Being Weird.

[Mycroft]

It really matters to us what people think of us. We balk at the idea of being considered a bit weird. We want to be considered as nice, as normal. We're pretty acutely receptive to whether we fit in, or whether we don't. We praise individualism, and want to be considered unique but we are, in fact, deeply influenced by our picture of what is ‘normal’ in our society.

This is a problem because normality is something of an illusion and a paradox at the same time. We have very little idea what 'normality' is other than 'it's not this weird ****, for certain'. The trouble is that this 'weird ****' people denigrate is so frequent and common in people as actually be a normal state of affairs.

If you:

- sense you’ve married the wrong person

- get sick with envy when a friend succeeds

- think about your partner’s sister in bed

- want to cry when anyone criticises you

- dislike the way you look

- panic at the thought of having a conversation with a stranger

- worry a great deal about farting in public

- feel you might vomit in a meeting out of fear

- can’t sleep well in hotels

- find that your voice starts to give way or crack when you have to speak to anyone important

- are worried about sitting on a dirty toilet seat

- trip over tiny cracks in the pavement

- have sexual thoughts about members of your own family

- bump your head trying to get nonchalantly into a taxi

- are turned on by some pretty weird people in the news, like the president of Russia

- masturbate a lot

- regard yourself as a fraud

- worry about not making it to the toilet in time

- walk into doors, lampposts, car wing mirrors and bollards

- often worry that other people can see your genitals

- are gripped by the fear you will by mistake spit on your dining companion in a restaurant

- fear other people think you’re a pervert

- still think about a relationship that ended badly eleven years ago

...then I have news for you: You're pretty damned normal.

The normality that we think of is something that's painted for us very abstractly by society as a whole, yet this idea of normality painted for us is wholly without definition. Ask someone 'what's normal?' and nobody can give you a straight answer because nobody really knows. But we're strangely certain that normal isn't being aroused by animals, or crossdressing, or having a terror of bananas and so we never speak of these things. We keep them to ourselves. And so we're overtaken by the abstract normality presented to us by equally abstract agencies.

People have often accused me of being a bit weird. And that's fine because they're right. But it's okay to be weird because I know that everybody is in their own particular ways. The difference between me and everyone else is that I'm far more aware of it, and far more comfortable with it than they are. This gives me something relative to a peace of mind. And that's a very rare thing to attain in these days.

Yes, I'm weird. But I know it, and I'm okay with it. I'll take peace of mind for 1500, Alex.

 

[Mindmaster]

Wow, normal people are *****es!

Do these worthless thoughts really go around in mundane folks heads? If there was a machine that could eat all of these normal people at the press of one shiny candy-like red button... I would never do anything, but push that button...

 

[Mycroft]

Wow, normal people are *****es!

Do these worthless thoughts really go around in mundane folks heads? If there was a machine that could eat all of these normal people at the press of one shiny candy-like red button... I would never do anything, but push that button...

People often worry whether they're too weird. And that's a normal anxiety to have. A woman whose never had any sort of arousal in her life due to asexuality may stare across the bar at another woman and think, 'I wish I was normal like her,' little knowing that the woman she's staring at can only get aroused by being urinated on. But to each other, they both look pretty normal, and maybe both wish they were as normal as each other, despite neither being so.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Humans recognize that safety comes from being part of the group, security in familiar numbers of relatives/friends...

We also recognize that being part of the group can be stifling, can keep us from being the creative, innovative and different INDIVIDUALS that we are, with our own unique needs, wants, and viewpoints.

It's a basic, normal condition for humans. Some societies strongly encourage individualism at the expense of secure groups, while others strongly encourage secure groups at the expense of individualism.

The result is that some either by choice or social pressure will spend their lives being near the "core" of the social group in whatever society they are part of, and others will either by choice or social pressure find themselves on the edge, not fitting in well.

 

[Yerda]

Some of those things listed are funny. It must be unsettling to go around worrying if people can see your genitals.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Strangely when we fool ourselves into thinking we are nice, we sometimes start to act like it, and then we start to feel more like it later on; and so all these weird fears and things sometimes really are the start of something better. Its just part of being a human and is just part of caring about other people. Fear comes with care, too, and fear makes friends of many. Its normal to be convinced that we care about other people when we are actually selfish, afraid, perhaps angry. Its a lot like when we don't feel like smiling, but if we smile then we start to feel like it or like when we don't feel like going out but then once we get outside we like it.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

I go to great lengths not to be in fashion, so if being weird is the new normal then I will have to become normal so as to be out of step....but where to begin?!

 

[Brickjectivity]

I go to great lengths not to be in fashion, so if being weird is the new normal then I will have to become normal so as to be out of step....but where to begin?!

Fashionably out of fashion or disheveled?

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Fashionably out of fashion or disheveled?

Check out Jesse's fashion tips:

 

[Kori]

I'm weird. But many of you most likely know that already. Most People in the United States of Oceania. pretty much say, in action, "You the freedom to express yourself however you feel like as long as I think it is acceptable." It's the same with Politics and Religion.