Self Consciousness

There was a time when I was too self-conscious. Before now, my size has always swung between a UK size 4 and size 6. I won’t say I’m short but I not tall. I am at 1.61m tall. My weight was always moving between 50kg and 53kg. So it’s safe to say that I was pretty much petite which is another way of saying that I look like 5 years younger than my real age. And that was my problem.

In the Anglophone community, all students are required to cut their hair short whether male or female – right up to high school – which is what I did. I only started letting my hair grow long only when I got to the University. Everybody is aware of this and therefore one can easily distinguish between someone who is in secondary or high school and one who is in the university. So despite my size, most people could tell I had graduated from high school but how were they to know I had graduated from University as well?

I started working immediately I left University. I had to move to Douala where I was working and living with my aunt. When I’d return home for weekends, most people will ask me ‘how is school?’ to which I‘d reply ‘School’s fine’. I couldn’t explain to them I was a graduate already and working sef. I was slightly bothered by this but it didn’t really get to me.

I was working as an associate in a top audit firm and had to meet a lot of people in different companies and that is where I started getting too self-conscious. Client personnel would make remarks which were sometimes really painful. I was petite yes, but when did size become a prerequisite for intelligence? Why were they always to think that I was an intern or something less than a fully employed person? When I became a senior associate, some of the junior associates I worked with where considered as my superiors by the client personnel just because they had more corpulence than I did.

When I tried to bargain prices at the market, the seller will just tell me that they are leaving the merchandise at that price because they know I am a student and I don’t have money. One time at a supermarket, I wanted to buy Irish Cream and the sales person asked me why I was spending my monthly allowance on buying expensive alcohol instead of focusing on school. Another girl asked me when I was buying a wine bottle opener if I knew what I was doing because my focus should be on my school work rather than alcohol. It’s amazing how people can judge you just based on your size.

And when it came to men, I believed that I was not been chatted up because one look at me and they’d think I was underage. Some of my classmates already got married while we were in the university but I couldn’t even get a boyfriend. I blamed people’s perception of me for my singlehood.

My self-consciousness led me to become very defensive. I just realized that I would fight back whenever someone would make a remark about me even if it was out of good faith. I struggled to justify a lot of things to a lot of people who didn’t even care. I did not want to be seen as a little girl anymore. I wasn’t – I was a hard working young woman. How come nobody could see that? What was I supposed to do to earn their respect? 

Unfortunately, seven years later, not a lot has changed in the way people see me. I still get people questioning me at the bank like I was trying to pass myself for someone else. What has changed is the way I handle it. I have come to realise that there is nothing I can do about it and I should just as well live with it. It's great to look younger than my real age but I shouldn't care whether or not people know I am a Chartered Accountant who is an Assistant Manager in a big four audit firm. At least, they don't have to pretend to be nice.