A Poser? Who? Me?

It all started with a fragment of overheard conversation: two teenage boys in baggy shirts, carrying skateboards - one commenting to the other: None of my friends are posers.

When they were out of earshot, my daughter turned to me: We didn't call people "posers" when I was a teenager. I wonder when that started... Maybe in reality shows, where people are always doubting the sincerity of others.

But what does it really mean? I asked. Does it mean people pretending to be something they're not? Acting?

Not really acting, she replied. Being two-faced, I guess.

Hunting for a second opinion, I asked my son what "poser" meant to him.

Loser, he quickly replied.

(So I looked up the word on a website for teenage girls to discover some of its current connotations... And I found that the term originated in the 1970s.)

But the whole thing got me thinking:

Posing... dressing and talking as if you are something you're not... Is that always negative? I mean, don't all of us do that some of the time...?

Isn't posing... pretending... one of the stages in actually becoming?

For me, at age 22 - walking into a classroom for the first time and starting to teach 11-year-olds, I felt like an impostor. (A poser?)

Why are they listening to me? I would sometimes wonder, during those first few weeks... What do I know?! I'm not much older than them!

But eventually I became comfortable in my new role...

And that's the way it's been with every new task I've ever taken on in life... pretending I'm something (posing?) until I actually become what I'm trying to be...

(So why does the word have a negative connotation?!)