Multiple Personality

One day during my high school senior English class, my classmates and I had been assigned to groups for some kind of class project.  I was paired with one of my good friends and a couple of acquaintances (I went to a rather small school, so none of my classmates were strangers).  I was constantly joking around, as I am wont to do.  It's a carefully developed defense mechanism, a way of deflecting attention away from my insecurities and uncertainties, of which, I admit, I have many.

As we had finished the project, one of my group members, a girl I'll call Ellie, turned to me and said, "You know, before this project, I didn't think you had a personality."

At first, I was a bit offended.  I didn't think you had a personality?  Who says that?  More importantly, who says that to me?  But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that, in fact, Ellie's impression of me prior to our working together may have been spot on.

Because what I've come to realize over the years is that I don't really have a personality of my own.  My personality – my manner of speaking, my turns of phrase, the jokes I make, the way I hold myself, the way I approach interactions, or, in short, the way I present myself to others – is really not my personality after all.  It's an amalgamation of all the best personalities I've encountered over the course of my life.  It's like a mix tape, except instead of my favorite songs, I've put together my favorite personas and presented them as my own.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, than what does that make outright theft?  Because that's what it is.  It's enough theft from a diverse enough group of people that you might not catch on unless you know what you're looking for.  It's like furnishing a room: you could get all your furniture from, say, IKEA, but everyone would know you were a cheap bastard or had some kind of fetish for particle board.  Or you could buy a couch and a coffee table from IKEA, a rug from that little shop discount shop down the corner, bring in a couple of lamps from the sidewalk where someone left them, and two or three pictures that used to sit in your office next to your cubicle.  And then suddenly, you're the interior design equivalent of Mac and Me: different enough from the sources to avoid litigation, but close enough that calling you a thieving two-dollar whore wouldn't be entirely inaccurate.

So the next time you see me and notice that I say something awfully similar to what you often say, or have a nearly indistinguishable mannerism, or any other recognizable personality trait of yours, and think, hey, I do that, you're probably right.