RantSome: A Personal Soapbox Site

I was never one who "fit in" with my peers. From the day I began school at the age of five, it was obvious that I was somehow different from the rest of Them. Being a military family, we moved every two or three years and I had the glorious fun of being The New Kid™ all over again. Since I was chubby, not terribly pretty, and too intellectual to be popular, I rarely had many friends, and at times found myself a subject of ridicule, mocking, and outright abuse.

My first ploy, which lasted for a number of years, was to attempt to conform. This was very much a failure. It's basically impossible for a polyhedral peg to fit into a predefined and uniformly drilled round hole. So try as I might to bang myself into the "acceptable" state of existence, I couldn't, and it was apparent to all the nice, shiny cute little round pegs that I was a "wannabe".

So I went the opposite direction. At around the age of fourteen, I became a rebel. Or maybe I should say A Rebel™. I deliberately swam upstream, intentionally bucking every convention I could think of. I wore odd jewelry which got me quite a reputation ("hula hoop earrings" was one phrase I recall). I got my ears pierced in strange ways in an era where dual piercings were unusual (in fact, my piercings are quite normal by modern standards, but back then, it was weird). I wore odd clothes, like jeans with holes in them (they came into fashion a few years after that and I stopped wearing them). I just went out of my way to annoy, shock, and irritate the primarily working class and middle class people around me. I took up smoking, never got the hang of drinking, experimented with drugs, skipped school, and took a lover. Yes, at the age of fourteen.

In fact, I wasn't all that revolutionary. I was following a well-established pattern and had a lot in common with all the other "rebels". I was different, just like them. And truth be told, I wasn't all that radical. I mean, I never had purple hair or a mohawk or anything really shocking. I was just a rebellious kid looking for trouble.

Yes, I was still an outcast. Yes, I was still drawing a lot of negative comments and being picked on, but I felt as if I were in control (at least more in control) because I was now doing something to draw criticism. I got to the point where I sort of took pride in being able to rile the "mundanes" by having the amazing audacity to be different.

Then came a point where I tried to conform again. I had gotten married, and my then-husband wasn't the sort of man who went in for displays of rebellion. I don't mean to imply that he was a tryrant, because he wasn't. But he was very conservative, very easily embarassed by "public displays" and very much inclined to have things be usual, ordinary, and normal.

Without going into details, suffice it to say that I endeavored to become a nice, working/middle class wife who went to Tupperware™ parties and shopped at the mall.

Eventually, due to complex circumstances which I won't bother to explain, I found myself deeply depressed and extremely miserable. Part of the reason, I believe now, was that I was trying to be something I was not.

What I am is intellectual, creative, passionate, and different. I am not like everyone else. I am an eccentric, and have always been so. I am not a sheep, I cannot bleat in time to the socially acceptable music and trot along with the rest of the flock, blindly following and being damned happy to do so.

Sometimes, I envy people who are sheep, people who can just happily buy what the television tells them to buy, who wear the clothes that are modelled for them in magazines, who get up, go to work, come home, watch tv, and go to bed, and do this their entire lives, with occasional holidays where they wear silly tourist clothes and take a lot of pictures and tell all their friends what a nice time they had.

I envy them sometimes, because think how easy life must be when you just go with the flock! All decisions are easily made by consulting one's peers (what they do, you do). Conflict is resolved by simply conforming to what's expected of you. You don't have to endure the social pressure that comes with being different, you can just do what They do and know that it's the right thing to do because if it weren't, would They be doing it? Moral choices are clearly defined by a religion or philosophy (pick one, the more bland and mainstream the better), financial choices are clearly defined by consumerism, home decorating and personal attire are defined by magazines and designers. How much simpler can life be?

But the truth is I don't really envy that. There are times when I'm weary and tired of being inherently different, and when I just wish someone else would make up my mind for me and show me the way to health, prosperity, and a trimmer, more youthful figure. But I know for sure that They don't have the answers. I know that what They want to pass off as good is often mediocre or downright shoddy. I know that I am not one of Them, and I can never be. And I don't really want to be, when it gets right down to it.

The world seems to hate people who are different. I don't know why. Perhaps They are reminded how ordinary They are, or perhaps They get too confused by someone who isn't going the same way as the rest of the flock (Oh dear, what to do? Someone's going a different way!). Perhaps there's such safety in conformity that anything outside of it is viewed as a threat. Perhaps I'll never understand, since I'm not one of Them.

I have come to terms with my non-conformity. I have learned how to be different and be comfortable with it, and making difficult decisions is okay (I don't always like it, but I can do it). I've learned how to define my own spirituality and look beyond the boundaries of what's "accepted" and "normal" to find that which I embrace as truth. I dress how I please, I love whom I love, and I live where and how I want to live. Sometimes my life coincides with accepted norms, and these days I'm generally fairly good in social settings. Sometimes, though, my life and my choices are in direct conflict to what They find usual and acceptable. And I don't care any more one way or the other.

I really dislike stories like Hans Christian Anderson's The Ugly Duckling. Not all ugly ducklings turn into swans. Some of us turn into ugly ducks. We need to learn to accept it, and to find that being an ugly duck isn't really necessarily all that bad, because going with the flock isn't always the best or most satisfying way to go, even if it does seem like the easiest.

It's like living on the outside of society and seeing what a crock of shit it is, but then approaching it again with a sense of humor. I mean, when you're able to see society as this sort of funky, funny illusion, it makes it easier to deal with it because there is no rhyme or reason to the way it works.

- RuPaul, on fringe culture
(Genre, March '99)

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Conformity