Secrets
Another in the secrets series of posts.Societal norms are a double-edged sword. On one hand they give you a set of defaults when you are dealing with another person or group. You "know" that men do one thing, women to another, couples, gays, whatever. Everyone "knows" how "they" act.Stereotypes are useful in some ways of course. If you walk into a rough-and-tumble sports bar you tend to have an expectation about the clientele of the establishment. The same can be said about many other social situations. The norms run on both directions. When you perceive yourself as part of a group you are forced to live up to (or down to depending) the expectations of those around you.On large scales these societonormative (*) norms are quite evident. Even in small subcultures they exist, but tend to be finer-tuned to the needs of the sub-group.We all live in a giant echo chamber. The norms reinforce us and we reinforce the norms.That's all well and good until you are different.The act of celebrating happiness or mourning loss is a natural thing. To meet and mingle with friends and family -- heck, the general public -- is similarly normal.As long as the line is toed.
I'm not good at toeing lines. It's just the way I'm wired I suppose.
I'm not screaming from the rooftops how I'm kind of ignoring the line, nor which lines have fallen by the wayside. Not yet at least. At the same time I think I'm going to be less in hiding. Hiding is bad for my mental health I think. If you happen to notice something, feel free to ask and I'll give you an honest answer. I might beat around the proverbial bush, but I won't lie.
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Right now I'm chatting with a new good friend about everything on the other side of the line. The act of being able to communicate without the fear of judgement is such a positive thing. Going beyond the mere knowing that you're not alone and outright conversing. Yaay me! Yaay us! Yaay meta! ;-)
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* - Hot-damn! A single-word google-whack! Actually, a googlewhackblatt as it were. Of course I ruined it by posting this... but hells yeah! Damn! //happy-dance// (Ok, there are three hits, but it's one post that has three URLs so I think it counts, and the Goog filters two of them)