My how you've grown!

On New Year’s Eve I got all dressed up and went out for dinner and a dance with some friends at a nearby Jamaican club. My friends and I were the youngest people there and I attracted some attention in the strapless dress I was wearing, one that hugged my curves as I danced to the sweet reggae music the DJ was playing. It was a good night though, we danced and ate good food and counted down in that special New Year’s spirit where everyone forgets that they are strangers and truly wishes the person next to them happiness.

We left tired and happy, but unfortunately without my passport. I went back to the club to get it a few evenings later and the atmosphere was decidedly different.

I don’t often think about the image that I am presenting when I dress, even though I often see my clothing as costumes. I love to put on a ridiculously baggy pair of jeans to go with my snow jacket and represent snowboarder chic. Sometimes I’ll wear a skirt and some office shoes and pretend to be an overachieving personal assistant. More often though, I become some weird hybrid of hipster and homeless person, depending on how many hours before class I woke up. I often forget to look at myself from the perspective of someone who is meeting me for the first time, someone who is getting all this crazy, conflicting information about me; this weird African girl who talks about Paris Hilton and globalization in an accent often mistaken for British. More often than not I come across as a bundle of contradictions, overachiever until I skip class to lay in the sun, Cosmo girl until I start spouting my feminist beliefs.

But to be female is to be quickly judged and people often get mad at me for not fitting into their preconceived notions. I returned to the Jamaican club in my ripped jeans, hair newly dreaded and the man who owns the club, whose name I think is Dexter, had something to say about it.

“That’s not her,” he said half-joking. This isn’t the crazy hot African chick who was here on Sunday night.

“Yes it is,” I said, smiling and remaining polite. I was suddenly reminded of walking into the bar area of the Tennis Club at age 12 looking for my dad, and having to get through all his friends and acquaintances and all their inane comments about my behavior and appearance. Even worse I was reminded of going out in my home town at age 17 and finding myself at the same nightclub as my father’s old friends and having awkward conversations about how much I’ve “grown” while I pretended not to notice that they were staring at my breasts.

“You’ve become westernized,” Dexter continued. “She’s become westernized,” he repeated to some random person at the bar.

I smiled tightly as Dexter introduced me to a Nigerian guy at the bar. I played the polite game with him and his friends the way I had played the polite game with my father’s Tennis Club buddies. What I really wanted was to ask Dexter what the f*** he knew about what is to be me, but I wasn’t sure if he would give me my passport if I broke another of his precious illusions about quiet, well-behaved African girls who respect their elders.