Being normal. Is there such a thing?

Would you consider yourself to be a normal (= average) person?

Normal as in you'd melt into the crowd because you dress like everyone, talk like everyone, harbor the same hopes and dreams as everyone?

Boys want the 6 C's. Girls... I dunno what they want. Nice clothes? Everyone's so predictable you could take any random person, write a description about him or her and find that most of what you wrote is true. That's how similar we all are despite our valiant efforts to be different.

Ok, so we've grown up getting whacked if we don't conform. It starts from home where you're told how to behave and follows you to school and work where you're told how to behave. Yeah, from parental pressure to peer pressure. That's why I laugh at books that tell you to dare to be different when society whacks you the moment you actually try to be different. In my age group for instance, one of the things you do not want is to be called "gay." If you wear a pink shirt, you're gay. If you're born with super smooth skin, you're gay. And if you drive at slower than daredevil speeds on the streets, boy you're definitely gay.

So we insecure dudes avoid wearing pink anything, we culture trophy scars on our faces and we endanger other people's lives on the road in bursts of machismo driving in our bid to be "not gay" (=normal).

I can't tell you how silly that is, having grown up in the San Francisco area and used to seeing people who do all these macho things and they are gay as a fly.

Anyway, sexual orientation is not what this post is about. Its about this whole business of conformity, about how we expect - no, demand conformity from others. Its about how we are quick to take down anyone who doesn't talk, dress and think like us even if they come to us in good faith. Its about how in our rejection of such types, we are helping to reinforce the creed of "be normal or else," the very thing we dislike about our peer-pressurists.

Back at school I'm not ashamed to say I was the odd guy out, a weirdo. When kids were busy thronging around their favorite alpha male, I'd sit alone. No amount of bullying would make me grovel at some jock's feet. Even the girls shied away because they couldn't deal with someone who wasn't an alpha or wasn't a slave to one.

So I learnt very early on that there is a steep price to pay for not being Mr. Popular or Mr. Groupie. But I survived. The result: my tolerance to "deviants" is a lot higher than your average jock who cries "gay" to everything he doesn't like. Some see that tolerance as a weakness. I see it as a strength, because I can live in strange cultures in different countries and not mess up my mind as much as the guy who believes that only he defines what's normal or cool.

On the question whether its good to be normal (I've been asked that question before), the question actually makes no sense to me because "normal" in Hachioji, Japan is not the same as "normal" in Hammond, Indiana. When you travel that much, normal ceases to carry a meaning. That's why I've come to conclude that people who make fun of "abnormal" people tend to mentally insular and small-townish. But that's okay. If they haven't been out of their hometowns, who can blame them for not having any idea that from a big picture perspective, there is no such thing as normal.