Right To Reply #7

It’s been nearly a year since the last Right To Reply discussion / get-together (when the subject of discussion was the change to the British licensing laws). High time for another one, then.

This time the topic is more abstract, much more personal and only vaguely topical, though it was inspired in part by the recent experiences of one of the contributors. And it gives us bloggers a chance to write about our favourite subject: ourselves…

Read on, then – it’s a long one so you might want to grab a cuppa and make yourself comfortable first, but you never know, you might just find out a bit more about the people behind the blogs, this one included…

The subject: identity

The participants:
Abby of Girl With A One-Track Mind
Ben, your host
Jonathan of Crinklybee
JonnyB of JonnyB’s Private Secret Diary
Martin of That Difficult Second Blog
Paul of 1000 Shades Of Grey
Pete of The Whole Wide World Of Fat Buddha! and Bluesblog
Swiss Toni of Swiss Toni’s Place

How do you define yourself? In terms of your job? Your social class? Where you're from? Your gender? Your sexuality? Your interests? What you wear? Or something else?

JonnyB: I honestly am not aware that I define myself. But I probably do, unconsciously. You've got me all worried now. Do I?

Swiss Toni: Do you know what? I really, genuinely don’t think I know the answer to this question. Clearly I must define myself somehow, but I’m buggered if I can put my finger on it. I’m sure that I am defined by all kinds of things: my background, my job, where I live, the music I listen to, the TV I watch, the clothes I wear etc etc. But I don’t think I define myself by any of these things.

Jonathan: I don't find it easy at all identifying myself for the benefit of others, as you may note from the long, rambling and possibly incoherent answers I give to these questions! For instance, I am constantly dissatisfied with the obligatory “About Me” section on my blog, and am constantly tinkering with it to little avail – I keep taking out the bit about being thrilled at meeting people from ‘Coronation Street’ in Tescos, not being able to think of anything better, and putting it back in again.

Paul: I think I define myself by most (if not all) of the things I say and do – be it my job, my place of birth, my faith, my gender and express that identity through the things I say, do, wear and listen to / watch.

Pete: Increasingly, I am coming to define myself as a nondescript middle aged man – Mr bleeding Jones! I don't try and hide the fact that I social work for a living, but I wouldn't, couldn't define myself by that role – apart from anything else, I am a fairly atypical social worker, but every social worker I know would say the same of themselves, so maybe I am typical.

Ben: I’ve never really understood people who introduce themselves by announcing what they do for a living. To someone who’s never had a “proper” job, it always seemed curious – and more than a little sad – that people should feel their identity is determined primarily by their profession. And yet recently, whilst both jobless and directionless, I came to understand and even crave that sense of security and – yes – identity that comes with having a particular job. In many ways it’s understandable – after all, a job occupies a hugely significant proportion of life, and to a large extent determines your daily routine and those with whom you come into regular contact. But then this is probably not the way that many (most?) people would LIKE to define themselves, given the choice. It’s more an identity that is foisted upon them.

Martin: I used to define myself in terms of my job (once I got a decent one, anyway) but over the last few months I've moved away from that so I suppose I'm defining myself in terms of not defining myself from my job! Unless you're doing something worthy, I think that defining yourself by what you do for a living is likely to be misguided. I suppose I define myself more in terms of my interests; what I choose to appreciate and do with my time, as opposed to an accident of birth. Where I'm from only applies to my sporting interests, but even then I can't relate to the idea of painting my face red and white and singing 'Ten German Bombers' every time England play football. In fact I think I tend to define myself as not being like certain people, which might come across as snobbish.

Ben: Self-definition is achieved as much (if not more) through the expression of identification as it is through the expression of difference – and in no instance more obvious than regional identity.

Jonathan: Like many North Easterners, I identify myself quite strongly in terms of regional provenance – and like most people who grew up in Newcastle, I take pride in being able to proclaim myself a native of the regional capital itself (I was going to say “a true Geordie”, but as this debate is being hosted by a Northumbrian I am taking a diplomatic line- and also of course Ben knows I was born in Alnwick, so am strictly speaking less Geordie than he is). And of course I walk around a lot of the time with a Newcastle Utd badge attached to my lapel, which more or less goes hand in hand with coming from any part of the far North East.

Pete: I have lived in South Wales for twenty years and still consider myself a Brummie. I have not set foot in Mayfield Road in Tysley for about 30 years probably, but I bet I would feel instantly at home there in a way I never do anywhere in Wales. The nearest I get to feeling at home now is at St. Andrews. Interesting that, because I feel it more now that I have lived away than I ever did when I lived in Brum and the same is true for others; the football ground becomes a place where they once again feel they belong, not an outsider, or incomer.

Ben: Regional ties seem to assume greater significance when living in exile. For us Geordies it somehow feels more important to assert our regional identity (and, related to that, our affiliations to Newcastle Utd), to the extent that upon spotting a black and white shirt I often have to stop myself from going up to the wearer and greeting him / her like some long-lost comrade. The shirt is worn as a marker of regional pride, at least in part, and when talking about football my (admittedly) very muted accent gradually and unconsciously develops a more recognisably Geordie inflection.

Jonathan: I do define myself in terms other than the predictable ones of regional and footballing affiliation though – or at least I try to. I suppose if I had to sum up my identity in one of those Would Like To Meet adverts it would be something like “working-class Geordie European intellectual one-time floppy-fringed indie-popster, exiled in Manchester, subsisting as lowly clerk but cultivating rich inner life”. And, of course, blogging figures quite prominently in that last bit...

Pete: I no longer know what my class is and I no longer understand WHAT class is. When I was young, I was clearly, unequivocally working class. In my mid twenties I went to university and then completed a postgrad course and then became a social worker. I work hard and I get very little financial reward for it, so, in that sense, I suppose I am working class. But I'm not. The problem is, while I am no longer working class, neither am I middle class. I feel distinctly uncomfortable around the middle classes – the confident, accent-less, affluent middle classes. I don't like them and I don't trust them. I am neither fish nor fowl. Since I was young, though, the working class that I grew up with seems to have disappeared, and been replaced by a chavish underclass, with no values and no interest in finding work, or getting on in life (I know this is simplistic, but there you go) or a more affluent aspirational set of white collar types. I don't think the working class exists anymore; that bottom end of the social ladder has become too disparate. We are all graduates now!

Ben: I think social stratification still exists, although the dividing lines between different strata are perhaps more blurred. Class is still very much with us, but it no longer seems to be a primary or “default” means by which people define themselves.

Abby: Right now, I probably define myself in terms of my gender, my politics and my writing (which I'm hoping is / will be my job): it's the combination of all three that encapsulates exactly where and who I am, at this point in my life – probably more so than at any other point I have lived through.

Martin: Gender wise I've always been resistant to being a “bloke”; I used to think of myself as a “new man” but don't think much of that stereotype either. It's depressing how many people seem to define themselves in terms of their gender. I don't think that either gender has specific character traits but that there are just different types of people. I once walked out of a university seminar on female writers after being told that a friend and I were subverting oppressive partiarchy by him being gay and me having long hair(and therefore being in touch with my feminine side). Simplistic judgements on lifestyle choices that had nothing to do with our gender or sexuality.

Pete: Gender is an interesting and vexing area for me. I am a male, from a particular culture and have grown up according to certain aggressive mores. In the circles I have moved in for about the last 20 years, most people have found the attitudes that I possessed then unacceptable, and, intellectually, so do I. Emotionally, though, it's hard to lose that male working-class shoulder-chip. The instinct is always there, not only to bite back, fight back, viciously if necessary, but at times to get the old retaliation in first. It's not big, it's not funny and it most certainly isn't clever, but there are times when I find it really difficult to suppress that instinct.

Swiss Toni: It might sound idealistic, but I try to define myself on a basic set of core values. I try to be honest and decent in all things. I only really feel like I have let myself down when I violate one of these unwritten principles – when I broke up with a girlfriend of long standing suddenly and without much explanation; when I backed into someone’s car and then didn’t leave them an envelope with my number in it when I saw that their tax disc was out of date… Stuff like that. In each case, I didn’t act according to my own moral code and I felt awful as a direct result.

Do you think your identity has developed and is now stable? Or is who you are always changing?

JonnyB: Reasonably stable. With the addition of a recent child, which is bound to change things.

Martin: I think my identity's always been fairly stable, on the outside, anyway. Change is good just to keep life interesting if nothing else. It doesn't have to be drastic unless circumstances dictate otherwise.

Jonathan: We never really think our close friends and family really change that much over the years, do we? So I imagine that whatever great leaps of personal development and chameleon-like qualities I ascribe to myself, those who have known me well for a long time probably think I'm just the same old Jonathan as ever. And I suppose I don't really mind that too much.

Abby: I think identity is a fluid thing; it ebbs and flows, maybe taking on a stable appearance for an indeterminate length of time, but overall always adapting to one's personal circumstances. Right now my own identity feels strong – I know who I am and I am attempting to assert that within my life – but in actuality I'm in a total state of flux: I don't know what will happen tomorrow – in any sense – and my identity is having to adapt constantly to help me cope with that. I'm finding it scary, but I'm trying to see it as a positive challenge, rather than see it as “oh fuck, who am I, now that so much has changed in my life?” – which I don't think is a constructive viewpoint.

Martin: The way I define myself changes but I would hope it would for most people. Over the last year being single for the first time in nine years has had a huge effect, but it's been positive. I haven't redefined myself but it's been a good opportunity to look at myself more honestly; to reconsider negative traits and decide what I enjoy doing that I stopped as part of the inevitable compromise of being half of a couple.

Swiss Toni: I’ve just done a Myers-Briggs test at work actually. I did it before about nine years ago, and I was curious to see if I had changed at all (or at least if the test thought I had changed). To some extent I have defined myself by the result that came out last time – go and look at my blogger profile and you’ll see that I proudly list myself as an INTP [Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiver]. After I had sat the test and was waiting for my results, I was reflecting that I probably have changed in that time, that my personality now was different in many ways to the person that I was when I was 23. I have changed apparently – now I have to come to terms with what it means to be an INTJ [Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Judger]. That’s a whole new box to put myself in, and it might take some time to adjust.

Martin: I suppose a feeling of greater stability comes with age, but I think it's important that age shouldn't fully dictate my identity. When I was a child I used to think that you had to act in certain ways at certain ages, but in hindsight I think some people were just born 50 years old.

Pete: I have changed identity over the years in the sense that people who knew me at 16 would not recognise the man I am now, which is probably the same for everyone. My political views have stayed fairly constant although nowadays I would never dream of involving myself in any kind of party politics; I'm not sure any party would have me anyway; my views are a bit eclectic. I think my defining characteristics are pretty stable these days, after years and years of changing. Some people find me overly assertive. But I really think that has more to do with my accent, and the last vestiges of my class, than any character trait on my part – I might be wrong though.

Paul: I think my identity inevitably changes as I progress through life. I no longer fall into the category “student” and am now technically a “young professional” so that part of my identity has shifted. Where once I was single, now I am not. Looking ahead, I'm currently without children, but it's highly possible that will change in the future, and in doing so my identity will change as I become “a father”.

Pete: As soon as I involved myself with further education, the old certainties crumbled away. People regarded me differently, thought I was some sort of upstart. People I had known and argued politics with for years seemed to take umbrage all of a sudden when I started gobbing my vaguely Marxist vaguely anarchist rhetoric, seemed to think I now thought of myself as better than them. Of course I changed too, I had always read books by foreign authors, always read the Guardian, always watched subtitled films, but now I became less tolerant, less indulgent of lowest common denominator nonsense, became a snob, if you like. Remain a snob, actually, in that regard. I can't watch soaps, I can't watch reality TV shows, I can't watch many Hollywood movies – I find them offensive; so that's me out of the loop.

Jonathan: I suppose that when I was younger I would be much more ready to identify myself along the lines of where I was from, what music I was into, and so on. As you get older you possibly worry less about such superficial categorisations, because you are more comfortable with yourself and happy for people to take you as they find you. I've gotten past the stage, for example, of feeling I've got to have an opinion about whatever new band has just burst onto the scene (although sometimes I can't help myself, and feel obliged to tell you I think The Magic Numbers are an awful pile of shite, whether you want to know or not).

Pete: In the end, the older I get, the more I see, the more I realise that none of it really matters. We come, we go, we amuse ourselves the best we can and no one will really remember us; few of us will have achieved any kind of greatness that will cause us to be remembered, so the identities we build for ourselves, the egos we wrap ourselves in are, ultimately meaningless. We may as well just live the best life we can, try and do as much with it as we can, without harming others.

Martin: If I had the chance to talk to my teenage self I'd tell him not to worry about things so much, that everything tends to work out and to stop trying to please everyone all the time. And to get rid of the mullet.

How do other people view / define you? Does this tally or clash with your own self-definition / self-image?

Paul: I suspect you'd have to ask them – although the fact that they don't hear my internal monologue probably means that the way I think and the way I act are possibly slightly out of kilter and affect the way in which I am perceived by others in contrast to the way I might be if they could hear my thoughts.

Martin: As dull as it sounds, most people think I'm a nice bloke. Not very exciting, but it could be worse. I've calmed down in my attitude to life in the last year or so, but I think I'm more irritable than most people think. I tend to come across as intelligent which I think comes from being fairly well-spoken and literate rather than actually knowing what I'm talking about. It's a silly thing but I find that embarrassing at times. I think I come across as more confident than I am. I'm definitely more frustrated and less confident than most people think, but I suppose it's better than their judgement being the other way around. Their judgement has defined me, in a sense; if people think I'm more confident then maybe I should be.

Abby: People probably see me as being more confident than I am; I'm good at channelling fear so possibly appear to be very self-assured, even when I'm shitting it inside. Given this, I suppose many would be surprised at how insecure I actually am; at least, that is how I see myself, most of the time. But I do try to have a positive outlook as often as possible, so maybe that's where the outer me and the inner me tally.

Ben: A while back I was with a group of friends and talk turned to the utterances which everyone most associated the person in question. I was surprised that, when it came to me, there was unanimous agreement on the exclamation: “For fuck’s sake!” I’m well aware I can often get wound up at trivial, petty little things, but this very fleeting glimpse of what others thought of me left in tatters my fairly long-held belief that I generally kept those frustrations inside and came across as a relaxed, easy-going person in public. Perhaps the relatively confident front I think I present to others isn’t as opaque as I imagine either.

JonnyB: I live in a world where the things that perhaps I have “achieved” in a previous life mean absolutely sod all. So I suspect that the inflated sense I have of my own importance and achievements is not reflected in how other people view or define me.

Swiss Toni: I don’t know. I worry that people see me as cold, unemotional and humourless. Perhaps they’re right.

Jonathan: Well none of us can really claim to know the answer to this one, can we? But I think people who know me well – or those who read my blog – would have an image of me that tallies quite closely with my self-image.

To what extent do you think you can define yourself for the benefit of others?

Martin: Quite easily, which I think might not be a good thing. My family and friends know who I am, but I'm definitely a different person with different acquaintances, particularly at work. My job's made a lot easier for the different ways I've presented myself to people. It sounds duplicitous, but I reassure myself that it's a means to an end and that if I spoke to them honestly I'd be unemployed. Outside of work, I'd say I was pretty honest with people about who I am.

Abby: I think the core of me is pretty much unchanged throughout the years; my beliefs and outlook on life is very consistent. So I don't think I have changed or would change for the benefit of others. I'm very much a “take me as I am” type of person, believing in being open and honest about who I am and what I feel and think; if people don't like that, fine. Saying that, one has to be flexible to be sociable, and I will bite my tongue (for example) if I think that it might hurt someone's feelings or be completely inappropriate if I were to speak my mind, so I guess that is adapting my identity for others' benefit to some extent.

Swiss Toni: I like to think I’m fairly constant, but I’m also pretty sure that I’m as much of a social chameleon as anybody else. I have little or no interest in cars, but I can take part in a pub conversation on the subject if necessary. In my quieter moments, I wonder if I am really as interested in things like football and music as I convey to other people. Is it all an act? Do I pretend to be more interested in these things because that is increasingly how other people see me and how they expect me to be? Perhaps.

Ben: Sometimes I get the nagging feeling I do try to be all things to all men (and women), showing different people different facets of my personality with the consequence that hardly anyone really sees the “real me” (whoever that is). Is it duplicitous to suppress certain aspects of your personality with one person and exaggerate them with another? Or is it simply a matter of being sociable and making an effort to meet each person on their own terms? Or, at least, what you perceive to be their own terms – it always comes as something of a surprise when I suddenly discover that someone with whom I’ve only ever talked about football is actually a serious music lover, for instance. In other words, when you suddenly catch a glimpse of someone else’s “other side(s)”, sides which you never knew existed.

Jonathan: I do suppose more and more my blog is an inextricable part of my identity – to the extent that I feel people who don't know about the blog (which usually means people I know through work) don't really have a full picture of who I am at all... I sometimes worry that I must seem like a rather grey and insubstantial character to these people... but then of course I remember that first of all, I don't really care what image Jeff from accounts has of me – and also that everyone who reads the blog knows what a swashbuckling, intrepid and fascinating character I really am, and that cheers me up no end.

Do you ever consider yourself to have changed identity?

JonnyB: I probably “developed” my identity when I started working in a particular area and found myself at nobby social events being asked, in all seriousness, which school I had attended. At that point in my life I thought it more sensible to go with that particular flow. I felt terribly beneath everybody.

Ben: As someone who was quiet, studious and not particularly popular at school, I remember seeing university as a golden opportunity to consciously redefine and re-invent myself for people who would have no knowledge of the “old” me. To a certain extent, I think I managed it too – I certainly feel very different from that gawky 19-year-old now – which was why, for a while, encountering old friends from home and school felt like dredging up a past I had somehow left behind.

How closely does your blog identity / persona match your actual identity / persona? Is it natural and honest or do you exaggerate / suppress aspects of your character when blogging?

Pete: My blog persona is a fairly accurate reflection of me – certainly on Bluesblog I try to be honest, as much about myself as others. It's difficult though, because you don't want to hurt others. The Fat Buddha blog would give someone a reasonable idea of my personality and character too, but I never say much on that. It's different on football message boards, which is where my alter ego lets rip, and I am as stupid and abusive as the next social working politics graduate, but very few people have any idea of who I actually am on those boards, so I can get away with it.

JonnyB: Ah – erm – errrr... well it's all completely honest. Completely. Jonny is what I'd become if there weren't people around me to help me maintain normality. There but for the grace of – etc. Clearly – clearly – I am not the idiot that perhaps comes across. I think. But if you tend to write vignettes about odd things that happen, then the non-odd side of you will be omitted by – er – omission. Jonny's cooler than I am. And nicer. But I am even more sexy.

Paul: I think I'm largely the same, although I suspect I censor areas of my life. I try and avoid saying anything which is likely to cause upset / offence to people I care about (in much the same way as I do in life) and generally avoid subjects which require me to talk about the impact they have had on other people's lives. I'm certainly not about start blogging about work or my love life.

Martin: It's too soon to tell with my new blog, but the last one was fairly accurate. I tend not to talk about things in my personal and professional life as much as I'd like because blogging can be cathartic but with an unfortunate audit trail. On the whole I think I was honest in my previous blog which is why I ended up deleting it which was probably a mistake that I try not to think about. I think my blogging reflects my conversational style, more so with friends than family members.

Ben: I learned very early on the perils of being too liberal with what you are prepared to commit to your blog – it’s a very public place, after all. Silent Words Speak Loudest is predominantly a cultural / arts blog because I don’t think I have a particularly interesting personal life, and if I don’t think that then why should anyone else? If I could write as brilliantly about the minutiae of daily life and human interaction as some of my fellow contributors here, then that might be different – but I can’t, so it isn’t. This piece is probably about as personal as I’m ever likely to get – though of course aspects of my personality inevitably come through in what I write about and how I write about it.

Abby: My blog persona is me, but an extended, exaggerated version of me. She is more confident than I am, and more brash too. Offline, I worry far too often about what people think of me, or if I have said something to offend; online, I have the freedom to express myself how I want and not worry or care so much about the consequences, which is why I have loved blogging so much. However, my online writing is honest – I don't make stuff up – so the veracity of it is in tune with how I live my offline life: true to myself, and others.

Martin: I have exaggerated in the past for the sake of a better read, but never to the extent of distorting the truth to a great degree. Mostly it's just to include the humour that comes with the benefit of hindsight. Nothing's grossly exaggerated. I'd prefer to read about why someone's life is interesting / funny / tragic rather than just the fact that it is, and that's where story-telling comes in. I think the fact that you can't see the person behind the blog in many cases is why the medium encourages criticism.

Jonathan: I think of my blog persona as a kind of cartoon version of my real-life identity. Nothing substantial is absolutely made up (in fact, whenever I do invent little details, I generally feel immediately guilty and have to take them out again) but some grey areas are removed, and aspects of reality are certainly heightened for dramatic effect. For instance, I recently managed to get two separate 1000 word posts out of a pair of slightly awkward but essentially inconsequential encounters with a local shopkeeper – and these were possibly my favourite posts ever. And I suppose you would get a better picture of who I am by reading either of those posts than you would by wading through that awkwardly-phrased “About Me” page I was talking about just before. You would certainly get a clearer idea of my various neuroses.

Swiss Toni: I don’t blog under my real name, but my real name is not terribly well concealed. It’s a figleaf of anonymity at best. If you are determined, it would take all of about ten minutes to work out my real name (in fact, if you asked me, I’d probably just tell you). The two personas are very closely matched, and in many ways I am more open on my blog than I am face to face. Beware though, my blog persona is not me. There are several subjects that I just won’t touch that form an important part of who I really am. Their exclusion on my blog means that you cannot truly know me. I don’t think you can ever truly know anyone purely from their blog. Hell, I’m a historian by training – a blog is by definition an entirely subjective source and thus slanted and probably unreliable. If you think you know someone from their blog, think again.

If you're not quite the same as your blogging persona, how do the two differ? And was that persona a conscious creation? To what extent is your blogging persona a protective / defensive mask?

JonnyB: Yes, it is a conscious creation. I'm not sure about the mask thing. I have no interest whatsoever in telling people about my personal life, and even less interest in people who know me reading about what a gormless idiot I am.

Paul: I suspect that the advantage of blogging anonymously is that you are free to talk more openly about [personal] matters – although I suspect Abby would have plenty of anecdotal evidence of how losing your anonymity is a deeply unpleasant and awkward experience.

Abby: Due to the subject matter I write about, I created an anonymous online identity because I was trying to protect my and others' privacy: I didn't want people to be able to identify me or others from reading the blog. Whilst my blog persona was based on me, I had tried to change certain details to uphold my anonymity, so it was there as a shield to protect me, I guess. Now that my real identity has been revealed, I have felt very exposed – quite literally – and have had to accept the reality that the protection I once had, no longer exists. It's weird to lose one's defences – especially when it happens without choice: very scary actually. I'm slowly learning how to cope with it, and have begun the task of embracing my online persona, in the offline sphere: an odd task, after two and a half years of keeping them separate, but I'm getting there – I think.

Jonathan: One obvious way in which my blogging persona differs from my real identity is that the blogging Jonathan doesn't talk a lot about his work – at least not in a way that would allow the person behind the blogging “mask” to be readily identified. This is a conscious and necessary decision, and one, of course, that a lot of bloggers make. One result in my case is that the “blog” Jonathan possibly has a much more colourful and less drudge-filled life than the “real” one… which may be quite marvellous for all of you who read the blog, but I'm sometimes not sure how healthy it is for the real-life me!

Swiss Toni: My blog persona is my outlet. It’s how I externalise a lot of the things that are going on in my head that I would otherwise never say. If I may generalise for a moment, I think that blogging is an activity that enables introverted people appear extrovert. Is my blogging persona a mask? Partially, but it’s probably nearer to the truth to say that my real life persona is a mask that my blog partially pulls away.

Jonathan: The creation of the comic-book version of myself that inhabits the pages of Crinklybee has been, I would say, a semi-conscious decision. That is, I didn't exactly set out to reinvent myself in any way, but I can quite see how that has happened to an extent... and I am very glad to have made the acquaintance of myself. I can't imagine life without me in fact... and we both hope both versions of ourselves will be around for a good few years yet.

Martin: I'm more cavalier, taller and physically attractive in real life. Something like that, anyway. It seems that I might meet some other local bloggers in the near future, and I'm not concerned that I'll come across as a completely different person. I'm just hoping that they're not 50-year-old truck drivers from Bolton who've been grooming me for the last couple of years.

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Thanks to Abby, Jonathan, JonnyB, Martin, Paul, Pete and Swiss Toni for their thoughts. The comments box is open and ready for yours…