Imitation is the greatest form of flattery
Last weekend my friend who typically sports red and black clothing showed up to our meeting clad in a tan and beige cheetah print shirt, tan pants and a tan, fur trimmed cloak. To top it all off this woman who prides herself on her trendy glasses was wearing the ever-classic Aviator sunglasses. None of this seemed noteworthy until she asked, “do you subscribe to the school of thought that imitation is the greatest form of flattery?”
If you know me, a few years ago I went to wearing mostly tan or beige tops, jackets, sweaters, and Aviators are my absolute signature look!!
This got me thinking about when and how I have imitated others in the past.
First let’s have a look at the science.
The National Institute of Health says - We do not just imitate everybody all the time. We imitate more when: we feel connected to others, others are important, we want to affiliate with others, we are socially oriented or have an assimilative cognitive style.
And
Tuning your own mood and actions to others can be traced back to human origins. People used mirroring as a kind of universal signal. In order to survive and evolve, humankind had to learn and invent many things including socially accepted behavior. Michael Yarbrough
Good old evolution and the need to survive, it shows up everywhere!
The first time I can recall imitating someone I was probably 6 years old. I had spent the day at Timmy Shirts and my mom picked me up at the end of the day. Not sure how Timmy spoke but over the next few days I must have mimicked his speech or accent? Soon my mother was telling me to stop talking like someone else and just be myself. I did not even know I was doing it.
At 9 years old I picked up the bad habit of biting my fingernails. This was a totally new and somewhat gross habit. My mom bought that nasty tasting Sally Hanson nail polish to get me to stop. This too was an imitation of someone else. The person I was imitating was a few years older and maybe even a friends’ sister, she had a cool bedroom, and I was so excited to be spending time with her. Hence, I imitated her bad habit, biting my own fingernails.
In high school there was Edie Wilhoit. Edie probably even qualified as a “girl crush”. She was a cute little blonde haired point guard for our high school basketball team. She was probably a senior when I was a sophomore. As a ball player she was fast and scrappy, and my dad said she “ran like a girl” with her hands flopped down at the wrist. She wore volleyball knee pads as protection when she went after the ball on the floor. From time-to-time Edie also had her thigh muscle wrapped in Ace bandages because she had pulled her groin muscle.
Oh, how I adored her, she was older but always made me feel included and liked. Pretty soon I was running like Edie, I got a pair of knee pads and even got a little scrappy. Because I was acting, running, and probably playing ball like Edie I actually pulled my groin muscle too. There I was playing ball in my knee pads with Ace bandages wrapped around my thigh.
As a grown woman I started dating a man who was rugged, and always wore TEVA sandals and he hiked a lot, so he had a Camelbak water mule. Pretty soon I was wearing the TEVA sandals and hiking with my Camelbak.
I think it’s fun and healthy to try on different clothes, different mannerisms especially if they are positive and healthy. But as you can see over the course of my lifetime, I picked up biting my fingernails which is not healthy or aesthetically pleasing and when I started to play basketball like Edie I pulled my groin muscle. Bottomline, imitation can be fun and flattering but we should always be true to ourselves.