Just plain average

By CECILIA TUCKER

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 24, 2000

Although some kids like it, I hate being average. Everything about me is "just average," and I don't like it. I look around and see people who excel in something, and then there's me. I can do a lot of things, but I don't do anything very well. I am behind the scenes in the plays, on the bench most of the time in sports and in the regular classes at school, and my voice blends in well with the rest of the group when we sing.

I gaze in the mirror and see me being "just average" there, too. I am neither too tall nor too short. I am neither too skinny nor too fat. I guess I should be thankful for that, but I find it hard to be grateful when no one ever notices me. I feel like I must be invisible because I just blend in with all the other "average" people. I show up at events, and I'm not even sure it registers with anyone that I am even there. I talk, and I'm not confident that anyone even knows I am speaking. I ask myself at times, if I were to disappear tomorrow would anyone notice? I'm "just average," and average just blends in with the rest of the average world. I think all teens ask themselves this question at one time or another.

I can't be someone I am not, no matter how hard I try. I don't know how to be anything but average. I have tried to be excellent at a number of things, but I seem always to end back in the rank and file, and I never seem to rise to the next level. I keep telling myself that my time will come and I will get a break. But the older I get, the less I feel like this will happen. I look at my parents, wondering if they found their places, and I get really panicked. They are just average, too, and they are old. Did they just give up trying to find the places where they could stand out, or is average the best they could be? I hate this thought. I have to find a way to be more than just average.

I notice people who look great and do a lot of things well, and I want to be them; I even go so far as to hate them. They are too perfect in almost every aspect of their lives. How come they got all the talents and brains? Why did I get left out? Why did they get the parents with the great genes and I got the parents with the average genes? What did I ever do wrong to get this "average" curse placed onto me? I don't like me when I compare myself to the talented, athletic and smart people. I don't like them, either, because I can't compete with them. It is a given that they will always win. They will get the date, the part and the position I wanted. In the end, the recognition I can never get will go to them.

At times, I try to exclude these people because I can. They don't fit with the rest of my average friends, and so we don't let them in. I know this hurts their feelings, but why should I care? They have everything else in life, so why should they need friends like us? Let them find their own special friends who are outstanding like them. This is the only place that I feel superior. I win, for once!

I win, but how is it winning if I'm still not happy? If this is winning, why do I feel like I am still whining about what I can't do? I wish sometimes these talented people would want me for a friend, but this will never happen. Why would they want me? And, anyway, I could never handle their successes without feeling badly about me. What kind of friend would I be to them? They are so different from me that we'd have nothing in common. What's so wrong with me that I can't be talented at more than one thing? I hate being average, and I resent the people that are more. I want to be like the people I resent. Then the average people would hate me.

Maybe I can't win until I decide that being just average might have some advantages, too, though I'm not sure what they are. I do know that average people seem to outnumber the other people, otherwise we wouldn't be average.

So if I am in the majority, then what's my problem? I guess I'm the one who fits and belongs, more than those who are above average. Fame may never be in my future, but maybe I can be happy with who I am. Most people aren't the stars, anyway; they just act like it. Most of us just watch the game anyway. So what's wrong with being average? Maybe not as much as I thought.

IT! (Private thoughts of the Indomitable Teen) is written by Cecilia Tucker, a licensed marriage and family therapist at the Counseling Center for New Direction in Seminole. Tucker, who has been in counseling practice since 1979, writes this column under the guidance of a panel of teenage advisers, who approve the topics and offer their insights (in exchange for pizza). You may write her c/o: IT!, X-Press, the Times, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731, or e-mail Floridian@sptimes.com.

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