OPINION: What it is like being the main character

Photo courtesy of Ren Sikes.

Ren Sikes | Opinions Editor

If your life was a movie, would you be the main character? What would that be like? Would you be Y/N in a POV or are you the rebel leader in an apocalyptic dystopia. Does being the main character simply mean embracing who you are and romanticizing your life as it is, here and now? What is it like being the main character? 

Long story short, it is exhausting. I hate being the main character. It is so exhausting having to be quirky and shy and “not like other girls” all the time. Sometimes I just wish that I could be the side character or the main character’s quirky older sibling sometimes. 

For those of you who do consider yourself the main character, I am happy for you. If you are able to romanticize your life in a way that makes you feel like you are in control of your own story, fantastic. It’s just not for me. 

Sure, I am quirky. I am the mentally ill writer who will be able to word vomit an entire novel in one day and be silent for several days straight. I am your textbook weirdo. I don’t have enough time to spend on all of my hobbies. 

I am the older sibling, mentally ill, ex-gifted child who knows way too much about true crime and obsesses way too much over movies and books and just wants to be left alone to daydream the next book idea that I’ll probably never finish. 

I don’t have the willpower to be anyone else but myself, and even that is exhausting at times. Being my own protagonist is way too much work, and I’d rather just sleep through the apocalypse. 

In today’s society, more and more people fantasize about being the main character. They want their lives to look like a Hallmark movie or a Disney Channel coming of age film. I just want to be a glorified scooby doo villain. 

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with romanticizing your life, but to what extent. When does it become a lie? How much of yourself do you have to change to be this picture perfect main character. I have tried, and I did not like the person I ended up becoming. Is the idea of living as a main character becoming toxic?

What happens when someone changes everything about themselves in order to be the protagonist they want to be? We are nothing without our flaws, but if we keep pushing the narrative of a perfect main character, those flaws will cease to exist. 

What is it really like being the main character? Fact of the matter is that I don’t know, and frankly, I don’t want to.  There may have been a time when I did want to, a time when I would have fantasized being the perfect protagonist for my perfect story.  Maybe I just wanted something to make me feel like I wasn’t wrong for what I liked and how I dressed.

 I may fit the bill when it comes to being some kind of main character, whether I want to or not. The real question is, what will I do with that? For now, I am content with being a side character in other people’s stories and just focusing on my character growth. 

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