What Authenticity REALLY Means

My freshman year of high school, I attended a prestigious Catholic school in Las Vegas called Bishop Gorman. It was the first time I’d ever attended private school, and would also be my last (due to financial constraints, I’d transfer back to public school my sophomore year). But going into the new school year at Gorman, I was eager to make new friends and embrace my new “high school” life. It would also be an important lesson in what it means to live authentically.

What I quickly learned was that most of the students attending Gorman were funnelled in from another private school. A majority of my classmates, if not all of them, had known each other since they were in kindergarten. They were a tight-knit group.

When it came to establishing “who I was” and what I could offer these friend groups, I felt at a disadvantage. I was the odd one out. 

Also, I feel it’s important to stress, I was a freshman in high school. So I really knew nothing about myself, except that I wanted acceptance. 

So I went about making friends with the girl who sat next to me in biology class and the girl I was paired up with for an English assignment. As a natural observer, I studied their hairstyle choices, the kind of makeup they wore, what gel pens they used to write their notes, and what special diction choices they used, all in the name of wanting to be liked. 

Research shows that the more familiar you appear to someone, the more they like you. (This is also the reason why every pop song sounds the same; it’s not songwriters trying to deceive you but strategic use of familiarization at work to get you to like a song. But I digress). 

So I started wearing my hair like they did. I started talking about the things they talked about. I bought the same gel pens and used the same catch phrases they liked to use. One girl said the word, “Meep!” a lot. Not sure why. But that became a staple in my vocabulary. 

A few weeks into this I was feeling really good about myself. I was being invited to all of the group gatherings, having after school AIM chat sessions (dating myself here) with these girls, and felt like I was one step closer to having a best friend. 

And then, my world came to a crashing halt. 

As if overnight (which happens in teenage worlds), my small private school peer group had made the decision that they didn’t want to be friends with me. The reasoning? 

I was not authentic to who I was.

They accused me of being a chameleon. Acting differently around different members of the group. They didn’t know who I was. 

I had a very simple explanation for this: I didn’t know who I was. 

Their inner court ruling was that until I could “show them consistency” I was not allowed to be their friend. The “Meep” girl even accused me of trying to steal her essence. (I personally think that’s giving me WAY too much credit as a diabolical mastermind, but girls do that in high school).

The situation crushed me. It was heartbreaking to feel that because I hadn’t taken a “stance” on an identity, I was being outcast because of my attempt to fit in. And I didn’t know how to resolve the situation, because I felt like whatever I did moving forward would just be a “ploy” to gain their friendship. 

Talk about an isolating and inadequacy-inducing situation for a young social girl. I started listening to a lot of Evanescence. 

I was eventually invited back, once I adopted the persona of the slightly clueless, klutzy friend, who, while being a whiz in class, didn’t understand anything about life. Apparently that role hadn’t been taken in the group, so I auditioned it and got the part. 

They were satisfied that this character was the “real me.” 

Looking back at this time in my life, it angers me. Not because they didn’t like what I was doing, but that a group of 15-year-olds had the audacity to make judgments about my authenticity. 

We spend so much of our lives creating false identities, including situations like this where the world is trying to peg you into a hole. “What do you want to be when you grow up? What do you do? Would I have seen your work anywhere?”

As if those questions can show us the internal makeup of a good human. 

These little yahoos didn’t know themselves any better than I did. But because they had better false identities, wrapped around stereotypes, and an expectation of what “authentic” meant to them, I was the fake. 

In fact, I was incredibly authentic in my desire to want to be their friend. I was also incredibly authentic in being a chameleon. In fact, I would say as an adult, that’s one of my strongest skills. I can talk to anyone about anything; it’s part of what makes me a good host and interviewer. 

They didn’t see my chameleon ways as being authentic because that’s not how THEY would be authentic. (And again, we were 15. There’s no such thing as authenticity at that age, in my opinion. Everyone’s struggling to figure it out). 

And now, as an adult, I see this play out over and over again on social media. 

Because WE wouldn’t handle or respond to a situation a certain way, WE make a judgment that no one ELSE should or would. And if they do, it’s fake. It’s untrue. And it annoys us. 

It annoys us to the point that we have to publicly say something about it. To strangers. And then fight them when they’re resistant to our perspective. 

We’ve clutched tightly to the schoolyard rules that we have to appear consistent. All that does  is limit our ability to truly be authentic. 

What if we let them go? What if we all agreed that authenticity is not about all uniformly looking authentic, but allowing people to explore and actually find their identity? 

I’ve had many roles over the years: ditzy blonde, klutzy friend, whiz kid, top graduate, beauty queen, lion trainer, world traveler, reject, emo kid, and influencer. But these “roles” are not my identity. 

My identity is being a kind, caring, funny, and compassionate person. Those have nothing to do with the labels others choose to throw on me. 

Let’s stop using our individual rules of authenticity to measure the value of someone else. Instead, let’s look to highlight and nurture the content of each other’s character. If we do that, we may in fact be able to highlight and nurture our own character. And that’s the real way we all get acceptance.