Negotiable Identity

I have a theory that part of becoming mature means that we can pick up and lay down those parts of us that at one point, we considered nonnegotiable, i.e. our identity.

I have always considered genuineness to be nonnegotiable. To me, to choose to be "un-genuine" would have been the ultimate insult.

But that is exactly what I did last week end with great relish. The person I was with did not want/need genuineness. They wanted chattiness. So I gave them chattiness. We had a very pleasant time. No problems were solved, no intimacy was established, nothing of "value" was discussed.

That person gave me a gift. I passed through a previously impenetrable curtain - the curtain of a nonnegotiable identity. All things earthly are negotiable.