Ok, does anyone else ever run into this and get super irritated, or is this just a personal community pet peeve? As I understand it, in more 'mainstream' cultures, people often strive to meet some idea of 'normal'. I only have limited experience though.
Now, as soon as you hit the pagan, goth, indie music, hippie, nerd, and geek areas of America, you get the exact opposite. People striving to be seen as different, unique, or weird as possible. Notice the modifier "seen as". Some of them are more successful at it than others, admittedly. But these statements and phrases drive me out of my goddamn mind.
"Oh, my taste in music is really weird, you won't like it" (Please. Stop. I'm begging you.)
"I'm a mysterious person. No one knows anything about me, I'm just hard to figure out." (Well, I already know you're pretentious, shall we stop there?)
"Oh, I'm a total weirdo. Everyone says so!" (They're just being nice, dear.)
//insert offended comment/glare when someone else is pointed out as weird// "I'm stranger than that!", etc. (Well, you certainly want to be.)
Has anyone else noticed that these hard-core "I'm so strange" protesters aren't really as strange as all that? Now, I've met some weird people, both affable and ...potentially dangerous...and the one thing they had in common was a total inability to realize they didn't fit all that well into groups.
Weird is not going dancing in the rain (not in these here parts, anyway). Weird is actually trying to stab your boyfriend when he puts on a knife-proof vest and dares you to test it.
Weird is not music from other cultures. Weird is believing there is a demon gateway in your brain and you must be friends forever with certain pretty girls to keep it from eating the world.
Weird is not wearing cat-ears. Weird is emailing people you just met with "YOU ARE MY TRUE FAMILY AND WE WILL ALWAYS BE TOGETHER" .
Attention-seeking behavior is never weird, just obnoxious. Behavior that constantly garners attention, but you don't know why, probably means you're weird.
I don't think I ever offended anyone unintentionally more than when I suggested using his ipod on a car trip, and brushed off "Oh, you'll never like it, it's full of too much weird stuff" with "You haven't met Darla, now her music is weird. I'm sure we'll love yours!" This sort of comment apparently means "You are a boring, ordinary person. "
In Darla's case, I've never met anyone else, including my grandparents, who loves 20's, 30's and 40's top hits quite as much as her. But then, she also makes her own hoop skirts. There's a lot about her to love. :)
Back to the pet peeve. I won't pretend I wasn't a bit guilty of this at one point, but as soon as I realized how obnoxious it is, I tried very hard to knock it off. I think I know where some of it comes from, though.
Everybody wants to belong to a group. It's a human thing. In the case of the above named sub-cultures, one of the defining characteristics of those groups is not fitting in to the mainstream. Literally, being off-kilter means you belong . To the kind of insecure, self-conscious person who worries about it, anyway.
Groups made up entirely of misfits totally don't have any problems with being insecure or self-conscious, right? Right?
Ok, maybe I should cut people some slack. And it sort of makes sense that if being weird means you belong, and you really want to belong, than the weirder you are, the more you deserve to be there, right? I mean, in a subconscious kinda reasoning way.
More than half of my irritation comes from my total inability to gently point out to people that this habit is A) obnoxious and B) absolutely transparent. I generally end up not saying anything at all, and slowly grinding my teeth to points.
I'm not really that strange or startling, just another white chick from the suburbs, with a crappy office job and a fairly entertaining social life. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
So: how to tell someone something bothers you? Does anyone know how to gently tell someone, "Would you please chill out? We like you much better when you're not trying to prove something." If I could just master that, this pet peeve would probably go away. But honestly, it just seems mean - here's this person who's already insecure enough already, without having someone come down on them with "Knock it off, no one is THAT unique." And by the time I want to say something, that's pretty much the gentlest wording that comes to mind.
Also, does anyone know a good remedy for a bitten tongue? :P
Slack returning in 3...2...1...and go.
Blessed be!
Pennanti
No comments:
Post a Comment