What If I’m Just… Me?

Turns out my personality isn’t on Pinterest.

First things first, I want you to think about the characters you resonated with most, as a kid or even now.

A cartoon, a movie, a show, a book. Which character screams you? Maybe they share your quirks, your attitude, your aesthetic. I’m sure a few characters have popped into your mind, those that made you feel seen, even if they were just fictional.

But here’s the thing. I never had that.

How was I supposed to say “That’s so me!” when I didn’t even know myself well enough to begin with? My 12-year-old self wanted so badly to relate to someone, to see a piece of myself somewhere in the world. And when I didn’t, I started to wonder as a kid, who even am I? Why do I not know the basic things about myself?

I still struggle to answer questions like, what is your favorite color? Favorite show? Favorite style? Favorite food? Favorite song? What makes you happy? What do you really like? Who are you, anyway?

That feeling of not knowing yourself, that disconnect, is what philosophers like Karl Marx called alienation. Though I was probably too young to fully experience it back then, it still felt real.

As Marx described it, we become strangers to the very things we create, and in doing so, strangers to ourselves. I became that stranger, trying on masks, costumes, and versions of myself just to see which one might make me feel more real, or rather, more relatable to others.

Every time I consumed something, I kept questioning:

Where do I fit in? Which label would finally make me belong?

Most kids had that one character they were attached to. It became part of their personality growing up, a way to belong, a symbol of being represented. And maybe I was just a little too desperate for that feeling.

If you’re wondering (probably not), the only character that I adore so much, and don’t really relate to but might see something of in my personality, is BMO. The gameboy from Adventure Time, a robot. I would do anything to have my own BMO <3

As I got older, I thought I was trying to understand myself. But really, I was trying to fit into the little boxes society created. If I couldn’t fit in through my personality, maybe I could through appearance and find my people.

And that’s when it started, the experimenting. (Terrible phase, by the way.) Every aesthetic, every archetype.

Did wearing that ’80s rock band tee make me grunge?

Did floral dresses make me cottagecore?

Did reading classic literature and lighting candles make me dark academia?

The internet made it seem like identity was just an aesthetic away.

Of course, none of them felt like me. All the clothes and jewelry I wore didn’t make sense. All the makeup styles I tried felt like a mask. All the activities related to each core felt performative.

It was a weird phase of experimenting, but definitely an entertaining show for my family. They would always wonder, “Which version of Pearl are we getting today? Clean girl style or thick eyeliner?”

I read an essay once by

aniko 🦟

that said:

“Attaching to one of these cores or aesthetics makes you feel real. It gives you the illusion of substance. It is your own voice playing in your ear saying: I am autonomous, independent, and grounded in a world of chaos. I have a personality because I am ‘grunge.’ While a comment will argue with you telling you you are not ‘grunge’ because your t-shirt is from Shein.”

Is feeling real the same as belonging? Do we choose identities just to ground ourselves? Does an aesthetic equal a personality? And if I’m “basic,” does that mean I have no identity?

Absolutely not. Every experience I’ve lived, every failed attempt to “fit in,” it all shaped me.

The beautiful thing about being human is that you’ll never find the same one twice. I remember something from a Linguistics class that stayed with me:

Even if two people speak the same language, no one will ever phrase a sentence in exactly the same way.

Because your brain, the way it processes, feels, and connects ideas is uniquely yours. The rhythm, the delivery, the choice of words.

It’s your own fingerprint and no one can replicate that.

What if I’m just me without the label?

Seeing people so sure of who they were made me realize that I didn’t have to be that certain to be real. So I started embracing what I liked, what felt good, what felt right.

As the French philosopher, Simone de Beauvoir, once said that we’re not born with a fixed identity; we become ourselves through choices, actions, and experiences. And maybe that’s what I was doing all along, I was becoming, without realizing it.

How I dress. How I do my makeup. What I consume. No more archetypes. Just me.

Pearl is the space I’ve created for myself. The name my father gave me, passed down from his grandmother. The way I laugh. The way I talk. The way I think. The way I dress. It’s all mine.

And of course, humans are far too complex (I hope) to fit into a box that defines them completely. Dressing up as an aesthetic doesn’t create a personality, which is what I was really looking for. Instead, I learned so much about myself on this little journey and embraced who I really am.

And that, dear readers, is where I’ll pause this story for now. Some parts of me I’m choosing to keep offline. <3

But I’m curious…

Which fictional character lives rent free in your head because they just get you?

What aesthetic are you currently obsessed with (no judgment)?

Share a little piece of you in the comments. I’ll be reading.