Advertising yourself: experiences for sale

What really gets to me sometimes, is how people like to advertise themselves.
Seriously now, has anyone ever heard of this pretty little word "modesty"? Has anyone ever thought of actually trying it? I believe that the term "hippie experiences for sale" sums it all up.... All of you must have been guilty of them at some point in your lives; blabbing away about something that happened to you, or something you did, not because it would really be a constructive part of the conversation but because it would add to the 'image' you've chosen to show to the world. A bohemian hippie? Just say that you play the african drums on the beach, and that you've travelled all around Asia on a minibus. A rebellious anarchist? Simply recite your perilous experiences in a violent demonstration to protest about nothing in particular. A devoted ecologist? Nothing better than to explain that you only eat out of garbage bins and drink tea made of recycled urine.
We have experiences for everyone! Experiences, please! Fresh and new, ready to be sold to anyone willing to listen! Experiences which are so stereotypical that we simply cannot keep to ourselves; that we have to sell like tomatoes and watermelons in the Sunday market, in order to advertise and promote our image!

Here is my own tragic story...
My volunteer travels in Africa are apparently TOO much of a hippie-experience temptation. Apparently, it makes me look cool. Apparently, it makes people think I am really avant-garde and mature and out-of-mainstream. Apparently, it's a great advertisement of my uniqueness and inquisitive personality. And apparently, my parents just won't shut up about it.

For fuck's sake, it's been less than a month since I came back, and they've already bragged about it to every single person in their socialite circles. "Our daughter spent half a month in Tanzania, doing social work!" "Yes, I know she's only 18, she went there on her own!"... If I would only remind them of their (especially my mom's) reaction to this trip... Even minutes before my plane was leaving, she was on the verge of tears, desperately trying to persuade me to reconsider and come back home.
Anyway, after my trip I decided not to let my excitement lure me into the "hippie experiences for sale" trap. I was really getting tired of all the advertisement, of wannabe-bohemian friends bragging about backpacking in Bolivia in order to gain their precious hippie points. Of course I wanted to narrate the story and surely tell a few friends, but I definitely wasn't planning on getting it fucking published. The experience, once sacred and private, has become a prostitute. The story, intended for a few selected people, has been told and re-told over a hundred times, to people I barely know but who are randomly selected by my parents as worthy of knowing all about it. What the hell --I was practically forced to advertise myself. I was forced to stand all the looks of admiration and encouragement by newly-rich middle-aged couples who see in me their potential selves in another life, if they were younger, if they weren't top lawyers and top bank accountants; IF they weren't Mr and Mrs V.I.P. in their firms' cosmopolitan cocktail parties.

Well, suck my mature, inquisitive c*ck, i'm getting sick and tired of all this.