‘become friends’ so easily, you probably could relate.

Making friends was something that wasn’t in my forte at all. I was comfortable being the loner. The boy who never bothered. And people used to tell me that I should lose my shyness. And I thought they were right as well. It just seemed too much effort to put into and quite frankly I sucked at it. When I was a kid all I thought was I had these thoughts flowing inside my head – all you have to do is ‘look’ at them and there was enough entertainment. A world of your own construction just for you which remained undisturbed by the people around you. Listening to young girls giggling to jokes and boys doing some loud stuff so they could get the girls see them, teachers shouting formulas, watching kids in the ground screaming, the squeak of the chalk on the blackboard was all a tiresome chore.

But only later did I realize there’s nothing to worry about. Nothing to be embarrassed about either. And in fact, if you know how, it can put you in a position of power – to choose and discard friendships and relationships that come your way as it’s a passive way of going with the flow. Path zero. No reverberance, think of it like that.

Interestingly I also discovered that I was good at something else. For someone who was as introverted as me, I was also considerably better at public forms of communication better than my peers. You leave me with someone alone to talk to, you’ll have the most awkward small talk of your entire life, thanks to me. Leave me to a classroom of students to take a seminar, or present a speech in front of a crowd for a school program or an important pitch presentation to a room filled with clients, I was someone else altogether. I could go on and on articulating with no fear, humble flex. When I ‘felt’ this the first time back in school, I was taken by surprise. But I held on to it like a shipwrecked man holding onto a paddle on a lone boat stranded in the middle of the sea. I’d never let this go away from me – I promised myself.

And the dots started getting connected, slowly. I think it’s a lifelong process. To make a living where I could be by myself for prolonged periods of time and having to interact only when pitching/discussing with clients, usually a group of people, was almost a dream come true.

Also this doesn’t mean I have no friends. I still had/have a few friends that have known me for more than fifteen years no kidding. And I still had girls interested in me who were, as they self-proclaimed, I was their type. Crazy. I know. I still had my small pockets of tribe where I felt like myself and was as normal and ‘outgoing’ as ever. My films tribe, literature tribe, martial arts tribe, my writing tribe, my clients tribe, my colleagues tribe, people who share similar philosophy as myself tribe – there’s a lot more of my tribes, but you get the drift. And here's the funny thing, the people in these tribes think I'm the most extroverted person they know. Shit confuses me. But moving on...

I’m learning to choose areas of my life I like where I spend most of my energy and completely reject areas of life where I don’t feel like spending my energy. Mind you, this is a poor strategy if you’re looking to gain a large social circle. This has led to many calling me ‘rude’ for ghosting them, spending zero to low time with them, not responding to calls etc. Understand I’m just trying to be nice to you and save you from my boredom:) And sometimes this is the sad part, many people who're like me in some ways, I had to let them go as well much to mutual disappointment. Just because two people have similar interests and ideas doesn't mean they'll get along well. I figure behavioural polarities aid much in stronger relationships among people, most of the times. I may be wrong. You may have had a different experience. But moving on...

So what’s the point of this lengthy drivel? The point is I feel we should start unlabelling (I’m pretty sure that’s not a word) character traits on people, especially the little ones. Can’t we accept that different people are different things at different places? A hyper-active kid in a classroom environment maybe a silent one during the church prayer, and vice versa.

However, one thing just seems to be right. When you stick to your true nature, I guess life exactly opens up to you, bends to you, and embraces you as you are. It could be in the form of the music you listen to, the people to talk to, your romantic partner, your business clients, everything. Don’t struggle against your nature to fit into something else, just stay the way you are so the right environments can find you. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to change for others, but be judicious of changing yourself only for the right things and for things you believe in.

And off topic, why do Mondays suck?

PS.

And here’s the selfish business plug-in as usual: Ask me how to grow your business through brand building, advertising, or email marketing. Most of the advertising problems brands face is because they don't understand their target audience. Their target audience are human beings. If you understand people, you'd know well how to talk to them and advertise to them. I can be of a little help there.