Why fit in when you can stand out?

Will you flame-throw or skydive or would you just rather be boring and follow your boring interests of math, poetry and gardening and be happy? To what extent will you go to fit in?

Paloma Sharma is 18 and like every teen her age wants to be part of the 'it' crowd. In her column for Rediff Get Ahead young Paloma writes about the caste system in colleges, being XL and her pursuit of groovy-ness.

Read on!

Although fitting into anything less than an XL has always been a rather personal dilemma (except for when discussed in very public weddings with one's uncle's brother's wife's neighbour's cat's grandmother), fitting into the group, or for that matter, any group, has occupied too many of my teenage years for me to be able to decide which is the more trivial one.

As laughable as it seems when we turn into adults (18 is legally adult, ok?), not having your own group to belong to can be quite a traumatic experience. If you've managed not to bunk your sociology lectures, then you know well enough that "humans are social animals" and as all social animals, we too must indulge in our fair share of long phone conversations, extended lunch hours in the canteen and blushed gossip about that cute girl/guy sitting at the other end of the class. A lack of this, sometimes an extreme and conscious denial, can be rather hazardous to a young person's already wavering confidence.

Much like Indian society, every class has its own caste system. Every student has their 'thing'. There are the bookworms who always score the highest marks, the back benchers who are permanently on the blacklist, the sports junkies who double as NCC cadets and the popular ones who, well, they're the ones with hair that flops around as if they carry their own table fan with them.

The groups are everywhere. If you're lucky, you'll find like-minded people and get absorbed into a group within a few lectures time. However, if you're that fat kid in two-inch thick glasses with oily hair sitting on the first bench, all alone, on the first day of school/college, I know what you're going through; and it is perfectly OK.

Not all of us were made to fit in. Conversely, no one was meant to be lonely either. As hard as it seems, finding your place will require just a teeny-weeny bit of time and effort. If nobody has spoken to you yet, it probably won't be a very bad idea for you to make the first move. You're more interesting than you think you are and its time to let other people know that.

While flame-throwing and skydiving might not be your areas of specialisation, there are other things that you are a master at. Even if it's a supposedly not-so-cool pursuit like math, poetry or gardening, don't be embarrassed of your abilities. People will see you the way you see yourself.

So if you are, for example, a nerdy, socially awkward writer (I'm talking about a friend, just FYI), don't be afraid to flaunt it – except for maybe the socially awkward part, of course.

No matter how hard it is to fit in, just remember that given the population of this planet, it is statistically impossible for you to be alone. In all likelihood, there are other shy people in your class who are waiting to be discovered. The catch in all of this is that in college, unlike in talent hunts, no one is waiting to discover you. You have to put yourself out there. Find a math/poetry/gardening etc club and get right down to it. You're more likely to find similar people there than anywhere else.

Nevertheless, it is entirely possible that you might not find peers you can identify with in your present circumstances. Again, this is perfectly normal. Don't try to change who you are in order to be comfortable with the 'in' crowd. Be comfortable with yourself. At the end of the day, your skin is the only thing that truly belongs to you.

As for being popular, the definition of the word itself is extremely subjective and ever-evolving. Maybe owning that tube of purple sparkles made you popular yesterday, maybe your hidden abilities will make you popular tomorrow. Maybe you'll end up at an uber-cool media office somewhere in the southern half of Mumbai in a super comfy rotating chair (97 spins is the record).

Who knows?

More importantly, how will you ever know if you don't allow yourself to test your own boundaries? College is the best time to figure out who you are. You're young and you can experiment. No matter where this goes, whether you find your own group, or even if you don't think of yourself as 'cool' yet, never feel afraid to embark on the pursuit of groovy-ness.

They have cookies on the other side!

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Paloma Sharma is a first year graduation student at Mithibai College in Mumbai. When she isn't attending classes or watching movies and TV, she writes for Rediff.com. You can read all her reviews and columns here!