Be aware of the self-pigeonholer in you

Have you ever put yourself into a box that you didn’t want to be in?

pigeon-hole

1. assign to a particular category, typically an overly restrictive one. “I was pigeonholed as a ‘youth writer’”

(Definition from Oxford Languages)

First of all, I know this title is a bit strange, but bear with me.

The beginning of this story is a chicken and egg situation. Did I start pigeonholing myself first, or did I do it because others had already pigeonholed me? Worse yet, did I pigeon-hole myself first to preempt the pigeon-holing I feared I would receive from others?

The truth is that I can’t remember. Also, I don’t know if it’s pigeon-hole or pigeonhole, but neither does Grammarly or Google, so there’s no hope.

Let me explain in more detail. A few months ago, I started to notice that with a particular group of friends that I had, I had become pigeonholed as the person who always left the party first to go home to bed. I didn’t know whether I had dug the hole for myself, or if it was dug for me, but I certainly went along with it.

At a girls’ weekend, when someone else declared themselves ready for bed before me, I called out, “Thank god, I wasn’t the first person this time! But I’m off to bed too!” At other parties, when midnight struck I would always say something along the lines of: “Well I’d better be off before I turn into a pumpkin.” When we were planning events that ended in the early evening, say around 8 pm, I’d always joke that they were just in time for my bedtime.

When I started to reflect on that, I realised that I was encouraging a stereotype of myself that wasn’t always true, and wasn’t what I wanted to emphasise. Yes, I did like sleeping at a reasonable hour on a night out, but when you’ve gone straight to the bar after work at 5 pm, is it really unreasonable to go home at midnight? I’d wake up the next day feeling fine, whereas my friends who had stayed out drinking more and more until 3 or 4 am would spend most of the next day asleep in a hungover stupor.

Also, there were some nights where I did stay out until the end of the night, but somehow those were forgotten about and it suited everyone (including myself) to paint me as the bore of the group, the letdown, the one who always ducked out first. Why was I doing that to myself?

As I reflected more on the character that I’d created for myself, I realised that it wasn’t the first hole that I’d been pigeoned into, or that I’d pigeoned myself into.

One that had been going on far longer was to do with my eating habits, which have always been a struggle for me. As a teenager, I became known as the person who would always finish off other people’s food. There was something about leaving food on a plate that I just couldn’t do, and if some of my friends couldn’t eat all of their pizza/icecream/sandwich/chips, I’d be there to clean up, regardless of whether or not I was still hungry. Some comments would be directed at me, like, “Give that to Elena if you haven’t finished, she’s always got space for more,” and some I would make myself, “Don’t worry about those leftovers, I can polish those off no problem.”

In later years, I’ve found myself still filling that role, making comments to family and friends along similar lines. For example, last week my dad posted a picture of some pastries he’d bought from the bakery (around 10 in total) for his friends, and I commented, “Now that’s my kind of lunch!” even though in reality, I would never eat 10 pastries for lunch. I don’t even like pastries that much.

Perhaps the pigeonhole that I’ve made for myself which I like the least is to do with my boyfriend. At some point in our relationship, we joked that I loved him more than he loves me, and this has somehow become an ongoing joke that I sometimes make comments about. Like if he’s texting someone (usually his mum or colleagues), I’ll make a joke about it being his other girlfriend (he is an extremely loving boyfriend and definitely doesn’t have another girlfriend, or love me less!). When we’ve had to say goodbye to each other recently, I’ve told him that I’ll miss him more than he misses me. In this scenario, I am definitely the guilty party in the pigeon-hole creation and I need to stop.

So why do I keep making these sorts of comments?

I think most of these comments reflect my inner insecurities. I am worried that people find me boring, I am worried that I am overeating and am fat, and I am worried that I am not good enough for my boyfriend.

Partly, I make the comments hoping that someone will push back on them and say, “Elena, you’re not xyz,” but this rarely happens because people get bored of making comments like that.

Partly, I make the comments to try and create humour, and I think that humour will protect me from my insecurities and that it will endear me to other people. Whilst this might have worked the first few times that I made these sorts of comments, I think that they have worn very thin now.

Writing this article has helped me to be more aware of why this is happening, and I really think that awareness is key when trying to reduce and ultimately stop these self-deprecating and predictable comments.

I hope that if I stop the comments, other people will stop them too. I don’t want to dig myself into a hole. I want to be free to be unpredictable and fluid and changeable without holding myself to account to my own stupid stereotype.

If you’re a self-pigeonholer too, I hope this has made you think twice before digging the next hole for yourself!