I have never quite fit in to any category of humans. As a neo-max zoom dweebie, I was really into drawing maps for Dungeons and Dragons campaigns I had too few friends to actually lead, trying to write a novelization of Final Fantasy II, and reading technical diagrams of Star Wars vehicles.

Then in 8th grade, I decided it was time for me to run with a crowd. There was a girl, who was more of a friend than a love interest, who drew me into a persona that the outside world would call a “skater”, though what the world of actual “skate scene people” would call a “poseur”. In order to fit in with the skaters, I needed to purchase a pair of either Vans or Airwalk sneakers. I needed several band t-shirts, for bands I didn’t actually like that much. I also was required to wear a wallet chain, which made my father angry because it was supposed to be the choke collar for our dog.

I didn’t really fit in. The “real” skaters all despised me, because they had divorced parents and the beginnings of actual drug and legal problems, and I didn’t. So the following year, there were more girls, and in pursuit of them, I transformed into a “preppy” kid.

I didn’t ever really fit into that class either, because I couldn’t afford the right brands, and in reality I was still rather a geek. But still it worked out fairly well for me, and my shade of Abercrombie and Fitch blue and gray took on a pretty textbook hippie tint, the whole “white hat”, hemp necklace, sideburns thing. I was that guy who went to Dave shows. And I actually did, drinking Zimas underage in the parking lot, trying and failing to roll a joint for some girls, and passing out on the lawn.

However, I still got teased pretty relentlessly for having pants that were too tight. You need to understand that “tight” was about the worst insult you could possibly have hurled at you growing up. It inspired more self-consciousness for any young man at my school than any other trait or characteristic could possibly conjure. Wearing pants that were tight were grounds for outright ostracization. I personally witnessed at least a dozen youth who shed tears at the suggestion that their pants were tight.

What was worse was that it was basically a Salem Witch Trial. At any time, someone could just speak the word, “tight”, and that was it. There was really no defense. You could point out that your pants were actually quite loose, and it wouldn’t really make a difference. Your judgement had already been sealed.

I couldn’t afford the really loosely cut brands of clothing, so I mostly just bought standard jeans that were way too big for me. I’m a 32 waist today at 200 pounds. As a 14 year old at 160 pounds, all of my pants were 38 waists.

Then I hit college. I made no effort to curate my identity any longer, and faded into anonymity. I was a suburban kid. I didn’t have any real style. I thought sweaters were formal wear. I wore ill-fitting everything.

And that was still how I was when I dropped into Brooklyn for the first time. I knew immediately how less cool I was than every single person I saw, and I knew they knew it too. My first day at work, the bartender seemed vaguely disgusted with me. He refused to acknowledge me at all.

Brooklyn was the Bizzaro World. I was teased playfully but relentlessly once again by all of the cooler kids. “You need to buy new jeans. These jeans don’t fit, they’re way too loose.” They didn’t seem to believe me when I tried to explain to them that if I wore these jeans where I grew up, I would have gotten beaten up for wearing tight pants. “How could these pants be considered tight? Look at how loose they are!” Another crowd I didn’t fit in with. But of all the crowds I had run with, there was none that were more accepting than the members of this one.

Unsurprisingly, when I moved back to CT from Brooklyn, everyone started calling me a “hipster”, talking about my tight pants and my scarves and my unusual sense of fashion. I actually had not realized, from inside Brooklyn, that I was running with a crowd of hipsters. They didn’t use that word at all really, and the hipster paradigm hadn’t jumped the shark yet and become a thing. In CT though, they loved to throw it around.

But that’s just because CT is a truly horrendous place, with a large number of very boring and conservative people. The thing is though, I reject that being a “hipster” has anything to do with ones fashion sense. When I think of hipsters, I have an incredible fondness in my heart. Because it seems like, everywhere I have been, there are droves of boring, “safe” people, who are passionate about nothing, conservative as fuck, and critical of anything and anyone that does not belong to the tiny circle on their Venn diagram that delineates those things which are respectable to do or be. And the only thing keeping this whole thing from turning into 1983 are the hipsters.

Hipsters want to do the dumbest things. Form Prince cover bands with only ukeleles. Start businesses that produce only silk-screened business cards. They get really, really passionate about these things. And in order to be able to do these things, they need to survive. To survive, they do what everyone else does: work in the restaurant industry.

But these folks are not content to merely participate passively, they see the work of other artisans, other craftsmen, and they love it as much as they love their own work. No one else cares as much. No one else appreciates as much. This is what makes bars and restaurants special. This is what makes special bars and restaurants. Like Stonehome Wine Bar in Brooklyn, and like Rye on Market in Louisville.

Louisville was not quite my first foray south of New York City as an adult, but it was close. I had been to Portland, OR on my honeymoon. I knew what to expect there. There are no pockets of hipsters in Portland, like there are in NYC. In NYC, hipsters grow like weeds in between slums and impossibly expensive residential neighborhoods. Portland has no pockets of hipsters. Portland IS a pocket of hipsters. There is basically nothing else. It is a paradise of coffee roasters, vegan restaurants, yoga studios, and artisanal boutiques. I have never been anywhere where I felt more free to be whatever I was and not be judged for it.

I did not expect hipsters in Louisville. Do you know the iconic New Yorker cover that shows a New Yorker’s view of America? It’s New York City, and you can see the West Coast in the distance, with nothing in between. That’s where I thought hipsters were. But I was wrong. When I found them in Kentucky of all places, I was thrilled. Passionate, smart, interesting people, doing great things and contributing their culture.

I loved my time so much in Louisville because of the hipsters in NuLu (a portmanteau of “New Louisville”), their shops, their galleries, and especially their bars and restaurants. It was sitting in this restaurant, Rye on Market, that I decided I wanted to write about how special hipsters are and how badly we need people who are unafraid to be different, to do things that aren’t considered “safe” life and career choices, and to be passionate about, well, anything at all.

Some people around here still call me a hipster, even though I don’t deserve it. I do have long hair (sometimes) and a beard (always), and I wear different clothes than almost everyone around. But “hipster” is something much more than what you wear, and something that I fall short of. I never quite had the courage to reject what society thought of me and be free. Sometimes, I wish I did.