Beyond the Job Title

What a French dinner party reminded me about identity, worth and real connection.

I went to a dinner party the other night to celebrate a friend’s 50th. I knew about half the people, so on the way there, I rehearsed a few lines in my head about ‘what I do’ – in French. Je suis étudiante (I’m a student). Je suis écrivaine (I’m a writer). J’ai écrit un mémoire et je suis en train de contacter des agents littéraires (I’ve written a memoir and I’m in the process of querying agents). But I didn’t end up using these lines, because no one asked me.

It wasn’t because they weren’t interested – there was plenty of conversation, centred on the person as a whole. We spoke about places we’ve lived or visited, weekends away, the education system, politics, and what’s on at the cinema. At the end – after a few too many champagnes – we all bonded over music from over the years.

I’ve thought about this moment a number of times, and I realise it’s actually not unusual here. In fact, it’s very common – something I noticed when I first stepped into French social life over twenty years ago, during a brief stint living here. There’s no identity placed around what you do for a living. I remember how refreshing that felt, even then.

It became even more obvious to me when I returned home, and a couple of years later, had a mini breakdown at work. I was working in the television industry, and after a particularly bad experience, I quit to do some freelance work – but I eventually ended up in a far less glamorous industry. It led to an identity crisis. Suddenly, when I met people and they asked me what I did, their responses were vastly different from what they once were. I used to get a lot of ‘wows’ and follow-up questions. Now, it was more ‘oh, okay,’ and then a change of subject.

My self-worth took a hit, and for a while, I found myself saying, ‘I do Y, but I used to do X,’ as if to justify my existence. Then I stopped doing that. I realised I had to do some internal work and stop relying on labels to pump me up.

There were a lot of accomplished people at that dinner party – a business owner, a CEO, theatre actors, a published author, a doctor of science – so it’s not that no one had anything to say about their work. It’s just that work isn’t a social centrepiece in the same way. Of course, conversations can hover around someone’s job or industry, but here, it’s approached differently. It might come up as a reflection, or a transition someone is going through, rather than being the headline.

That night reminded me that it’s enough just to be present. That we can connect over stories, not summaries. And that sometimes, leaving the ‘what do you do’ question at the door makes space for something richer.

Mel x