In psych speak, an identity crisis is a formal state of affairs, a period of uncertainty or confusion wherein you question who you are. Often associated with some life changing event, it can occur if you get fired from job or go through a divorce or experience a traumatic accident. More mundane happenings can also be a trigger: moving to a new place or even retirement can cause you to reevaluate your self-image. In reality it can occur at any time when events around you make you question what you thought you knew about yourself and the way you act and respond.
Rarely does it happen when you walk into a hardware store. And yet that's where I found myself.
To be fair, it wasn't the big existential crisis as described above, the kind that made me question my place in the world, my life and career. No, this was a byproduct of the multiple identities we all have for tapping into the various worlds we inhabit in person and online, and involved not so much who we are inside, but how we identify ourselves to the outside.
It used to be much simpler. You started with your name, which for most of us stayed the same while we walked this earth. You might gain a nickname, and if female, a surname change if you got married. But beyond that things were pretty stable. Sure, you might pick up some other identifiers along the way: aunt or cousin with your family, vice president or director at work. You might add a professional designation, be it doctor, professor or sergeant. But these were appendages to what your parents called you, not replacements, and so there was no doubt when someone was trying to get your attention.
But when I walked into the store to buy some screws, they cared about none of that: they wanted not my name, but my number. The problem is that I have several. At that store I have a membership number for their loyalty program: good luck remembering that. I offered up our home phone, as we've had that for 30 plus years, and was the default for anything in town. When that didn't work, I switched to my office number, but that also drew a blank. Finally, I tried my cell phone: bingo! With that, all my vitals came up on the terminal, and I got points for my $2.19 purchase.
The game was repeated at the drugstore, with much the same dance. All I wanted was a new travel bottle of shampoo. I started with my cell, but that produced crickets. Home was also a non-starter. This time it was my office that hit paydirt for $1.98. I moved down the road to the grocery store to get soda. Riffing through my stack, none of them made any bells ring. It was only after I remembered to use my wife's office line that I got my guilty pleasure of a 12-pack of A&W Diet Root Beer for $8.26.
Online it's even worse. We're not talking passwords, but that first box on screen which merely asks who you are. There I might be known by one of my several emails, my first and last name as a single word, or initial and last name. There's also a chance that I (like many of you) signed up to a site using something far more cryptic, something we would never want to be called in real life. Just look online at Twitter or Instagram or any message board. Do you know NotDeadYet, LoudDad or EndlessLover? What's worse, is it possible that GuitarGod4786 uses that name because there are 4785 others who feel that best sums who they are?
We do it that because naming something is the ultimate in personal expression. Outside of having a pet or a child, it's something we never get to do, especialy for ourselves. But occasionally, just as your parents did to you, you don't get a choice. When I signed up for an account at one specialty retailer, they gave me the next one in their queue, with no consultation or buy in. That's said, I confess I kind of like this one, and may consider using it more widely. So feel free to address me next time we get together as SquashedRhino089.
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Marc Wollin of Bedford never had a real nickname. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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