Since I was a teenager, I’ve been told that I was intimidating (by some; the others, due to lack of vocabulary, called me a b*tch). The latter is something that strong women have been called for years and I take it as a compliment for being confident & straight-forward, which many people cannot handle. While I was teaching at my first school, I got called a ‘b’ so frequently I stopped reacting and just reached for the referral pads. (Silly me, expecting basic respect and the minimum standard of acceptable behavior & refusing to resort to screaming & crying to motivate/scare teenagers into decent behavior like my predecessors…) When later students freaked out about my lack of a reaction, I calmly responded that it took an insult requiring much more creativity than the ‘b’ word to make it worth getting worked up over. If you’re going to get written up for disrespecting a teacher, at least make it a good story later, am I right?
It’s always somewhat bothered me – the intimidating part. I view intimidation as something that the intimidator sets out to do. Much like the legacy of The Intimidator, NASCAR #3 driver Dale Earnhardt, I see it as a choice and something you do to an end. From personal accounts, Dale was a teddy bear of a man & a wonderful friend, but on the track, you didn’t cross him. That was a reputation Dale earned by racing hard, not backing down, and intentionally & consistently making others remove themselves from his path. His go-all-out approach where racing was involved was a conscious choice and earned Dale a fair share of die-hard fans and haters alike.
I’ve never understood how I could be intimidating without intending to do so. It used to baffle me. After I graduated from college, one of my best friends told me he was intimidated by me when we first met (he was a few years younger than me). When I asked him why, he said, ‘Because you knew everything. You were involved with everything & knew who to ask, where to go, everything.’ I knew I didn’t know everything, but I had been around for a few years and knew where to recommend looking for answers and where would be a dead end. I wish I had had more friends like that when I was starting out in a new place. How was that bad? (My friend also disclosed that after a while, he realized I wasn’t trying to be intimidating & soon learned that my experience was a good thing I was willing to share!) I hadn’t set out to intimidate those new to our department – how does that happen without my intending to do so?
After the last few years, I’ve started to see how much authenticity threatens inauthentic people. People who are playing a character, wearing a mask, putting on false pretenses to make others think they are authentic, vulnerable and real are supremely threatened by those who are genuinely so. These are the types of people who never get to know me well enough to know that I truly am this authentic – it’s not an act. I’ve learned that I don’t know how to be anyone other than who I am. Therefore, I’m threatening to some just by existing.
Here’s the deal:
If my authenticity threatens you, that isn’t my problem.
If my confidence intimidates you, that isn’t my problem.
If my intelligence isn’t something you see as an asset, that isn’t my problem.
I’m not choosing to intimidate or threaten you and because I’m not choosing that, I can’t change it.
It’s unfortunate that this is the case, but I can’t fix other people’s perceptions of me if those perceptions are influenced by their own insecurities. Insecure people can accomplish a lot of destruction and I cannot continue to allow those types of people to affect my happiness. I’ve tried to play the part, I’ve tried to fly under the radar and I’ve failed spectacularly. I’m not an under-the-radar kind of girl & I need to seek out environments where that is valued, not reviled.
And if that makes me a b*tch, so be it. I’ll certainly be happier than I have been trying to be someone else. No one likes a poser. I’d rather be a bona fide, authentic b*tch than a fake b*tch; wouldn’t you?
Donita Westman 