When you're strange

Notes from the outer perimeter.......

Hi, my name is Patrick. And I’m strange.

Or whatever word you’d like to see in its place: eccentric, odd, curious.

I run counter to the mainstream. Salmon swimming upstream and all that.

If my life had been an Edward Gorey book or some Dickensian novel, I might have been described as a “wee queer thing” in my childhood.

The way I think, the interests I follow, the ideas that captivate me? Are usually out in left field, away from wherever everyone else is hanging out at the moment.

I don’t say this to elicit sympathy or to dimish myself in a self-deprecating manner. It’s simple fact. I’m 57 years old, and I know a lot about myself now, and one of the things I know and sit comfortably with is my strangeness.

I never set out to be strange, and for many years, I prayed that I’d somehow don the cloak of normalness, just to feel that sense of belonging. But those prayers were never answered.

Hello, I’m strange. (Photo credit: Umar Faruq via Pexels)

All in all, I’ve had a pretty good life for someone so strange.

My Strangeness is not usually a topic I think about much - I’ve lived with it for so long, after all - but this year, I’ve been trying to connect more to the world outside my head and make new friends. And so I’ve been reminded of my strangeness - reminded that I interact with people differently.

Terminal shyness + social anxiety + being raised by antisocial wolves? That’s me. And my self-protective, hypervigilant nature often reads to others as aloof and detached.

I’m trying to be open about it, invite the strangeness into the room with me, hoping it doesn’t chase everyone else away.

I suspect there are other Strange and Queer people out there too, ones that perhaps do a better job of hiding those pieces of themselves in public. Maybe waving my strange freak flag will help me find more fellow travelers.