The Stories Our Friends Tell Us

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Continuing in my series, I decided to investigate the stories that our friends tell us. I was inspired to write this blog because in the past week I've been observing the behavior among my friends. Girls like to hear compliments. They purposely insult themselves in order to hear compliments about themselves, or also known as "fishing for compliments". 

In the example of a group of girls, a girl will say “My outfit is just so gross” in hope of eliciting responses such as “No it’s not, you’re so pretty and the outfit is incredibly trendy” from her friends. This response will reassure the girl that her friends accept her choice, thus making her more confident knowing that she now has a niche.

I then expanded my thinking to a greater subject: Americans. Everyone likes to hear good things about themselves. It is so vain the way people purposely undermine themselves in order to gain sympathy or acceptance from others. In fact, this is why people “fish for compliments”. They want to know that they are accepted in a group or by a society. They insult themselves awaiting reassurance from their peers so that they may continue their pursuits with more confidence since they are now within accepted societal norms.

But why must we be accepted by others to continue doing "our own thing”? Why do Americans, especially, rely on the consent of others on their every action? Although individuality is valued there is always this push towards normality. Normality is accepted, individuality is coveted, but oddity is shunned.

In order to avoid being rejected from society most attempt to be individual within normal limits because those who are too “edgy” walk a fine line between true individuality and oddity. Americans strive for acceptance from their peers because we fear doing the “wrong things” and being shunned for being odd. Ejection from a group would be devastating for any Americans which is why there is the unnecessary, constant consultant of peers on the multitude of dilemmas in every American life.