What Makes You Think I’m a Normal Woman?
When people can’t recognize your happiness, they often assume you don’t have any
A close friend looked at me and said something that surprised me, “Maybe you should never have quit your two-decade software career.”
There was no judgment in her voice. Only concern. She thought I was unhappy.
“We all do,” she continued, “You seem bored. You spend so much time alone. You don’t have a routine anymore.”
I laughed.
The irony was almost too much. I had never worked harder in my life. But from the outside, my life probably did look strange.
I no longer had meetings, managers, deadlines, performance reviews, promotions, or a title that explained who I was.
The things occupying my days existed largely inside my own head — writing, reading, lifting, running, chasing ideas that refused to leave me alone.
To someone watching from the outside, it probably looked like I had stepped off the highway without a map and wandered into the woods.
My friend continued, “You say you’re busy all weekend, but then you write about enjoying simple things. I don’t think you actually enjoy life.”
“What does that even mean?” I asked.
“You don’t like shopping. You don’t enjoy movies. You don’t go out much. You don’t care about dressing up.”
I smiled.
She had accidentally stumbled onto something much larger than either of us realized.
Most people don’t understand your life when your sources of joy become invisible.
Nobody questions a person who spends an entire weekend at a mall or binge-watches a television series. It is not unusual anymore when someone spends hours scrolling social media. Those activities are familiar, recognizable, and socially approved.
But laugh to yourself while remembering an idea, spend hours writing something nobody asked you to write, train relentlessly for a pull-up, or sit quietly in a room thinking for hours and suddenly people become concerned. Because your joy no longer matches theirs.
When people cannot recognize your happiness, they often assume you don’t have any.
“Any woman enjoys shopping and dressing up,” my friend said.
I laughed, “What makes you think I’m a normal woman?”
She stared at me.
I wasn’t trying to sound special. Infact, just the opposite. I was trying to be honest.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped asking whether I was doing womanhood correctly. I started asking a different question, “What do I actually enjoy?” The answer surprised me, too.
I enjoy seeing what my body can do more than decorating it.
I would rather deadlift than browse a clothing store.
I would rather write an essay than spend an afternoon shopping.
I would rather earn a pull-up than collect another compliment.
I enjoy creating more than consuming. Growth over comfort. Living over performing, any day.
The conversation might have ended there. Instead, my friend said something that stayed with me long after we parted ways, “Sometimes I think you’re selfish.”
For a moment, I wanted to defend myself. Then I surprised myself, “You’re right.”
She looked shocked.
I continued, “The younger version of me spent years being available. Available for everyone else’s emergencies, meeting everyone’s expectations, always being there for someone walking over my needs and wants.”
She wore the Good Girl badge like an Olympic medal. Every yes earned applause. Every boundary required an explanation.
I spent decades perfecting the Good Girl costume. Now I save it for Halloween.
Back then, I thought being loved meant being endlessly accessible. I thought being a good person meant saying yes, and everyone’s comfort was somehow my responsibility.
I spent years performing a version of myself that earned approval. These days, I have retired from the stage. I am no longer auditioning for approval. I am finally sitting on my own throne, ruling the small kingdom of my time, attention, and energy.
I realized that approval is a terrible compass. It points toward what other people want, not what makes one feel alive.
And somewhere down the line, I understood the difference between approval and agency.
Approval rewards obedience. Agency demands honesty.
Approval asks who you should be. Agency asks who you already are.
Approval wanted me to fit in. Life kept inviting me elsewhere.
The advice never ends because people are often describing themselves when they describe the life they think you should live.
As I grew older, I began making choices that made less sense to everyone else and more sense to me. I stopped doing things simply because they were expected, and stopped chasing goals I didn’t want. No more explaining my decision, or proving to others my life was worthy enough.
I stopped apologizing for wanting different things. From the outside, that probably looked selfish. But from the inside, it felt like the only right thing to do.
My friend wasn’t questioning my happiness. She was questioning the possibility that happiness could look so different from her own.
And if I’m honest, I have done the same thing to other people. We all assume our version of a good life is more universal than it really is.
We were simply standing in different places.
As we grow up, our lives become collections of deeply personal decisions — the books we read, the people we love, the risks we take, the dreams we pursue, and the things we choose to do with our limited time.
Eventually those decisions create a person that surprises even the ones who have known us for decades.
I think that is why so many adults feel misunderstood. The people around them are often looking at an old photograph, while a thousand small choices have already turned them into someone new.
My friend thought she was asking why I didn’t enjoy the things she enjoyed. What she was really asking was something much deeper: When did you become this person?
The answer is simple.
Slowly. Over years of living abroad. In long stretches of solitude. Through difficult decisions and uncomfortable honesty. By choosing what felt true over what earned approval:
One choice at a time.
One boundary at a time.
One risk at a time.
Until one day I looked around and realized my life no longer made sense to everyone else.
For years, that would have terrified me.
But for the first time, that tasted like my kind of success.
© Tamil, 2026.
PS: This post was originally published on Medium.