Being Weird

You know the kid. The one in class, the weird one. The one that sticks out. The one that is the butt of everyone’s joke. The one who is just different. In grade 6, for me, it was a kid named Eric.

Eric was different. We knew his family had a fancy car that had windshield wipers on the front lights. This seemed like a big deal. Like maybe they were rich. But all the money in the world wouldn’t have made us accept Eric. Most of the kids didn’t and never would.

On the first day of class, we all had to say our names and one thing we liked. Most kids kept it pretty simple — “My name is Chad and I like hockey”, “My name is Stacey and I like to write”. Not Eric. Although the instructions were simple enough, they were also vague, and this is where Eric took off into a rabbithole of magnitudes that would only serve to further isolate him. Well, from some of us.

“My name is Eric. With a ‘c’.. not a ‘k’. I have a cat. It’s this big”, he started, showing the size of his cat with his hands. “My cat is 4 years old and is named Mr.Puddles. Mr.Puddles doesn’t like dry food, he only likes wet food. I feed him 2 times a day, once in the morning, once in the afternoon. Sometimes he pukes his food up. The vet doesn’t know why. He pukes his food up and you can hear him before it happens choking on it”. And so he went on, and on, and soon the kids were giggling, and soon the teacher was hushing us, and Eric, well Eric didn’t register any of this.

This made me like Eric. He was different. He scared most of the kids just because you really couldn’t predict what he might say, or when, and he was just socially odd. I befriended Eric, must to the teasing of my friends. I sat in front of him in class, and would often turn around and ask him random questions to see where he would take the conversation. He fascinated me. In many ways, he shaped a part of who I am today. I still like to ask these random questions to see on what adventure people might take me on with their answers.

I don’t know what happened to Eric. I only vividly remember him in grade 6, but I do think about him often, and the day he introduced his cat rather than himself to the class.

People are weird. When you are young, weird is something people dislike. It’s something you avoid. When you get older, it’s something you gravitate toward, because it is what makes them awesome. Weirdness becomes desirable.

Most people want to grow up to be special. They want to be different. They want to be seen. We spend so much time trying to hide what makes us weird when we are young, only to realize it is what makes us the individuals we strive to be as we get older.

Be weird. If you can’t be weird, at least be-friend the weird ones.