Belonging is an inside-out game

There's a deep interplay between our inner and outer worlds when it comes to belonging. Let's explore what that can look like.

I grew up in a friendly neighbourhood. It was a safe, middle-class environment, where my family’s insistence on tertiary education and aspirations toward a professional career sat about a generation ahead of the community as a whole.

In many ways, it was a typical white Australian neighbourhood where people promoted the idea of ‘a fair go’.

My father has never been a typical Aussie bloke so I don’t think I’ve ever heard the words ‘fair go’ pass his lips. But the phrase certainly tumbled boisterously out of the mouths of uncles and other family friends.

For many years, I thought the phrase was innocuous. The idea of fairness, as a fundamental value of our society, appealed to me and I’m sure that for a time, I bought into the mythology it points to, namely, that we live in a classless society.

As a young adult, after moving out of my friendly neighbourhood, I began scratching the surface of who this fair go was for. It wasn’t difficult to spot its limitations.

I noticed that only one group of people were getting a fair go.

‘A fair go’ didn’t set a standard for men or boys when it came to violent, sexist or misogynistic behaviour. 

‘A fair go’ wasn't afforded to women who spoke up about these things.

‘A fair go’ wasn’t given to girls who acquiesced to the sexual demands of boys only to find themselves labelled ‘sluts’ in the schoolyard.

‘A fair go’ wasn’t given to members of the LGBTIA community who were demonised for meeting up at the local park under cover of night because to be openly queer meant certain harassment and probable violence being inflicted upon you.

‘A fair go’ wasn’t on offer for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were just coming out of one of the darkest phases of Australian history - that of the stolen generations. 

It seemed to be almost taken as read that ‘a fair go’ wasn’t something that disabled people or immigrants hailing from outside of the English-speaking world could expect from our society.

Achieving coherence in an incoherent world

In this setting, I grew up blonde-haired and blue-eyed.

I was also thin, due to the jazz, tap and ballet I was doing multiple times a week.

My external self fit the patriarchal mould of what a female was supposed to look like in my neighbourhood. 

Nothing about my external appearance or behaviour disrupted the preexisting narratives of who the collective considered itself to be. 

Had I inquired, people would have said I fit in. That I belonged. 

But all of my privileges were tied to maintaining those narratives.

Narratives that felt so uncomfortable that it was inevitable that I would end up in conflict with myself.

The first three albums I purchased with money I earned from my part-time job, for example, were by Tracy Chapman, Melissa Etheridge and k.d. lang. I’d spend hours in my bedroom belting out the songs of these incredible women. And yet, living in such a heteronormative society, it never occurred to me that a pattern might be gleaned there.

Repression was the sacrifice I made to belong.

Eventually, the great gaping hole between my inner world and my outer appearance became intolerable. My self-hatred was relentless.

On the one hand, my then Barbie-like appearance positioned me on the side of the dominant culture. On the other, the value system I carried within, set me miles apart. 

The year before entering high school I’d been bullied persistently and aggressively by a group of girls. The experience was so traumatic that it has forever affected the way I build friendships.

In the year that followed the bullying, I was on tenterhooks when it came to friendships. I would build a certain level of trust with someone only to unconsciously recoil when I felt myself becoming too close, too dependent on their acceptance of me. Who knew when they might turn on me? Better to keep my distance than be sideswiped again.

So I showed up and had a nice group of friends but I wasn’t able to take full advantage of the friendship being offered to me. I kept myself safely on the outskirts. I did what was required to appear to belong, but not enough for that belonging to be truly meaningful.

Belonging is an inside-out game

In hindsight, my teenage years were a parody of faux belonging.

Because I didn’t feel at home within myself, it was impossible for me to truly feel at home with others. 

If you can’t bring the fullness of yourself to the table, belonging will always remain ellusively out of reach.

The incoherence I felt between my inner and outer worlds as a young person meant that I never really knew if I was being accepted as me or as the version of me that people wanted to see.

Having no real clue of how to accept myself as I was, I was unable to connect authentically with others. 

Just beneath the surface of all my interactions was a hive of insecurity, begging to know; 

What do they need me to be? 

How can I behave so they don’t turn on me? 

What’s the ideal I’m supposed to live up to in this scenario? 

Can I be that? 

If not, can I fake it? 

Most important of all, can I fake it long enough to convince myself it’s who I really am?

Let’s chat

Q: How coherent did your inner and outer selves feel as you were growing up?