“Always look expensive, even if you go home and eat bread and cheese everyday,” suggested my friend as she shook her head at the advice her mum had given her earlier. It seems like we, as a society, have a love for facades- masks that we put on and take off as needed. What I’ve come to realize is that we all, regardless of our social class or background, lead double lives on our country’s streets.
We’ve all seen girls run into the bathrooms of clubs only to change into different clothes from the ones they were originally wearing before they entered the venue. They come out, needless to say, looking quite unrecognizable; are these the very same girls who were walking in the street in jeans and over-sized t-shirts?
We’ve seen people who hide their shishas in pictures so no one finds out they smoke, and others who would go the whole nine yards to disguise their financial difficulties.
We’ve seen parents shout at their little boys to ‘man up’ when they shed tears, only for them to have to later on shield their emotions as adults. We’ve seen girls being denied their sexuality because having any kind of knowledge about it before marriage is ‘3eib’, only for them to have hushed conversations with their best friends about the taboo topic.
We’ve seen people who have to pretend to be fasting in Ramadan even when they’re not, and girls who have to hide the fact that they physically cannot fast due to being on their periods.
Whether we like to admit it or not, we’re a society that likes to sport multiple masks. You cannot entirely be who you are in front of everyone simply because there are many factors, the most prevalent of which are traditions, religion and culture, that influence how your actions will be perceived by others. Instead, we have to run, hide and sneak around to do what we want to do. Instead of living honestly, we’d all rather lead double lives.
