I am a cliché

[ablutiions]

Standing on the service station forecourt doing a few yogic stretches on our drive to holiday, I realised that I'm a cliché:

Middle aged Londoner, heading for a West Country holiday in my small eco friendly(ish) car, wearing a Boden cardi, and 'trendy' mum trainers with a flowery real cotton face mask dangled from my wrist. having eaten sourdough toast for breakfast. Oh, and carrying a chilly water bottle, natch.

And usually I'd be in France, but you know, Covid and all that.

Anyone else a walking cliché?

It’s a game some of us can play. It can be funny.
But it’s not the whole story. Just the backdrop.

I’m a cliche too- but not in the way you lot are

Teenage mum, single parent, no dad involved, child with ADHD (to outsiders- badly behaved) don’t work, (currently- due to aforementioned child’s caring needs) on benefits, when I do work I’m a cleaner. The only box I don’t tick is doing the school run in my pjs.

@RickOShay

It is just a story isn't it, something we construct and tell ourselves. 3 cliches, all true about me:

1. Enormous listed house, private school educated children, lovely clothes, Waitrose food, village and church events person, shiny hair, tennis lessons and pool parties for 30 people. French charcuterie for lunch. Locally sourced cheese for evening nibbles. Artisan bread. Nanny, cleaner, gardener.

1. High flying professional, promotion, pay rises, zoom meetings at all hours, key problem solver for other people's idiocy, quoted in newspapers, conference speaker. Work have no idea about cliche 1.

1. Rape and assault victim, spent last night sobbing in dark room after having rape and sexual assault mansplained to me by wanker arrogant male (who is living embodiment of wanker racist pink shirt wearing banker) Depressed. Suicide attempts. No one has any idea of this cliche.

[quote ablutiions]@peace. I've been out wankered, spectacularly.

[/quote]
Why thank you, Sweetie. It has taken many years of intense training to achieve this level of wankery. Others might scoff but it's bloody hard work. Those avocados don't smash themselves you know.

@MotionActivatedDog welcome to the cliché club. All are welcome but on the face of it you do sound less of a wanker than some of us on here

I'm very lower class ( young single mum,benefits ) the like. But I have to say I really have loved reading this!

Have a great day everyone, whatever your all doing.

[quote ablutiions]@MotionActivatedDog welcome to the cliché club. All are welcome but on the face of it you do sound less of a wanker than some of us on here [/quote]

Oh I’m a total twat!

Oh @BigPyjamas, a huge hug for you

@big

Sorry about the absolute horror of a human you had to deal with. Any chance of pinching him in his smug fat face ?

And seeing your username I wonder if you have and spare PJs /or suggestions of where to 'source' (nods to @more ) for @MotionActivatedDog to the school run in ? Seems such a shame to have such a gaping hole in her cliché?

I'm so not a cliche it probably makes me one.

The cliche of my life is very much the foreground - the background has often been very painful and dark at times (have lost my Mum, brother, close friend and a much loved Uncle in the last 3 years).

Also, battled early breast cancer last year and even though I'm now fully recovered I think about it coming back. Every. Day.

So, I'm incredibly grateful for my lovely, lovely clichéd foreground.

@wish, thankyou for stopping by

Have a lovely day

Argh, this has given me a giggle. I have the opposite problem. People often expect me to be a cliché and then fail to hide their confusion when something I do doesn't match. I'm aspie and so although I know it is often the case, I have never quite been able to get my head round the links between different things in people. Like how the way someone dresses might tell you about their music taste or political views... they are bits of material...why is there a link? Same with for choices, why does feeding a child sugar snap peas as a snack in the playground mean that you could draw conclusions about their parenting approach? I find it fascinating because until I am explicitly told about such a link, I would never see it myself.

To me you all sound swanky, with a silent S

I'm not a cliché but so average it hurts. Size 16, blonde hair, live in a 3 bed semi, work in retail, 2.5 children. DH suggested I get a Ford Focus and was bemused at my response that there was no way I am driving a Ford and putting the finishing touches on my average life. Haha I used to be so cool.

Bigpajamas has it right I suppose. You could cut your life in different ways to fit a mould. (Hugs for you BP, I know that dark room all too well)

@somuddled. It's all about patterns when you think about it, but they are quite sophisticated and complex patterns. And they work in layers. The superficial stuff is obvious but the more you dig in the more the patterns are disrupted, and then the surprises come.

But,as in statistics, there is a bell curve of where people will have a lot on common on social circles with some outliers as well

@Somuddled absolutely agree! Not sure if am also an aspie (high chance) but I really dont get it. Have also moved around a lot as a child/adult so not always sure about cultural norms and stereotypes.

To everyone else - how do you know what the right brand thing to do is? Like do you just copy, follow what everyone else does, do you actually enjoy doing all these things?

@acpc I know what you mean. That horrible feeling when you see an advert on telly and realise that some Twat of an advertising executive (and probably a focus group or two) have just played out a vignette of your domestic life down to the last detail.

I hate that, because I'm so original and different to everyone else 😂

I've always thought a good documentary maker could use this concept to film a few people in their normal lives over a reasonable time and make multiple documentaries which portrayed them in significantly different ways. By choosing just the bits that fit in with whatever cliché the director wanted to show, you could easily create 2 or 3 totally different 'people'.

I once took the piss out of my lovely, rather wealthy friend, for arriving in her white Range Rover, diamond studs, gorgeous but sizeable diamond and gemstone rings and Cartier tank Americaine, blond hair jeans and shirt she then pointed out my tank Francais, diamond studs and diamond solitaire and inherited diamond and sapphire three stone ….
No Range Rover though eh? Stick that in your pipe and smoke it Imogen!

@Somuddled

I've always thought a good documentary maker could use this concept to film a few people in their normal lives over a reasonable time and make multiple documentaries which portrayed them in significantly different ways. By choosing just the bits that fit in with whatever cliché the director wanted to show, you could easily create 2 or 3 totally different 'people'.

I would love to see that!

@somuddled I love that idea. I have some TV friends (of course I do!) and will mention it.

@Livinghereinallentown You are more than welcome, but I warn you now, we still have no oregano 😭 so the chimmichurri is likely to be subpar

@BigPyjamas 🌺 @peaceanddove🌸 we never know people’s lives