Abnormality.

So over the last few days, I’ve discovered a TV show called The Big Bang Theory which you probably all had discovered long ago.

It’s interesting.

It’s kind of painful at times in terms of sheer recognition. There’s a moment in the first episode, for example when one of the central characters is knocked out of his (familiar and a little neurotic) routine by the new neighbour. Both his discomfort and the exasperation with which his discomfort is treated are familiar enough to me that it’s… well, kind of ouchy.

I promised myself that I wouldn’t be writing reviews of TV shows on this blog. So I’m going to reassure myself, and you, that this is not going to be me rambling on about The Big Bang Theory. Instead, I want to talk about a thing it got me thinking about.

One of the interesting things about the show is how it positions characters with regard to “normality”, and that’s got me thinking about normality and my own relationship to it. Where I am in relation to it. I have one of those love-hate relationships with the word “normal”.

On the one hand, I’m a freak and a geek and proud of it. Queer. Maybe autistic (that one’s still more on the side of hypothesis rather than proven fact). Too many masculine traits to be totally comfortable with the whole being a woman thing and too many feminine traits to want to be a guy. Fascinated by all kinds of bizarre things. Thoroughly bizarre (sometimes incomprehensible) sense of humour. Weird in all kinds of little ways.

So there’s a freak side of me, alive and well.

On the other hand, there is another part that desperately wants to be normal.

To have a normal body (ie, one that’s not fat or riddled with illness).

To have a normal job (even though I really don’t thrive in normal 9-to-5s).

To have a normal attitude to sex and a normal, loving relationship (not this absolute hard-line inability to fall in love things that makes me really sad).

To have a normal life. Whatever the hell that means.

So there’s a tension here, and it’s really hard to reconcile the two parts. Like: I honestly don’t see how to do it. I can’t be a freak and be normal at the same time. And I can’t just ditch one side or the other, and suddenly be totally comfortable with either being a total freak or being totally normal. Cannot. Do it. Not gonna happen.

So what are the needs behind these two strong desires?

The whole “I wanna be a freak” seem like the desire to be really me. To express all the bits of me, no matter how weird they are or how little they fit into normality’s stereotypes.

But I want to fit in, too, and that’s probably part of why I also feel this intense desire to be normal. I want to have a place where I fit, and people who really get me. Right now, it seems very hard to reach out to other people because there is an awful lot of explaining to do, and that’s hard work. I’m kind of bored of explaining myself to people.

(She says, on the blog that is all about the inner workings of her brain. But this is different somehow.)

I don’t really have a conclusion.

I’m interested in figuring out the next step.

I’m interested in working out if there is a place where I can fit in as me instead of having to tweak various bits of myself in order to be liked or accepted.

I’m interested in finding support and comfort, even if it does mean establishing routines that might look neurotic from the outside.

I’m interested in being more me. And listening more to what’s going on inside.

That comment thing that still doesn’t have a snazzy name.

This thing that is becoming the “usual thing” still applies: I really don’t want advice. Also, please don’t try to analyze what’s going on here.

I’d love to hear, though, your own experiences with being normal or otherwise. And with your wants and don’t-wants about normality and freakitude.

Also: I’m wondering if you guys who comment ever check back to see if I responded. (Even though you probably know by now that I’m not a comment-responding person.) If I were to respond to your comment, would you a) notice and b) care?

PS I was totally going to talk about Pace and Kyeli and The Freak Revolution but it didn’t go that way in the end. So I guess I’ll just link to them and talk about them some other time.

Tagged as: freakery, ramblings from my head