Believe in yourself! (Even if you’re weird. Or especially if.)

I tried to change my name to John once.

Hello. My name is Oliver. I tried to change it to John once, but that didn’t quite work out.

And that’s all you need to know about me, really.

Well, no, okay, maybe there’s more to say. Like, I don’t know, what do people like to know about each other? I don’t know…cats or dogs? Which is my favorite. That’s something people ask each other about.

I’ll tell you, definitely dogs. Cats are just so stringy.

But even there, you know, you can’t get away from psychology, can you? Because even in such a simple dichotomy as your favorite emergency zombie apocalypse last ditch barbecue supplies, you know that you’re potentially risking social expulsion from some group or other. The mere act of attempting to state your favorite something is an act of saying there are some people in the world who I would prefer appealing to more than some other people. I hope that they like me.

From an early age I could see all that. There were all these groups. People inside groups, approving of each other. Saying, “Yes, you’re allowed in, but there are rules. No paisley trousers. We do NOT like chocolate ice cream, though rocky road is acceptable. And we most certainly never let them in.” And they always knew who “them” was. Of course they did. That’s how society works. There are the people who like what you like, and everyone else is a threat to the very fabric of the universe.

If you broke the rules, then you were basically fucked. You weren’t even a human! That much was clear.

So I changed my name. Why not? It made sense. Johns are universally acceptable by all groups, across many cultures. Johns invite no commentary about the literary intelligence of your parentage thereby decreasing the odds of any need to say, “perhaps, but they meant well.” Everyone needs a John around.

That was a double entendre, but you see I didn’t commit to it. It wasn’t a very good one.

Being a John would have been, mathematically speaking, average. And average is acceptable, in the sense that Johns stand out in no group. They’re accepted by all people, of all creeds, of all ethnicities, of all backgrounds. People permit Johns. Think about it: you have never heard someone say, “John? That’s not a name you hear around here very often.”

Unless you’re in Africa. Or China — most of Asia, really. And Polynesia. Or from a community predominantly composed of one of the various indigenous cultures around the world. You know, Maori and Arapahoe and such.

Is that a racist thing to say? I’m not sure. Probably if I need to ask then it is, but I can’t quite tell.

And don’t tell me there are no Johns in Russia. What do you think an Ivan is? Just you reexamine your position and then we’ll talk.

People will accept a John without question. Even the jokes about Johns have become so routine that they put people to sleep, which is why I’m not even making any of them here. Except that one I made just above (the double entendre), but you’ve got to make that one. It’s a tradition.

There is nothing controversial about a John. All groups say, “welcome home, Johnny. There is room for you.”

I could see the allure of that. Happiness is being approved of by the maximum number of people possible, right? And there is clearly no male more accepted by more people than a John.

What with one thing and another, it didn’t work out. I tried to be John, but I couldn’t do it.

Some people might say I lacked commitment. Somebody truly devoted to becoming who they wanted to be would have stuck with it to the end, some say. Would have truly embodied that person who would be invited by all groups to wear the, as it were, “club colors.” People might say that I knew who I wanted to be, and that if I had just stayed the course to become that easily accepted John, approved of by all my peers, then — then — I would have been truly happy, but I let it slip out of my grasp.

Some people might say that.

To those people I’m always tempted to say, you don’t know me very well.

But I don’t say it…very loudly. Although I do write it down.

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