The real me

What's the real me and what's the fake me? Does it even matter? Is the fake me all a part of the real me anyway? And why do I worry about such nonsense?

I worry about it because I don't want to fool people, to appear as something I'm not. I want to be seen exactly as I am, warts and all, loud socialist left-wing views and all, weird private habits and all.

But what the hell is the real me, I wonder. Is it the me that keeps to myself and wants peace and quiet whenever possible? Or the me that enjoys a good conversation and enjoys a raucous, high-spirited public rally? Or is it both?

Perhaps I should leave the judgment to others. I'll behave as I feel like behaving, and others can decide if that's the real me or some peculiar impostor. They can decide if I'm being Nick or channelling an alien being.

Of course they might just be seeing my well-polished public persona. The kind, considerate, sensible old geezer who gives everyone a fair hearing and never rants or raves. As opposed to the private curmudgeon who takes exception to everything, hurls crockery across the kitchen and kicks the cat*.

But if I'm being super-polite and super-agreeable, am I fooling people or do they know very well it's just my bland public image? I mean, nobody can be that polite, can they? They must assume straightaway that in private I'm as potty-mouthed and sweary as the next person.

Mind you, however hard I try to be my genuine, unedited self, some people will always read something bizarre into what I've said and get me all wrong anyway. A fake me I never even thought of. I can't win.

* Don't worry, we don't have one.

The greener grass

On the whole, I've never thought the grass is greener on the other side. I seldom imagine that other people's lives are far more enjoyable and fulfilling than my own.

I just don't idealise other people. Whatever their home life, their job, their hobbies, their physical appearance or their sex life, I don't kid myself they're perfect, that they live some charmed and magical existence I can only dream of.

I assume that whatever the outward impression, they're prone to just as many problems and disappointments and disasters as I am, and were I to step into their shoes for a day or two I'd soon discover how flawed their lives were.

But a surprisingly large number of people do seem to think that if only they had what somebody else has, their lives would be dramatically transformed. If only they had a huge house, a more glamorous job, a stunning figure, or a sexier partner, life would be a bed of roses and all their frustrations would fade away.

The fact is that people are very good at airbrushing their public persona, talking up their lives and carefully hiding the less attractive bits. Someone could be quarrelling viciously with their partner night after night but all that's shown to the public is a happily smiling couple, arm in arm and seemingly without a care in the world.

Of course I'm aware that I come from a somewhat privileged middle class background and so I don't have much cause to envy other people's lives to begin with. My life has mostly been pretty comfortable.

It's more understandable though that those who aren't so fortunate, those who have to struggle day in and day out for even the bare essentials of a decent life, may be bitterly envious of those who seem to live the life of Riley without lifting a finger.

To people that desperate, any apparently better-off household must seem like a deliberate taunt to their own hardship. To them the grass may be not just greener but irresistibly luscious.

Back to normal

We all like to think that we never worry about being "normal", that we just do our own thing, however weird or unusual it might be. I mean, who wants to be "normal"?

Not true of course. The fact is that we're always striving to be normal, whether we're aware of it or not. We may all want to do our own thing, but we don't want to be seen as a total loony. Nor do we want to be seen as undignified, embarrassing or vulgar. In private we have a very precise image of an appropriate public persona and we stick to it meticulously.

We don't go around

Sobbing with grief and misery
Laughing hysterically
Talking to ourselves*
Wearing pyjamas, wedding dresses or pink polka-dot suits
Ranting about the state of the world
Picking our nose or farting
Pointing at fat people
Smashing car windows

Dignity is very important to us. We don't want to be viewed as a figure of fun, an emotional wreck, or someone hopelessly out-of-control. We want to appear sensible, mature, responsible - in a word, dignified. And what is being dignified but acting normally, behaving in a way that other sensible, mature individuals would expect us to?

The occasional lack of dignity in suitable circumstances is fair enough - at a funeral or a party or a divorce hearing. But we soon put a stop to it and reassert our everyday decorum. We'll happily defend the idea of eccentricity but actually most of us steer well clear of it. We may think Grayson Perry's fabulous but we're not going to greet our own neighbours dressed as a small girl with a lollipop.

We're all more normal than we like to think we are.

* The less said about that the better