Getting Discomfortable with Nail Polish

While attending the Nonviolent Communication training I mentioned a few weeks ago in Sweden, I met a fellow trainee named Max who was wearing nail polish on one of his hands. Though guys wearing nail polish is really no big deal these days, for me it was a mildly revolutionary act that I knew I needed to try. 

I have been looking for ways to subtly announce my sexuality more overtly in my day to day life, but without having to literally say it all the time or start behaving in ways that don’t feel authentic to me. Not that nail polish on a guy necessarily means he’s gay, but it certainly declares that he’s not all that interested in adhering to the straight guy rulebook. For me, painting my nails represents a subtle way to force myself to reveal something vulnerable about my identity to the world that I can otherwise (and often do) hide.

It didn’t require much effort, and once it was applied I was able to almost forget about it and behave as my normal self. But every time I interacted with someone new, I noticed as they noticed my nails. And though no one even so much as frowned (this was in Sweden after all), it forced me to confront my people pleasing urges and get comfortable with the ambiguity of wondering if people were judging me negatively (while not actually knowing for sure one way or another).

I think this is just the first step in an ongoing experiment of challenging my conditioned norms and getting discomfortable with being more overtly “different” in order to ultimately just be comfortable being myself.