you are an experiment
that goes on forever.
[1]
for the longest time, i have felt inadequate by all means. inadequacy is not always rational, as you can tell from the fully ‘adequate’ people who decided to kill themselves through the course of history.
a recent session with my therapist brought forth this conversation once more. that the first time i felt inadequate was when i was bullied in school for apparently being ‘too feminine’ in the way i walked, moved my hands, sat, ran or talked. i don’t fully remember each detail but i do remember one of them telling me that they were doing it for my own good; that they were making me “more of a man”. what it also did was isolate me from ever making friends with girls in class. all my bullies were boys but the girls would look at me with such pity that i was deeply embarrassed to even talk, let alone approach them in any way. my first two 'crushes’ in school were born out of the need to prove that i wasn’t who they thought i was. these were two girls i had little to no interaction with, and i had bought into this fantasy until much recently when i recognised it for what it really was. safe to say neither of those two crushes ended well, one of them made me her brother by tying a sacred thread on my wrist (it’s called a rakhi and an ancient hindu tradition) and the other asked me to fuck off, and i quote her here, verbatim.
this feeling of inadequacy and never feeling comfortable with a girl would have continued if not for this girl back at my native place, who decided to confess her feelings of love to me during one of my visits. there was no love or attraction from this side, but i pounced like a tiger who has never seen a deer before. the analogy may sound problematic to some but that relationship was far too innocent for you to be thinking as you are. it felt good to be found attractive and wanted by a girl; to know that i wasn’t as badly positioned in life as they had me believe. we maintained a long distance until next year around the same time when i told her the truth, and she never saw me again. i tried finding her on facebook many years later to apologise but she either has me blocked or she has vanished off the face of social media.
some of my bullies, too, have since apologised to me across social media. some had a realisation after seeing a movie, some read a facebook post i wrote without naming any of them. as much as i believe in rightful vengeance, i don’t want to belittle anyone in public. whether or not it’s a work-in-progress or my non-confrontational side winning every argument inside my head, i am not entirely sure.
[2]
after school ended and college began — i studied english literature and language — things were…different. i was suddenly at a place where i was made to believe that i am different. in a good way. the fact that i was good at what we were studying made me a popular face among the teachers too.
inadequacy gave way to confidence (even overconfidence for a bit), with my writing getting featured on facebook and instagram pages, people messaging me for writing tips (i really have no idea why) and female attention increasing to a degree the young me could never have imagined.
through all of this, however, i could never drive off the fact that i didn’t like how i looked. physically. of maybe 50 photos my cousins would click of me, i would like one and discard the rest. if there was ever a physical event of any kind, i would quietly take the backstage because i’d constantly think how i would look inside my head.
being physically attractive in a conventional way as defined by social standards of our times is not talked about enough. at least that’s what i feel. it’s not even how people perceive you that affects things, it’s how you perceive yourself. there is an air of nonchalant confidence in people who know they are conventionally attractive and i have often been jealous of it. you could call it vanity if you like, but i like to think of it as a privilege.
a lot of people would discourage this kind of thinking, and tell you that it doesn’t matter who you are outside and i of all people will agree too. but tell me this honestly: if you could walk into a room with nonchalant confidence about yourself, wouldn’t you? for me, personally, that can only come from looking at the mirror and finding myself attractive.
according to my therapist, it all comes down to that feeling of inadequacy.
[3]
i started going to the gym about 11 months ago.
at first, i wanted to lose the belly and face fat that had accumulated since covid hit me like a hundred different trucks. grief followed by stress eating followed by feelings of not wanting to get up from my bed to do anything at all – all of it had made me look not skinny for the first time in life.
the idea was simple: don’t be fat and don’t feel out of breath after climbing 3 sets of stairs (i currently live on the third floor of an apartment with no elevator).
it took me about 6 months to feel healthy again, and this feeling had come with the added perks of a protein-rich, no-sugar, once-a-week-junk diet. i had discovered the joy of running 5kms without getting tired on sunday mornings; i even learned that you get better at sex if you have better physical prowess.
this has also come with a few problems. mostly one. people who meet me after a while tell me i have become too thin. i don’t feel the same way, but remember my old friend inadequacy? a seed of a doubt is all it needs to feel alive again. an idea is like a virus that grows indefinitely, as you’d no doubt remember from the christopher nolan movie about dreams. it made me ask a question on fitness reddit and as you’d expect, the answers confused me even more given how varying they were. some wanted me to eat more carbs, some thought i should measure calories better while a few others said it’s a normal part of ‘the journey’.
the problem really is that my goals have since shifted and i want to throw my old friend out of my life forever.
my proposed solution? find myself attractive in the mirror. so, i am taking the help of a personal trainer to get me there. bigger biceps, chest and visible abs – the whole package as you can imagine.
it’s been a few months since and i think things are looking up.
[4]
experiments are core to progress of any kind.
you and i are experiments too, and if you have the privilege like i do and have felt inadequacy, you can actually do something about it like my story has proven over and over again.
your inadequacy may not be physical like me either. it can be in something very specific, maybe in the way you let people treat you.
experiments are hard work but it’s only through trying different ones that you will know what’s ailing you.
you’ll never stop ailing. so, get out there and don’t be comfortable.
comfortable is the way to die.
you are still alive.