Unpleasant confession

[vicarz]

As I'm in law school again, I'm finding a not-so-good behavior emerging that I haven't seen in myself since grad school - the urge to display my freakiness. I catch myself blasting music in the parking lot, holding in comments about my lifestyle...not because I'm hiding anything, but because it seems like volunteering such information is designed to impress or perhaps alienate others.

When I was going to GMU and being a Roxy regular, I found that when in the Roxy, I considered myself 'someone with a life' as I was in grad school working for something better. When I was surrounded by a bunch of rich spoiled little grad school bretheren, I considered myself a freak out of water. It's sad to see that same immature defense mechanism emerging at this late date.

Name that defense mechanism? I don't know the name, but I understand the logic: never admit who or where you are. Wherever you are, let the other identities riegn supreme. You'll never admit to playing on or being judged on any field you play.

So? What the fuck are you looking at?

Comments

multiple masques

[grymnir.livejournal.com]

Now that I am back at GMU as a grad student, I find myself following similar behavior patterns. when I was an undergrad I worked full-time but had a "black jeans" environment, so all I had to do was to wear a different t-shirt to class (having long, black hair and multiple earrings helped.)

Now, I look around at my fellow grad students and I see an echo of the earlier classes. A lot of working-adults and a handful of only-academia-so-far students. I find my self looking hard at their earrings, choice of t-shirt slogans, footwear and other ornamentation; "are you one as well?" is the thought...

So far I am the only one in black and only if I am fortunate enough to stop at home between work and class to divest myself of the suit-n-tie and throw on the jeans. No time for earrings...yet.

I don't know the name either, but perhaps the "Protean Face" would serve as a label for the defense mechanism.