Living the Stereotype

I use to think of the word 'stereotype' as such a bad word - a negative way of reducing someone to this preconceived mold of commonness. In more recent times I've seen the word in a slightly less disrespectful manner. Truth is, stereotype is reality.

My fiancee and I have been told by my priest that he will only marry us if we do counseling. Killjoy. Anyway, we've gone to several sessions now, and quite often the topic has been the difference between the 'stereotypical' male and the 'stereotypical' female. The problem is, on many of those occasions we've found ourselves fitting the stereotypes all to well. Dammit, I thought I was different!

It's not that I didn't know beforehand that there were many things about me that were typical or the common man - that's expected - it's just really revealing when something you thought was more-or-less uniquely 'you' turns out to be 'everyone'. Several scenarios were brought up in the course of our discussions, and each time the priest brought up a scenario, I felt so violated - why is he in my head? Can he read my mind? Have I been in a Truman Show of some sorts? How can he know? Well, he can know because he's seen it from others, and probably lived it himself... We are all the same.

I'm amused every time he talks about women being persons of 'feelings', and men being persons who think in a 'rational' way. It's easy to hear what he says and think he's being sexist... but if you take a step back you can accept pretty easily that the stereotypes exist, that the word 'rational' doesnt necessarily mean 'sensibly' and the word 'feelings' relates to a greater sense of intuition (or something like that). But however you choose to look at it, we're all the products of 2 large and relatively consistent molds.

The unfortunate part for me is that being a part of the stereotype suggests a certain lack of control over the person I am. In a sense, who I am was in large part determined without my consent. But from that reality comes the opportunity to break the mold or, at least, to mold the mold some more. I have the chance to rid myself of those undesirable parts of me that I apparently could not avoid.

And therein lies the definition of a 'good person' - one who aims to turn the lumps of his mold into a more desirable carving... or some crap like that.