I had the conversation again today.

A woman passed me on the street and called out, “Man, I wanna do that to my hair!”

Without missing a beat, I called back, “Do it!”

We stopped and talked for a minute. She said she really wants a mohawk, even though her friends think it’ll look weird. I told her what I tell everybody: Do it! It’s the only way to know if you’ll like it. If you don’t, it’ll grow back. You’re a grownup, and it’s your hair! You can do whatever you want with it! We were going opposite ways, but I left her with an enthusiastic smile.

This happens often enough that I’ve had a chance to experiment with different responses. Once, after asking the person if she minded me taking a minute of her time, I actually tried explaining why I’m so encouraging, but I’m still not sure I got through. Here’s the whole story; maybe writing it will help me figure out how to convince people of its point.

There have always been people I admire when I see them in the street–which is to say, like anyone, I have tastes. I enjoy seeing people who are well-dressed and together-looking, people with big smiles or silly hats, people in bright colors or strange combinations of them, short skirts, cool socks, leather jackets, goths, punks, just about anybody who stands out. When I would invent characters or avatars for myself in games, I always tried for interesting-looking, much more than for conventional prettiness. I almost never tried to make them look like me.

In real life I wore shapeless black clothes. I never thought about taking care of myself. I didn’t talk to people who weren’t already good friends. I didn’t get a lot of compliments on my appearance, shockingly, but when I did I didn’t trust them. If you’d asked me then why I didn’t wear the short skirts and other sexy things that I liked, I’d have said “It wouldn’t look good on me,” or “I don’t want the attention,” or “They don’t make those clothes for fat girls.” In short, that I couldn’t pull it off. That’s the key to the underlying feeling–that some people can do it, but I can’t. That we are different things. I wasn’t conscious of this then, but looking back it seems so obvious.

The epiphany was a recent step in a long process of bootstrapping my self-esteem, which ranged from starting to have sex (apparently my body’s not horrifying!) to getting out of a long relationship that had been slowly been drained of respect (I’m worth something!) to mastering my Puppet (I can take control! And I like it!). It was helped along by getting to know some of the sorts of people I admire. (It turns out they’re just regular folks!) Someone lent me a copy of Nonviolent Communication. (I have agency!) And eventually, something clicked:

The only difference between me and the people I admire is that I have not yet chosen to do the things I admire them for.

I started doing them.

I shaved my head. After it grew out a bit, I asked a friend to trim it into a mohawk. I started wearing short skirts, when I felt like it, and at other times a leather jacket with skinny jeans or a vest and tie over a compression tank. It turns out they do make sexy clothes for fat girls, and I look hot in them. I started smiling more. I smile at strangers; a lot of them smile back. I talked to people more. I started learning to play the guitar. I went back to school. I was more open about my feelings, even when it was scary to do so, and I became a better friend.

I learned to take a compliment. I had to learn to take a compliment, because I can barely walk down the street these days without someone telling me I look good, or I’m beautiful, or they love my mohawk, and they’ve always wanted to try it but they can’t–or they’re scared to–or they would, but, well …

And I look them in the eye and say, you can.

Do it.