Life Blogs With Noor

     “Am I intimidating?” I ask the same person for the dozenth time; a question that has been playing on repeat in my brain for weeks. “I swear I’m a nice person, wait… I am a nice person, right? Oh my goodness. Am I too mean?”

 

     Intimidating. Kind of an ironic word to be afraid of, but one that I’ve increasingly found myself coming face-to-face with as this year has progressed. A large majority of the people I’ve grown to be friends with in these past couple of years have recently admitted to me that they originally found me to be intimidating. Many of whom saying something along the lines of “before I actually got to know you, you scared me.”

 

     To these confessions I’d almost always replied with “how so?” or “why?” which almost always lead to replies of — you guessed it — “well, you’re pretty intimidating.”

 

     Now, I don’t think any of these confessions were made with the intent of trying to send me into an existential crisis, and they nearly always came from people who I love deeply today. But alas, my brain took this sentence, set it on ‘loop forever’ in my brain, and launched me into a seemingly never ending, far-too-deep analysis of what the hell being intimidating truly means.

 

     I began posing the question to my friends around me, looking for some conformations (or, what I was honestly looking for) definitive “no’s” or “of course not’s!” But as I continued collecting responses I was left with the following results:

 

• First and foremost, yes. You are intimidating.
• No, it’s not because you’re “mean.”
• You just have a lot of opinions.
• Like, a lot of opinions.
• And you’re not afraid to be vocal about them.
• Literally.
• You’re loud.
• Like, really loud.
• That’s pretty intimidating in itself.
• You’re also are very public and passionate about your beliefs.
• You’re on social media a lot.
• So, all in all, yes, you’re intimidating.

 

     What? What does this even mean? Should I be having an identity crisis over the fact that I’m loud and opinionated? Because to be completely honest with you, I don’t think those things are going to change anytime soon.

 

    This did however lead me to thinking about how I present myself to the people around me.

 

     Ultimately, everybody’s perception of what’s intimidating and what’s not will differ. To some, I may seem unapproachable, while to others I’m about as intimidating as a fluffy pink pillow. What I’ve realized about myself is that — sometimes — my passion can be interpreted as an unwillingness to hear other’s perspectives. I’ve unabashedly stated my opinions on social movements and vocalized my struggles and feelings surrounding similar issues.

      I walk around filming myself and — when I’m not doing something school or dance related — am probably writing a strongly worded article about an issue that I’m passionate about. Hell, I’m currently writing an article about myself  because I’m grappling with the dilemma of whether I’m too opinionated or not. I mean, c’mon. 

 

     I would say that one of my main goals in life would be to make a positive impact on my community; to help others and to start speaking out about important issues, whatever they may be. But this goal will never be possible if I’m not able to listen to the stories of the people around me. Without being able to listen to someone’s drastically different perspective on an issue I have a strong opinion about. Without being able to connect with the variety of individuals that make up the community I want to impact in the first place. I think my fear of being intimidating doesn’t necessarily stem from a fear of being ‘unlikable’ or  ‘scary,’ but rather of turning into someone who is seen as close-minded or unkind; unable to connect with those around her.

     Again, there is no way to change what others initially think of me, and I’ve been slowly trying to accept the fact that being described as intimidating is in no way an insult. I am opinionated. I am loud. But are these things that I should be ashamed of or worried about? If making an impact on the world is truly my goal, then I need to apply myself in starting to taking the actions needed to do just that.

 

     Now, let me turn the original question into something else: Is being intimidating what I should truly be worried about?

 

I think the answer to this is one that won’t need a whole article to find.  

 

(Authors Note: Writing is one of the only ways I’m able to come to terms with my emotions, so I apologize if this has amounted to nothing & was essentially self-therapy)