Issue date: 9/29/05 Section: editor's picks

Versus Magazine Online [Image based format]

My father told me, "If you are unsure of who someone really is, just look at the right side of their face. Their hidden self is shown there, and the person they want people to see is displayed on the other half. That way you'll always know who you are faced with."

Though I would not suggest that readers cover up half a person's face to get a real idea of who they are, I do propose that we question why it is that we have two selves, the part that is who we really are and the part that changes to accommodate those around us. Though most people are quite nice and normal under those thick veils that shield their true selves, we have to ask, "Why is our true personality shown so reluctantly?"

For many of us, it is our freshman year; we are in a strange new world, and may feel more like lonely chicks than we would care to admit. As we try to find our way in this new place, it is all too easy to dive in blindly and lose ourselves in the masses. What do we do to protect ourselves in cases like these? Well, we do the most natural thing in the world: we lose ourselves purposefully, under a heavy mask that obscures our identity. In our first meetings with people, we have so much to prove. We feel the need to somehow convey our entire identities within the first five minutes of conversation. Faced with that impossibly risky task and eager for others to accept us, many of us will most likely mold to the person we think our new classmates and friends want us to be.

Let's take that preppy girl with pearls and a cute skirt who lives just down the hall. She seems to have it all - confidence, looks, and a million friends. On first introduction, she mentions that she thinks cross-stitching is lame. You happen to be someone who just cannot get enough of those "easy to make" kits. Well, not anymore. You are now willing to sacrifice your own hobby, something that has always been important to you, for the sake of what a girl down the hall thinks. You have now drawn a heavy veil across yourself, and once it is there, it is difficult to remove. Little do you know that the Pearl Girl herself was a master knitter until she sacrificed her own identity. It's a vicious cycle. So you create an outer layer for people to view, and keep your inner to yourself, hoping it is not discovered. We do this to help ourselves by creating a defense mechanism to avoid getting hurt in unfamiliar territory. However, by creating this exterior persona we have actually taken a knife and stabbed it into our own backs. New situations are a time for us to explore and reach out, but they are not an excuse for us to forget who we have been for the past two decades of our lives. There is no need for a Jekyll and a Hyde; choose your poison and pick one. Masks are for actors; they are heavy burdens for the rest of us. We will always be like following chicks unless we allow ourselves to proudly wear the masks we were born with. Yet how can we tell who to like and who to avoid? It would be horrible to judge on first appearances, since we now know of those deceptive masks.

If you are not willing to accept my father's superstitious methods, then I have no better alternative to offer. Until people are able to show their true selves, our decisions are mostly left up to chance. Never be quick to judge, though; relationships are too easy to break, and much more difficult to form. Our masks have made them more difficult, but we must look through those heavy veils; only time and effort will let us see what we have been missing.

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