In defense of an earlier entry
Jul. 10th, 2001 10:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinueA friend of mine has taken issue with my earlier comment that I tire of my friends being "normal." (This is *not* a friend who I count as normal, and the reasons should become clear shortly.) She says that this is an elitist attitude and, frankly, rather junior high.
She's right. In fact, the way I spent my time in junior high was to mathematically prove that weird and normal were synonymous.
I said I tired of my friends being normal. This was an example of me being (a) tongue in cheek, and (b) nice. I could have used a million other adjectives such as: bland. smallminded. uncreative. classless. bigoted. I did not use these or other terms, because I *do* like these people. Therefore I went with "normal" and made myself sound like a snob instead of deprecating them.
But perhaps I should have put it a different way entirely: I don't learn anything from them. Nor do I receive appreciable emotional support. They teach me nothing new about myself or the world, and when I'm with them, I feel like an alien, someone they study with fascination but no empathy.
No, that's not it. I feel like their teacher. I feel as though they are my students instead of my peers. Being around them is work rather than relaxation. It would be easy to say that I gravitate toward the teacher position and am subjugating them in some way, but that's not the truth. They beg me to lead them and get upset if I want to lose control even a little. No matter the situation, I'm the one who has to stay sober and take care of everyone. I'm the one who has to solve every problem that comes up. And I'm the one who has to act as host, even when it's someone else's party.
They tell me they want to see my other sides, but when I start to show them, they recoil in fear.
So I say that they're normal and I'm different, and I move on.
She's right. In fact, the way I spent my time in junior high was to mathematically prove that weird and normal were synonymous.
I said I tired of my friends being normal. This was an example of me being (a) tongue in cheek, and (b) nice. I could have used a million other adjectives such as: bland. smallminded. uncreative. classless. bigoted. I did not use these or other terms, because I *do* like these people. Therefore I went with "normal" and made myself sound like a snob instead of deprecating them.
But perhaps I should have put it a different way entirely: I don't learn anything from them. Nor do I receive appreciable emotional support. They teach me nothing new about myself or the world, and when I'm with them, I feel like an alien, someone they study with fascination but no empathy.
No, that's not it. I feel like their teacher. I feel as though they are my students instead of my peers. Being around them is work rather than relaxation. It would be easy to say that I gravitate toward the teacher position and am subjugating them in some way, but that's not the truth. They beg me to lead them and get upset if I want to lose control even a little. No matter the situation, I'm the one who has to stay sober and take care of everyone. I'm the one who has to solve every problem that comes up. And I'm the one who has to act as host, even when it's someone else's party.
They tell me they want to see my other sides, but when I start to show them, they recoil in fear.
So I say that they're normal and I'm different, and I move on.
