For the most part, I’ve always managed to avoid the pull of peer pressure and not follow the herd. Remember an earlier blog where I shared that in college I wore a fashion challenged white acrylic hat with a purple ball attached to it because it fit my head, while my more stylish co-eds donned more fashionable head gear? I learned early on to “do JC” and not really care what others thought about what that meant. I like entering by the narrow gate, swimming against the current and singing off key in church. The off key singing part isn’t really by choice. But in December, I usually fall prey to the pull of peer pressure. Against my will, I find myself casually wandering department stores and boutiques to stimulate the economy and buy stuff for privileged people who really don’t need any more stuff. But because I too have bought into the sad consumer driven notion that it’s necessary to gift others with presents during this time of year, I trudge along trying to come up with a clever and creative gift idea so that I’m not viewed as the family scrooge, the wet blanket who ruins everyone’s Christmas. 

It’s not that I don’t enjoy Christmas, I LOVE Christmas. I enjoy giving gifts to my children’s teachers and other service providers who make my life easier and whose wages and rate of exertion are often lopsided. I love serving as one of Santa’s elves and watching my heirs believe in the magic of Santa. I relish buying gifts for the angel tree program at church, and even enjoy participating in the fun of a secret santa program in the office. I love that part of gift giving. It’s the gifting of gifts to people who don’t need anything part that irritates me. I would much rather use that money to give more to a charity or a family in need, and just give the privileged person a hug. But when they present a gift to you and you give them a heartfelt hug, well, you feel bad. I tried that one year. So, I strolled in my workout gear, giving myself one hour to gather as much as I could before scurrying to my Zumba class. As I wandered with no real shopping strategy, I was shocked by how pleasant and available the sales personnel were in this particular store. They actually appeared glad to have a customer roaming the aisles, even though I was clearly not dressed as though prepared to make a dent in their daily commission goal. Yet, in each department where I strolled, they were sucking up to me like I was a wealthy celebrity or athlete. I quickly realized that they were sucking up to me because the store was pretty much empty. I was all set to blame this lull on the economy, until a new friend pointed me in a different direction. 

Sometimes I believe there are two types of people. Those who are wired for team play, and those who are wired for solo performances. I am in the latter category. I learned this about myself in high school. I was my current height (5’9”) in eighth grade, which is fairly tall for a girl. Couple that with the fact that I ran track and often ran the anchor leg on relay teams, and a logical leap was that I could play basketball. Wrong. Although athletic, lithe (I still love referring to myself as lithe thanks to yoga) and tall, I was fairly uncoordinated as an adolescent. I could run, and I could dribble a basketball, but somehow, I was unable to run and dribble a basketball at the same time. If I managed to run while dribbling, I couldn’t do it without staring at the basketball. Basketball players coached me that with enough practice, your hand would “feel” where the ball was. Yeah, right. I’m still waiting for that feeling, like the elusive runner’s high that marathoners swear you get when you run long distances. So, basketball was summarily dismissed from my sport choice jury box, preferring instead to serve as a member of the pom pon squad. Those who can, play, those who can’t run and dribble, cheer. 

I was also an early blooming nail princess. Emery boards were often stashed in the oddest places on my person in case I snagged a nail. Every true nail princess will confirm that nothing ruins a focus quicker than a jagged nail, so the first time a hard hit volleyball cracked one of my carefully manicured nails, my net guarding days were a thing of the past. My hand eye coordination wasn’t much better than my running while dribbling challenge, which made it difficult for me to catch a ball flying in the air. I usually got distracted by the sun, a bird or the thought that I might chip or break a nail while trying to catch the ball, so softball was out of the question. Our school had a very small tennis team, so I thought about trying out for that, but again, the hand eye coordination thing made tennis appear fuzzy. I later learned that I was near sighted but didn’t receive a formal diagnosis or start wearing corrective lenses until I was a sophomore in college. Before that, I thought it was completely normal to not be able to read a street sign until your car was parallel to the sign. When passengers called out the street sign and instructed me to turn, long before I could read the jibberish on the sign, I thought they were merely backseat driving. I could have been trained to take on Venus and Serena had I worn proper eye wear. I’m a golfer now, and golf is the ultimate solo sport.

My solo performance preference carried over into my graduate studies and work. In graduate school, whenever I had to work on group projects, I usually became very annoyed and anxious. Solo performers don’t like to work on group projects unless they are working with a cadre of like minded solo performers. In that case, the group project becomes a pod of silo’d solo performers working independent of the other, but knowing with certainty that her kindred control freaks are also executing her responsibilities without cattle prodding from the group leader, and confident that the collective pieces will be merged into one “A” worthy whole. Fellow solo performers can spot other solo performers effortlessly. It’s a feel. It’s not about taking credit or getting glory, we’re happy to share praise with the group, that’s not the issue. It’s about controlling the outcome. It’s easier to control an outcome when you control the input. Solo performers can and do learn to delegate, but it doesn’t come very naturally. The “it’s easier to just do it myself and usually turns out better if I do” voice sings the loudest in the solo performer’s choir.

As my pastor would say, “you know I’m right about it!” If you study the people in your organization, the solo performers are usually the ones who will volunteer to take the lead on projects. They don’t necessarily want to do it, but they want to ensure that it’s done right. There’s a difference. Dig a little deeper, and most times these ‘quick to volunteer’ champions were solo athletes. If they played a team sport, they probably served as the captain, the person who called the shots.

The solo performer behavior spills over into other aspects of life such as shopping. Solo performers don’t like to be stalked by sales personnel. If a solo performer has a question, she will find you and enlist your support. We like to shop alone. We like efficiency and choices. We like internet shopping. The internet allows the insomniac solo performer to complete her holiday shopping list at 5am. Internet shopping allows you to simultaneously search for an item at five different stores, while wearing your hair wrap and doing laundry. Most sites offer zoom in features that allow you to turn the models so you can view the item from different angles. With the click of a button, you can change the item’s color too. Best of all, the free shipping and free return feature trumps dragging through a mall and being spritzed by over zealous seasonal workers and mall kiosk carnival barkers trying to sell their wares.  

A few days ago, my gregarious friend who is always well dressed and coiffed confessed that she hasn’t visited a mall or a boutique in months because she does most of her shopping on line. “I think I’m addicted to internet shopping,” she shared. “With the internet, there’s really no reason to go to a store to shop for most things. You should blog about that.”

She was absolutely correct. You can buy anything on line. Anything. With Peapod, you can even buy meat and fresh produce with the click of a button and have the items delivered to your home. When I lived in Chicago, I was an occasional “Peapoder.” The only thing you can’t buy from your laptop is gasoline for your car, but if you’re doing everything on line, you won’t need as much gasoline. And once electric cars become more commonplace, gas stations might one day become as odd as the site of a pay telephone at a gas station is today. 

The store that I strolled that day was empty because people were probably shopping on their computers, multi-tasking while pretending to listen to a conference call. Like my best friends, my favorite stores are not located in my new home state, but that hasn’t adversely affected our relationship. I keep in touch with them via the internet. We’re like pen pals. Their letters are the snail mail and electronic catalogs that are sent to me on a regular basis. Our pen pal relationship is quite lopsided because they write to me more than I write to them. But like any strong bonded long distance friendship, I know that if I need them, they’re there for me. 

Each year I tell myself that this will be the year that I stand firm and stop buying gifts for people who don’t need anything, but each year I do it anyway. The peer pressure of a nation has an incredible gravitational pull. So next year if you don’t get a gift from me, it doesn’t mean that I don’t love you or value our relationship. Next year might be the year that I stand up to the consumer driven gift giving pressure. Or tell yourself that “her internet must have crashed.”