ENJOYING SOLITUDE AND OTHER PEOPLE ■ 1 87strong links to other adults in the community, ostracization by their
peers would not have been so intolerable. But apparently only the peer
group stood between them and solitude. Unfortunately, this is not an
unusual story; now and then one very much like it appears in the media.
If the young person feels accepted and cared for at home, however,
dependence on the group is lessened, and the teenager can learn to be
in control of his relationships with peers. Christopher, who at fifteen
was a rather shy, quiet boy with glasses and few friends, felt close enough
to his parents to explain that he was tired of being left out of the cliques
in school, and had decided to become more popular. To do so, Chris
outlined a carefully planned strategy: he was to buy contact lenses, wear
only fashionable (i.e., funky) clothes, learn about the latest music and
teenage fads, and highlight his hair with a blond dye. “I want to see if
I can change my personality,” he said, and spent many days in front of
the mirror practicing a laid-back demeanor and a goofy smile.
This methodical approach, supported by his parents’ collusion,
worked well. By the end of the year he was being invited into the best
cliques, and the following year he won the part of Conrad Birdie in the
school musical. Because he identified with the part of the rock star so
well, he became the heartthrob of middle-school girls, who taped his
picture inside their lockers. The senior yearbook showed him involved
in all sorts of successful ventures, such as winning a prize in the “Sexy
Legs” contest. He had indeed succeeded in changing his outward per
sonality, and achieved control of the way his peers saw him. At the same
time, the inner organization of his self remained the same: he continued
to be a sensitive, generous young man who did not think less of his peers
because he learned to manage their opinions or think too highly of
himself for having succeeded at it.
One of the reasons Chris was able to become popular while many
others do not is that he approached his goal with the same detached
discipline that an athlete would use to make the football team, or a
scientist would apply to an experiment. He was not overwhelmed by the
task, but chose realistic challenges he could master on his own. In other
words, he transformed the daunting, vague monster of popularity into
a feasible flow activity that he ended up enjoying while it gave him a
sense of pride and self-esteem. The company of peers, like every other
activity, can be experienced at various levels: at the lowest level of
complexity it is a pleasurable way to ward off chaos temporarily; at the
highest it provides a strong sense of enjoyment and growth.
It is in the context of intimate friendships, however, that the most
intense experiences occur. These are the kinds of ties about which