who are you and where do you fit in?

[hatsoff]

Have you sussed who you are and where you fit in society? Everywhere I look I seem to see people who are very confident about their identity. I?m not talking so much about individual identity, more about which identifiable group in society you belong to and from which you draw most of your friends. I?m talking about the highly educated US international civil servants I met at a wedding this weekend; the modern day hippies I saw at Kingston Green Fair who all do incredibly creative things and go to festivals; I?m talking about the latter-day hippies, in their 50s and 60s also at the fair who were running the campaigning stalls; musicians who share a passion for music; journalists who hang around in Islington and have highly intellectual dinner parties; bankers who serve champagne and oysters when their friends come over?am I the only person who hasn't a clue where she fits? Am I the only person who hasn't got a cosy group to be part of? I?ve got friends in every one of those ?categories? and sometimes dread the thought of them meeting. Maybe I'm strange. Or maybe I'm naive to think life is ever that simple. What about you lot?

I don't fit in anywhere. I get my most stimulating conversations from university educated people, who I never meet because I am a mother who lives on a council estate. Nobody on the estate wants to talk to me because my dad is a copper and we are a low-but-double-income family.

I used to be a perty girl, but can't do that anymore and don't really want to, because of toddler.

The only group I fall completely into is "mother", but I don't fit in with "chav" motherdom because I gave my son a biblical name, have a job and only buy brown bread, and I don't fit in with "yummy-mummydom" because we live in a rented house on an estate, don't have a car, and have a low income. And I don't care if my child eats chocolate buttons or still has a bottle of milk at age 2!

I don't fit in anywhere, but I do still have good friends. I just have to take each bit of life that fits with mine from each friend, and be on the end of the phone for them at all other times!

i dont really fit in and i never have and to be honest i dont give a tiny rats ass! im happy as i am i have a wonderfull family and good friends and im pretty happy with the way my life is at the moment. im defantly not a chav and im not posh at all! i suppose i could be in the teenage mothers group but im defo not what i would say is a sterotypical teenage mother. im just me in my own little group and i love it!

I fit in nicely with my family, as for society - don't give a monkeys what anyone thinks of me.

But no, I don't fit in. Most of my friends are men who go out drinking - I have 3 young children, so thats out of the question!!!!!!!!!

I don't fit in here yet (recently moved to Australia) and kind of fitted in in London with my group apart from only renting and being married to a non white foreigner.

I like it though, mix and match it's great

Full credit to you hatsoff for having an eclectic group of friends. Quite healthy I think.

I don't think I want to fit in.. Sounds far to dull to me. I prefer to do my own thing and be my own me. Not sure where I would fit - I am usuallly the person folk can't quite place. My hubby is a bit the same. As long as your happy do you have to fit in a box?

I think I can, at a pinch, sort of fit in with some of those groups but not completely. And I too sometimes think 'errrrrrk' when I have parties and my friends bump into each other.

I suspect I'm in the same gang as you, actually

god I hope I don't fit in to any 'group'.

I must say the groups of people you know hatsoff sound terrifying

do you really pigeonhole people that much though? Cant the intellectual journalists also serve champagne and oysters

I know a good mix of pikeys and poshies and they always mix quite well at parties - have certainly never been worried about them meeting - why should you feel embarrassed about it?

I think thats one of many reasons why I am enjoying motherhood so much, I am now meeting a much more diverse range of people (OK, they are all Moms in our area), but because of shared experiences with children it seems to cut across perceived boundaries....not saying I agree or fit in with all groups, but it's certainly taught me not to judge people so readily and also how to be more adaptable! I wasn't making enough effort at first and it left me sad and feeling lonely!

006, move to Dorset - its where your gang is living

Message withdrawn

Noope I dont fit in anywhere really. Im just an axe wielding hippy wierdo reenactor whos really shy and finds it difficult to talk to people so maybe its not surprising but would like to join the bankers for champagne and oysters please.

I have never fitted in to a group and wouldn't want to. I sometimes feel like an outsider where I live and in my work. At other times, I feel at home with both. People who seem sure of themselves and their identity and who behave in ways that are always consistent with that make me uncomfortable. I also suspect that they lack something. Imagination, perhaps?

Well with a successful 'out there' hubby, I should be a size 8 glammed up trophy wife...but don't quite cut it on that one. Perhaps he will trade me in for a more suitable stereotype soon!

i have never felt like i fit anywhere, i flit about and in and out of all sorts of groups. Still waiting to feel comfrotable somewhere

Don't really fit in anywhere either, I have tried to be part of various 'groups' from 'Biker chick' clubs. I rode my Triumph Boneville and tried to be mean and moody.

Then I tried Church groups, where I tried to be all Saint-like and good, I was even the Sunday School teacher!!!!!!!

I never really fitted in but I'm just happy being me now, I'm quite content with my life and I don't feel the need to fit in anywhere really (except Mumsnet of course!)

I think perhaps the potential (and usually completely imaginary) embarrassment at my various friends meeting is their realisation just how much of me is, well, a bit disreputable.

I have never really felt like I fitted anywhere either to be honest. I can play a good game and appear comfortable with many different sorts of people and I am genuinebut I myself still think a bit like a child. I don't feel quite grown up (I was just 48 on May 30), so I feel alright about "floating" and not quite finding my place to fit. I am not an outcast or anything like that at all, I am just my happiest when I am painting or decorating, researching, reading, learningthings which help me to focus inward not necessarily outward. I am the most comfortable with me if that makes sense.

do you think these "identifiable groups" really exist in the way you describe? can't musicians be intellectual or bankers for that matter? aren't these tribes really the invention of sociologists/marketers/journalists?

for instances, people with shared interests look like a cohesive group from the outside, but i doubt if these groups are all that homogenous beneath the surface.

lots and lots of interesting comments...can't come back now really as I am at work. will try later at home. glad my post got a response though!