DO FRIENDS MAKE FUN OF YOU?

If your friends poke fun at you for how you are, allow me to poke fun at your choice of friends

frankly, just don’t care if you are gay or not. And I will not even want to take this discussion to the gay-lesbian angle because as I’ve said earlier, which gender turns you on is your, and only your business. Not mine, not the world’s.

Let’s talk about the stress you are facing on account of friends teasing you for speaking or behaving like the members of the other gender. The very fact that both of you used the term ‘friends’ to describe these people smacks of irony, but I know your definition here includes classmates and acquaintances.

So let’s just correct that definition first, shall we? Here, think about it... If they are friends, they won’t judge you If they judge you, it’s twice as fun to ignore them If you ignore them, you’ll start loving yourself If you love yourself, they will want to be your friends If they want you as a friend, they won’t judge you I want to ask a question of each one of you who’s reading this just now. Can you, hand on heart, claim that never in your life have you made fun of a guy who happens to speak in a girlie way. I can’t. I’ve laughed at actors attempting such scenes in comedy films. Sometimes, with seemingly good intention, I’ve advised female friends to flaunt feminity and not opt for really short hair etc. But the more I think about it now, I realise how less I cared for what it must be doing to their feelings at that point. All that I perhaps cared for was to satisfy the stereotypes in my own head of how others should be.

Being judgmental comes easily to us. And someone’s outwardly trappings such as appearance, clothes, accent etc are the easiest targets when it comes to feeding that habit. What we forget is that whatever we know of these trappings is borne out of our own conditioning, not by any rule of the universe. Somewhere while growing up, we acquired the knowledge that since a majority of guys and girls in this world walk or talk a certain way, that’s how we, or those around us, are supposed to. Now imagine for a moment that a new, inhabited country is discovered somewhere in the world. When our explorers reach there, they realise that all women in that country sport a short crop and all men have long, flowing hair. Suddenly all your beliefs would be turned upside down by the realisation that it’s all conditioning, and nothing else.

While I would like to reserve my right of holding an opinion on whether I like a girl who dress up as ‘tomboys’ (whatever silly origin that term has), I’ll have to accord the right to that girl to have the freedom of deciding what she wants to look like. If I need to tease a feminine guy or a masculine girl to get the laughter in my life, it’s my sense of humour that needs an overhaul, not their appearance.

And while on this point, this is what I want to tell all the Ambikas and Ankurs of this world. People are going to judge you or talk about you for as long as you live. They mostly don’t have anything better to do with their lives. But you do. And that’s achieving the high of being able to give them a royal ignore. You know, there’s a reason why the middle finger of my hand is my most favourite. Lest your so called ‘friends’ accuse me of obscenity, let me clarify that it’s only because God made it half an inch longer than the others. But you do get the point, don’t you? Embrace the way you are, the way you look. Go mad trying out whatever your heart desires, as long as you are not harming yourself or others in the process. Ek hi life hai yaar, that too pretty short. Either spend it their way, or yours. Something tells me that yours is so more fun.

Sonal Kalra realised that both guys and girls feel, equally strongly, that their lives are tougher. No one is cakewalking. We’re all just trying to have our cake, and eat it too! Mail your thoughts at Follow on Twitter