My mother spent 36 years trying to normalize me, 30 on Middlebro. Finally one day we lost our patience and told her “Mom, we’re NOT normal! We’re engineers! There’s still people in the world who can’t read, there’s millions of people who never got to eight grade, we’re not just part of the privileged few who got to college, but we’re engineers. How much of the world’s population is engineers? We’re not normal, and if normal means ‘the way most people are’, we don’t want to be normal!”
Boy, it’s a pity we hadn’t given her that speech ten years before, it’s what finally got her to stop trying to normalize us…
INE, the Statistics Bureau of the Spanish Government, has these polls they send to “randomly chosen” small companies every year. I’ve been “randomly chosen” every year since I became self-employed. Littlebro’s theory is that the dice are loaded my way because, unlike the immense majority of people, I answer before being threatened with 3K+ fines; that I also give them unexpected information, that I point out flaws in the poll itself, is just icing on the cake. I’m not normal, but from the point of view of a bunch of statiscians who work for me, I’m a very desirable kind of outlier
Everyone is weird, so that makes me normal (most of the time) in my weirdness. If you think anyone is “normal,” you haven’t spent enough time with them.
People, the definition of normal is statistical. If you lie somewhere between Charles Manson on one end, and Richard Simmons on the other end, then chances are you’re normal.
Had to take a long psychological test thingy before getting gastric bypass surgery. Went in to the therapist to discuss the results, and she said, “I shouldn’t even be talking to you. We are only to address results that fall above and below the center line in these (maybe) ten categories.” She showed me the chart…every single one of my scores was hovering right smack dab around the center line…not a one dipped or rose into the worrisome area. She then told me she’d never had anyone else score so evenly, which I have to worry about, because that would make me the only normal one in the room, right?
There is no such thing as “normal”.
In my long experience of looking after people that are sick, and in general, I have come to the conclusion that if there was a “normal”, it’d be more about being mentally disturbed to some degree than some idylic sane and balanced existence.
IMO we all want to be “normal” to fit in and be popular, but few if any achieve anything that comes near that mythic state.
Growing up Gay when I did sort of put the kibosh on ever feeling totally normal…although I do feel “normal” in most everyday situations and being Gay has not been an issue for many, many decades.
There are, however, many times I just feel like an alien - I can’t high-five or watch sports games or even pretend I am a part of that crowd. I sort of hate crowds - so being a part of one drives me nuts. I am fine at smaller parties, but when you get to the bigger parties or events where “everybody is joining in the fun”, look for me ducking out the side entrance.
For instance - I am quite proud and happy to be American. Living in Europe I was the source of info for locals, and would always be in the position of defending misconceptions about the USA. I was a rather vocal ambassador for the good ol’ USA. But here in the US, it drives me absolutely nuts to have to stand and say the Pledge or sing the National Anthem or do any of those mass-patriotic, jingoistic traditions. While some might find those things a wonderful expression of freedom, I find it a form of forced submission; if you don’t join in, you have to be some kind of commie terrorist 'Mercian hater.
I might add I also loathe being anywhere where it is required to bow my head, close my eyes and listen to some useless prayer in a solemn manner. I guess I don’t have to say I am not a fan of organized religion - another “abnormal” aspect.
I like to say that I’m as weird as a person can possibly get without being creepy. People are either really into my weirdness and fully embrace it, or they don’t really know what to do with me. I can be both really emotionally intense and really ridiculously silly, and both are off-putting for some people.
I don’t worry about normal/abnormal or weird/stolid or whatever dichotomies one can create. Am I happy? Do I effectively navigate life? Do I have a strong network of friends and family? If I can answer all these with Yes then I don’t worry about being weird or different.
I’ve never felt normal. Reasons for this include some pesky brain chemistry, somewhat offbeat interests and life experiences, a certain nonchalance towards gender roles and a non-standard family model. Now, that’s how I feel but I’m pretty certain most people who encounter me think I’m pretty normal.
Through work and life experience I have come to grips with the idea you would have to define too many subsets before the words ‘normal’ and ‘me’ would overlap. That’s because there are too many types of people in this world, this nation, this state, etc to make the comparison with who I am and say ‘as a member of this group I am normal.’
So no, I cannot in any good concience say I am normal.
I can say without a doubt I am happy, and that’s the only real category that concerns me.
