The terror and beauty of being different
A conversation between friends.
Photo by @mullyadii from Unsplash.
““I always had to pretend back then,” he said. “Trying to act the way I was supposed to, to understand what people wanted from me. Alone is not synonymous with lonely. Out in the world, everyone tells you to just be yourself but then punishes you if you are. And yet they are right. Alone I can be myself.””
There are exciting things about being your own person in the world. I wrote about that in my last blog post and the liberation I felt with taking my life into my own hands. And while that terrifies me and I often feel like a failure for not being as successful in my writing endeavors as I had initially hoped for, at least I exist in a space that welcomes me.
But what does it mean to exist in the world as a whole? The isolation of the past few years created a space both viscerally real and blindingly imaginary. A forgetting of sorts may serve as a comfort, but it also imitates the machinations of our minds. It creates a world that centers around ourselves and neglects to remember the ways in which we must interact with others who are at once painfully different from ourselves but also what is considered to be “normal” in the public space.
I found myself feeling lonely in a group of people yet again, which is something I haven’t felt since high school and maybe a few parts of college. It reminded me how different I can be from normal people. Just how uncomfortable I am with people who are comfortable with not thinking about the world around them. Sandy…said he often feels the same, which is why he finds it more difficult to make friends than most. He doesn’t know who his people are yet.
I admire that there are people in the world who have no issues transforming themselves to fit the molds of modern society. After all, denying the comfort that comes with fitting in and finding solace in the company of others would make me, well, an idiot.
But that person isn’t me, you know? Small talk bores me to no end. And, as @americanbaron said in my favorite TikTok of his, “Did it ever occur to anyone that maybe no one’s actually boring? Like, there’s more to people than hiking, traveling, food.”
But every time I meet someone new, that’s all we talk about. “Where have you traveled to? What do you do in your free time? What do you do for work?”
The rarity of asking someone what they think about an idea or a concept seems to be something saved for later conversations or something not even explored at all. The reality, though? The surfaces of ourselves beg to be breached. But is that something we refuse to do? Or something that we don’t even know we’re capable of doing?
Whenever I read a book, small talk doesn’t exist. Sure, it may appear on the sidelines the way a conductor instructs the musicians. But they don’t speak. They convey to the audience from the outskirts that this thing has occurred or will.
The reader doesn’t care about the small talk. They aren’t interested in the last movie the main character watched. They’re curious about why they are the way they are. They want to know their thoughts on the world they exist in. They want to identify with the main character beyond superficial interests.
Let me clarify by saying there’s nothing wrong with superficiality. I too have favorite books and movies, places I’ve enjoyed visiting, and food I love to eat. And it’s amazing to connect with people on those things. But if those are the only things we talk about, then I’m not interested.
This might seem a bit weird to write about haha, but I realized recently how lonely it can be when you force yourselves into those situations with people.
I don’t know if I have a point to all this. Maybe it’s more of an effort to tell myself that being different is okay. I want to know that I shouldn’t feel bad for being enthusiastic about topics that interest me or for saying something beyond what may be considered the norm.
The right people will stick around for that. The wrong people won’t.
What’s your favorite nonconventional topic of conversation? Or better yet, start a nonconventional conversation with me in the comments.
As always, be sure to check out my romance novels, leave a review, and help me pay my bills! Chat soon, my writers, readers, and friends.
