The following is a “trackback” to a post on another journal. This is my first trackback ever to anywhere, so I am not entirely sure as to whether this is the right way of going about it. Either way, here goes.
I didn’t realise kids could be so mean; especially over something so trivial. I’ve obviously been to school in a different system, and I don’t think there was this clear a separation between the “cool kids” and the “uncool kids” in my case. In any event, there wasn’t an undue amount of pressure to be a part of the cooler kids. Either that or I was inadvertently a part of the cooler kids, or just was too stupid to notice.
I’d like to think I would have shrugged something like this off. I’ve spent all my life totally outside the system—in terms of not forming an opinion because it’s “the cool thing” to do—and for the most part have ended up independent, original, and fully capable of making up my own mind regardless of what the mob does.
People seem to respect/admire this aspect of my life. But I am not so sure at times; it really is an oddly double-edged sword. (I tried to think of another reference considering what you just said, but my brain seemed to blank-out on me. Sorry.)
After an entire life of building an identity totally independent of what other people have to say about it, I sometimes yearn for just a few minutes of normalcy with a crowd where I just go ahead and do something, “just because everyone else is doing it”. I don’t care if it’s the stupid thing to do. I don’t want to be alone and cool—respected or otherwise—I just want to be accepted.
But I can’t. I’ll immediately declare it the irrational thing to do—and appear smart, or aloof, but definitely alone.
It’s such a stupid thing to pick on – EYEBROWS, for pity’s sake. It must mean they couldn’t find anything else wrong with him, so they ragged on his eyebrows.
Normal – I hate that word. I’ll rant about it one day on my journal when the mood hits. It’s just the politically correct way to say “All the people that are the same are socially acceptable. Different = abnormal, abnormal = bad.” Normal is overrated. I’ll have that as one of my taglines one day soon.
There is happiness and a distainct satisfaction in not being part of the crowd – in school, we never had money for me to have the “cool clothes,” and I got picked on for the way I dressed, so I made it a POINT to get things from thrift shops and some of my mom’s friends so that I wouldn’t look like I was even attempting to be “one of them.” It got me even more attention, really. I’ve come to adopt the attitude that I appreciate having any kind of affect on people, good or bad. At least I’m not boring.
It’s hard for a 12 year old to do that, though. :(
Picking on eyebrows is definitely a desperate scrape at the bottom of the barrel. (I spent like 20 minutes trying to put an oddly glass-is-half-full sort of statement here which sounded retarded and insensitive no matter how it was worded, so I’ll just stop with that on this issue.)
I think I understand what you mean when you talk about the happiness and a distinct satisfaction in not being part of the crowd, because that is an accurate description of how I’ve lived my life, and still do. My reasons were different—insert something here about being an independent socially-stunted introvert—but the end result sounds about the same.
But in contrast to what you said at the end, it was easy for me to do when I was 12. I was different, original, almost as if I were creating my own path through the woods when the mob was stuck hogging the roads. As I’ve gotten older, though people tend to respect and admire aspects of who I’ve become through this attitude, I keep having the nagging feeling that what was once different, interesting and quirky, is now spun as aloof and weird.
The fact that this doesn’t get to me, scares me.