Faking it
I fake it a lot.
I nod and smile. I pretend to understand when I don’t. Someone is telling me about their job in insurance, and they’re mentioning big firms in the city, and I get the sense that everyone in the world (which happens to include me) is supposed to know these firms by reputation, name, and possibly company crest. Until now, I hadn’t been entirely clear on the point that you could use the word “firm” to describe anything outside of law and handshakes and the occasional pair of unrealistically depicted breasts. Maybe, and I refuse to clarify this, I’d long imagined some actor-packed offices on Law and Order every time someone used the word to mean something involving business and physically space. I don’t know. Maybe.
(look at those people at their firm! source)
As a kid, I kind of assumed that by the time I grew up, I’d know everything. This could mean one of two things
1. I’m not grown up yet
2. Being grown up isn’t that different
When I was a kid, I kind of assumed that by the time I grew up, I’d be gorgeous. I guess I thought the world owed it to me. I thought that beauty was the same as being good at stuff. You got better at stuff the older you got, and you also got hotter, at the same time. Beauty queen scuba diving ballerina astronaut saves puppy from burning building, yet again!! Becomes movie star supermodel! I figured I had the potential to transform into anything. Anything good, obviously. There was absolutely no chance that I’d wake up in my mid-twenties, still looking awkward and feeling like I didn’t understand anything, and without having become a movie star, famous gymnast, ballet star, or world renown concert pianist.
I should clarify something: I feel more and more like I understand less and less. As a kid, I felt like I knew a lot more for certain.
Being grown up, it turns out, involves a lot of faking it. Pretending to be well-rounded, well-adjusted, and well-qualified for everything you want and need to do. Pretending that you’ve mastered the basics, because it’s way too embarrassing at this point to admit you don’t really know exactly how to calculate a tip. Pretending to know all the obvious adult stuff, because you might just be the only one left who doesn’t really get how credit cards are set up. Or how to stop your fancy phone from making tiny buzzing noises when there’s no reason to make a buzzing noise. Pretending to feel comfortable because being shy isn’t a great excuse for anything these days. Pretending to be doing awesome, because you have a lot to prove that you privately think you should’ve proven a while ago.
But one thing that I’ve learned not to fake as an adult is feeling gorgeous. Instead, I’m supposed to pretend I don’t care. Instead of pretending to think that I’m beautiful, I’ve learned that I’m supposed to be realistic. I’m supposed to recognize that the idea of growing up to be gorgeous was a child’s fantasy. It was absurd. And then I’m supposed to buy clothes that best flatter my figure and makeup that emphasizes my better features, and put my shoulders back and move on.
There are a lot of things I still don’t know how to do. I signed up for a Gap card the other day without realizing the commitment I was making. It turned out to be a Gap Visa card. I think that’s like a Visa card that says Gap on it. It doesn’t appear to get me the discounts it seemed like it should. I was at a round-table event that was being recorded and podcast. Someone asked me to answer a question on camera and I got totally flustered. Stupidly inarticulate. I thought, “Next time will be better.”
(I don’t even like shopping there! source)
Because I’m learning. And as I learn, I want to learn how beautiful I am.
I doubt I’ll be saving many puppies from blazing fires while wearing my sexy scuba gear anytime soon, but I’ve done things my child-self didn’t have the knowledge to imagine. And maybe if someone sent her an email from the future with a picture of me in it, she’d think, “Nice!! That woman is really beautiful! I hope I look just like her when I grow up!”
Or maybe she wouldn’t.
But sometimes I do. And I don’t even have to fake it.
(it’s also not too late to do this. source)
* * *
Un-roast: Today I love the way I feel when I expect to feel sicker when I wake up but instead feel a lot better. That just happened, and it was awesome. Yay, my body!
Kate on January 27th 2011 in Uncategorized
Mandy responded on 27 Jan 2011 at 1:37 pm #
” I feel more and more like I understand less and less. As a kid, I felt like I knew a lot more for certain.”
Actually, the older I get, I realize just how much more there is to know, out there. The older I get, the bigger the world seems to get.
At 44, I’m finding the world of technology to be baffling and a little scary, sometimes. It seems that as soon as I get an updated version of something, three months later, it’s obsolete.
The world is expanding: the sciences are constantly making new discoveries, new poets and authors appear on the scene–it seems the sum of human knowledge is being added to constantly.
No one can possibly know it all.
So, I stopped trying. And, somewhere along the line, I stopped pretending to know things I didn’t. It was too much damn trouble, and if someone wanted to think I was an idiot because I wasn’t an expert on, say, astrophysics, then they were the idiot, and I coundn’t be bothered with them.
Don’t know if that’s confidence, or just plain crankiness, but it works for me.
I have also learned to trust my intuition and instincts more. And in the process, realized that I am so much more than the sum of my knowledge.
And admitting I don’t know something is actually liberating.
Un-roast: I love the fact that I still have one or two stuffed animals sitting around my office. I love that I have the courage to be whimsical.
Kate responded on 27 Jan 2011 at 1:49 pm #
I feel that way about technology too a lot, and it’s embarrassing because my generation is supposed to be incredibly adept with it. I feel old-fashioned often.
I’d be happy to be “cranky” like that 🙂
Kerry responded on 27 Jan 2011 at 1:53 pm #
My god, thankfully its not just me.
A few years ago I moved into a house with my then-fiance (now husband). It was his house, he had owned it for a few years already. How he actually acquired it is still a process that I can’t begin to understand.
Nearly every month that we’ve live there something happens with that house that I have No. Idea. about. Taxes? Furnace problem? Leak? Branch-falling-on-roof? Letter from the city saying something’s not “on code” with our garage door? I haven’t the faintest how to take care of these things or even how to start. My husband, on the other hand, always knows.
I feel like he was born with an additional brain lobe that I’m missing. The house lobe. I feel like a perpetual 13 years old.
Kate responded on 27 Jan 2011 at 2:11 pm #
@Kerry
Yup. Sounds about right.
JJgal responded on 27 Jan 2011 at 3:10 pm #
Kerry sounds a lot like me. I’m in my early thirties and I’m a mother. Should know what I’m doing by now, right? I, too, thought as a child that the day I became an adult I’d just know everything I needed to know. So silly. We are learning new things every day, of course. But there aresome things that I feel I SHOULD know by now, or even years ago, but that I’m lacking somehow in my ability to grasp them.
I walk around this life feeling like, “If people only knew how little I understand and know how to do…” or how nervous even trying to understand some things can make me. Trying to explain this to some people is pointless. I feel as if they’re thinking, “Grow the heck up, what’s wrong with you?” I often say I feel like an overgrown teenager for that reason (and a few others). How is it that I missed this stuff, but people my age, younger than my age, can do it? I often wonder why we didn’t have a REQUIRED course in high school that tought things like balancing a checkbook, how a mortgage works, following a budget, what stocks are, taxes, how life insurance works. We had a class called Life Skills, but we didn’t do much but bake. Not the Life Skills I think we should have learned. Most people probably learn these things from their parents, but what about those of us whose parents aren’t particularly skilled in that area themselves? Or who didn’t have the patience to teach it? Speaking of school, I used to love school, loved learning, always did well in all (well, most) of my classes. But another joke I find myself making is that I feel like I’ve become increasingly dumber the older I get. I feel like there are things I will never be able to grasp, or that I have to try a lot harder now.
I would love to take college courses again (I never finished) but I admit, I am pretty scared to jump back into it all these years later. As far as technology goes, I don’t even understand or know how to use an iPod. Or an iPhone. My fiance just got AppleTV for Christmas… I don’t “get” it. LOL. He’s fluent in technospeak, has no problem taking care of mortgage, car, banking issues and is patient with me, saying that it’s “cute” that I am this way, rather than being impatient and frustrated by it. Thank God for him.
JJgal responded on 27 Jan 2011 at 3:14 pm #
I also thought as a child that the first day of spring meant that all the snow would be melted away, it would instantly be warm outside and everything would be green and blooming. I went to bed on the eve of some first-day-of-spring in my childhood so excited and couldn’t wait to get my bike out, pick flowers, dig in the dirt, run and play with my friends in our summer clothes. Boy was I surprised and disappointed when I looked out my bedroom window (in Michigan) and saw my neighbor knee-deep in snow and sholveling.
JJgal responded on 27 Jan 2011 at 3:30 pm #
Un-roast: I love that a customer told me today that I have a warm smile, so I must have a warm heart.
Michelle responded on 27 Jan 2011 at 3:43 pm #
so fun that today I spent 2 hours trying, really trying to get Twitter. So I decided to stop faking and ask for help on my blog and through FB! Seems like we are all on the same page today.
Kate responded on 27 Jan 2011 at 3:45 pm #
@Michelle
Been there.
Kerry responded on 27 Jan 2011 at 4:03 pm #
@michelle – HA! a few weeks ago I joined twitter and then promptly un-joined a half hour later after feeling like an absolute idiot. you are a better woman than me.
(ok sorry i’ll sit down and be quiet now!)
Christin@purplebirdblog responded on 27 Jan 2011 at 4:41 pm #
I do feel so un-adult sometimes, like when my clothes dryer broke last week, and I didn’t even really know how to find a repairman!
San D responded on 27 Jan 2011 at 5:58 pm #
My students used to think I knew everything. Why? Because I am the biggest worry wart, so in planning my lessons I would learn all there would be to learn about the subject in anticipation of what might be asked of me. And that is the story of my life. I’m an over planner, over achiever, typical “A” personality, first born. I am on a perpetual “need to know” status. My brain is chock full of stuff I never use, but in case someone asks, I can chime in with an opinion. That said, I think it is a personality trait. I used to read encyclopedia’s for fun growing up (World Book anyone?). In my 60’s, I taught my English teacher friends in my school how to spot plagerism in papers by using the web (they hadn’t a clue). Without using Facebook or Twitter, I found my best friend from 8th grade when I lived in Europe. My point? Curiosity hasn’t killed this cat.
MarieElizabeth responded on 27 Jan 2011 at 6:01 pm #
Just wait, in a few more years you’ll understand it is easier and better to ask for help than fake that you already know. Then you’ll see the “other people” don’t have all the answers either – so you’re good. Love your willingness to talk about it.
Liz responded on 27 Jan 2011 at 7:08 pm #
I gave up. I use to try to act cool & pretend I knew what everyone was talking about or doing. Now, I just ask–knowing that I probably seem like an idiot, but not caring anymore (that’s not entirely true, but I want to believe it!!) or look it up on line when I get home, or email Kate and say, how do I do this or that on WordPress. It’s getting easier to ask questions and laugh at myself more. It’s refreshing!!
As for the beauty part, when I was a preteen/teen, I wanted to look just like Heidi Klum. I knew I couldn’t even pretend to be a model, but I felt like that knowledge helped me focus on other goals that were realistic, more important, and longer lasting. Just my two cents.
MWN responded on 28 Jan 2011 at 10:44 am #
I was just sitting in a small discussion section at my awesome women’s college and I looked around at my 20 or so fellow students, and I was overtaken with their beauty. Seriously, I was sitting there, looking at each of them in turn, admiring how gorgeous they were. It didn’t make me feel less than or unworthy; on the contrast, I felt like I was in pretty good company. I definitely think focusing on seeing the beauty (inner and yes, also outer) in other people will help you see it in yourself. (This is one reason why I love the fat activism movement.) It’s kind of funny because oftentimes people’s ignorant impressions of students at women’s colleges are hairy angry ugly lesbians. While it’s true that some of us may be lesbians (or hairy or angry, for that matter), I think we as individuals and as a group are STUNNING.
Unroast: It makes me really happy and awed to really feel the beauty in other people so viscerally, like I did the other day. It’s a great habit that I want to continue to cultivate. Along those lines, Kate, I think you’re gorgeous.
Tip–easy trick–just take the tax and double it, and that gets you between 15% and 20%.
Kate responded on 28 Jan 2011 at 11:14 am #
@MWN
I like this comment. I felt like this a lot in college. And I think it’s especially true of women’s colleges, somehow 🙂
Dana Udall-Weiner responded on 28 Jan 2011 at 11:26 am #
Love, love, love! This post rocks, and describes what I experience. All. The. Time. Feeling like I should know things, and yet that I am hopelessly uneducated or unschooled (not in the good way that you write about) or naive. And talk about business and firms? I still don’t understand much of what my husband talks about. He is in business. And that is a strange world. They don’t talk about their feelings very much. And they fly far away and have meetings that don’t involve talking about their mothers and their childhood and their struggles with food. Anyway, do we ever feel like we’ve adequately grasped life? I think not-knowing may be a permanent state of adulthood. (And, it intensifies when you become a parent.)
Kate responded on 28 Jan 2011 at 11:30 am #
@Dana
I just read this comment aloud to Bear, because your description of business meetings was really funny and great.
Andrea responded on 28 Jan 2011 at 12:28 pm #
I just read all of your comments, and I’m going back to JJgal, speaking about how people learn things whose parents don’t know how to do them or can’t teach them. I grew up with a mother who never would admit to having made a mistake or not knowing something (and still won’t) and a father who seemed to know everything (and still does). I felt so stupid my entire childhood that I don’t feel stupid now, so much as guilty for being unenlightened. And I do think it’s sad that I still feel guilty about not knowing something other people do. I especially hate it when someone says, “You don’t know _______________? It’s easy!” Really.
Tweets that mention Eat the Damn Cake » Faking it -- Topsy.com responded on 28 Jan 2011 at 1:18 pm #
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Welmoed, Kate . Kate said: Cake eating – Faking it: I fake it a lot. I nod and smile. I pretend to understand when I don’t. Someone is tell… http://bit.ly/hI18sL […]
B1 responded on 28 Jan 2011 at 2:54 pm #
As I have gotten older, it has become increasingly more easy to say, “I don’t know”. I used to think that I had to know it all, so I faked it and acted like I knew it all, but day by day, I learned how much I REALLY don’t know it all. So, today I enjoy the fact that I know a lot about a lot of different things, but I am free to say that I don’t know everything about everything. 🙂
un-roast: ignorance is bliss…
JJgal responded on 28 Jan 2011 at 3:05 pm #
Andrea: EXACTLY! “You should know that by now” and “I shouldn’t have to explain that to you” are phrases I remember hearing a lot growing up. (And still hear to this day). Starting a response to my question with “you’re (such-and-such) years old” is another one. I wish I had the type of personality where it didn’t bother me so much. I’m working at it though. My 20’s were all about how I FELT. And why. And I didn’t make the smartest decisions. My 30’s have so far beenmuch less about all of that, but about what I DO about it. (The serenity prayer comes to mind.) I’m learning to turn it around and react more positively and proactively… going out and trying to learn about something I don’t know rather than being upset that I didn’t know it in the first place. If someone “laughs” at my ignorance, oh well. Probably didnt get that from my original post, eh?
Kate: Take your total bill, move the decimal point one place to the left and double your result. That’s 20%.
Ex: 20% tip on a $45.00 bill would then be $9.00.
Kate responded on 28 Jan 2011 at 3:20 pm #
@JJgal
That’s what I’ve been doing! Thanks for confirming that that’s a real thing 🙂
JJgal responded on 28 Jan 2011 at 3:36 pm #
Kate: See? No worries. Now you can tell someone else who doesn’t know. LOL :^)
Roxanne responded on 28 Jan 2011 at 4:41 pm #
Thanks, Kate! 🙂 I’m 19 and sometimes I worry about all the things I don’t know, too. In some ways, I’m a lot wiser than I was when I was younger, which, I think is what makes me painfully aware that there’s so much I haven’t learned as yet. And your post made me realise that that’s okay. Hmm, it also made me wonder if everybody else is faking it, too. If so, that’s sort of comforting. 🙂