I Am Fascinated By Human Behavior
I like "weird" people.
They make me feel more "normal," and their quirks are endearing. Of course, I'm referring to benignly weird people; there are plenty of scary or violent weirdos out there, and those are the types I try to steer clear of.
It makes me happy when someone is very open about how strange he or she is, or to hear about quirky habits and preferences. I have some friends (a coworker and his wife,) who are a bit odd but very kind. They don't have cell phones (not because they can't afford them, but because they don't want them.) They watch old movies- mostly low budget science fiction films- on Netflix, cook all of their own food from scratch because they are suspicious of all of the preservatives in mass-produced food, and they are very shy (especially the wife.) They give me hope because I, too, am shy, and I don't really like many of the things that most people can't live without- although I do have a cell phone. But they have each other, and hopefully someday my girlfriend and I will be living in the same country and will be able to have our own "weird" life together.
I used to assume that people fell into neatly-categorized groups, and that most people were about the same. For instance, I once thought as a child that I would grow up and suddenly have all the answers, that I would end up with a career I loved and that would comfortably pay all the bills, would get married at like 23 and have 2 kids, etc. But those weren't [i]my[/i] dreams (I wish they had been.) My parents had pushed me in those directions. Truthfully, I don't want a high-stress career or kids, I'm 35 and have never been married, and I feel just as confused and overwhelmed by the prospect of being an adult as I did when I was 8.
This used to make me feel so alone and hopeless, but as I look around me even the "together" people seem to be wishy-washy in different aspects of their lives, but they don't seem to be as aware of (or at least care about) the instabilities and uncertainties of life the way I do. To be sure, many of my peers have the "perfect" life my parents tried to push me into having, but just as many seem to have a lot of the same issues I do. But hey, most of us- myself included- get by.
I am just glad that we are all different, and even more different than I had once believed. There are some people out there that I can't even understand, and yet many of them I really do admire. It is nice to know we all have a place in the world.
They make me feel more "normal," and their quirks are endearing. Of course, I'm referring to benignly weird people; there are plenty of scary or violent weirdos out there, and those are the types I try to steer clear of.
It makes me happy when someone is very open about how strange he or she is, or to hear about quirky habits and preferences. I have some friends (a coworker and his wife,) who are a bit odd but very kind. They don't have cell phones (not because they can't afford them, but because they don't want them.) They watch old movies- mostly low budget science fiction films- on Netflix, cook all of their own food from scratch because they are suspicious of all of the preservatives in mass-produced food, and they are very shy (especially the wife.) They give me hope because I, too, am shy, and I don't really like many of the things that most people can't live without- although I do have a cell phone. But they have each other, and hopefully someday my girlfriend and I will be living in the same country and will be able to have our own "weird" life together.
I used to assume that people fell into neatly-categorized groups, and that most people were about the same. For instance, I once thought as a child that I would grow up and suddenly have all the answers, that I would end up with a career I loved and that would comfortably pay all the bills, would get married at like 23 and have 2 kids, etc. But those weren't [i]my[/i] dreams (I wish they had been.) My parents had pushed me in those directions. Truthfully, I don't want a high-stress career or kids, I'm 35 and have never been married, and I feel just as confused and overwhelmed by the prospect of being an adult as I did when I was 8.
This used to make me feel so alone and hopeless, but as I look around me even the "together" people seem to be wishy-washy in different aspects of their lives, but they don't seem to be as aware of (or at least care about) the instabilities and uncertainties of life the way I do. To be sure, many of my peers have the "perfect" life my parents tried to push me into having, but just as many seem to have a lot of the same issues I do. But hey, most of us- myself included- get by.
I am just glad that we are all different, and even more different than I had once believed. There are some people out there that I can't even understand, and yet many of them I really do admire. It is nice to know we all have a place in the world.
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