Unique Oddities Without a Doubt

People are so bizarre. We’re so abstract that I can't even fully explain how just I, myself,
function– let alone someone else. It took me some time to realize that though and sometimes I
forget that other people have thoughts and imaginations that are just as wild as my own.
Everyone has doubts and ideas, and feelings they can't control. I think remembering that
everyone's intricately odd and itchy in their skin in some ways, it makes me feel less itchy in my
own skin.
The summer leading into 6th grade I went to an art camp. I wasn't scared, I mostly just
felt inconvenienced. I knew I wouldn't know anyone there and thought it would be uninteresting.
I was proven correct in my assumptions upon my arrival, I in fact did not know anybody. It was
sort of weird saying goodbye to my mom and then finding my way into the group of other kids. It
was clear for many of them this wasn't their first time attending this program as they seemed to
get into chatting immediately.
Even though this was an art camp we were doing an icebreaker by playing the mafia
game before anything else. This made things even more difficult for me, I didn’t know anybody
and hadn't spoken to anybody and now I had to play a game I had no idea how to play. The air
outside was warm. We were in this little parking lot area and the sun shined brightly. The sound
of bumbling chatter between one another was silenced as the instructor began to speak to the
group. We were explained the game… yet I still barely understood it. I thought it was all stupid.
As we eased into it and everyone was seeming to warm up to each other I thought maybe this
would be an opportunity for me to also become one with the mob of other kids.
It didn't quite go as planned though. I remember trying to talk to them and I was
dismissed on several occasions. At the time I didn't get why, now I know it's because I hadn't
known how to properly socialize with people in my age group. My main source of contact with
others was on the internet, random strangers I’d probably never meet in real life. There for,
having to be in a big group like this and find ways to connect was rather difficult. Some of the
girls in the group were saying odd things and it seemed hilarious but I didn't understand at all.
So I asked them what they were joking about. They giggled and said, “It's an inside joke, you
wouldn't get it.”
I had never heard of an inside joke somehow and was very confused. So I asked them,
“What is an inside joke?”
They thought I was joking, but once they realized I wasn't they just laughed and moved
on. I thought that the joke was about insides, being inside, maybe the inside of an office space.
Maybe it just meant I was an outsider and I wasn't allowed inside. I didn't get why exactly I
wouldn't be allowed inside or really what it meant to be inside and so I kept pushing them to
explain to me.
Eventually, in that group, I made at least one connection, and that was due to our shared
niche interest in internet horror stories. I soon realized that they knew what the internet horror
stories were but didn't know like how I knew, so I tried to explain the best I could. I remember I
was drawn to them due to the hat they were wearing, a white beanie with a skeleton face
stitched into it. It's little things like that, things that make socializing worth it.
Later on, way after the art camp, I was in middle school. It was 6th grade or maybe 7th, I
don't remember. Starbucks was really popular, a bunch of people would group up after school
and walk to the Starbucks closest to the school. I had barely ever drunk coffee, I would get
those little glass premade Starbucks drinks from the gas station sometimes but I’d never even
been in a Starbucks. The only time I could remember going to one was when I third-wheeled
some friends and we went to Starbucks. I had no idea what to get so I asked for a hot
chocolate, it tasted like shit.
So I was curious, what was the hype around this overpriced coffee franchise? And so I
planned that one day after school, I would follow a group of people going to Starbucks with $20
in my pocket. Then once there I’d copy something one of them ordered and then try to integrate
myself into their group. It sounded like a pretty good plan to me, try coffee and get friendly with
the more socially acceptable kids in my middle school.
It was snowing, hard. I could still hear them laughing from around the corners of the
streets I walked down. I wasn't dressed for the snow, so I was cold and wet. Once at Starbucks,
I was relieved to be in the warm building, but then my cold wet clothes turned hot wet, and
sticky against my skin. It felt awful and I felt greasy and sweaty. I probably smelled too and
looked like a mess. And yet I pursued and waited in line after all the others ordered yelling and
laughing and very obviously disturbing everyone else in the building. I wasn't disturbed though, I
was in awe. How recklessly they could just annoy the crap out of everyone in Starbucks and not
acknowledge it at all and just keep going. It was amazing to me.
I guess I hadn't been listening hard enough because when I got up to the front of the line
and it was now my turn to order, I got scared. I’d never ordered inside such an establishment
before. I had no idea what a venti was and I was intimidated by the employee just trying to do
their job. So naturally, I messed up and just ordered a piece of bread. I mumbled out my
request, and didn't say the name correctly so I pointed at the glass, and then when the cashier
asked, “Anything else?” I just denied it and waited for her to give me the small loaf.
I was hyper-aware of my sticky clothes and the wetness on my back, neck, and my hair
that was stuck to my forehead. I went back outside and called my mom on the verge of tears,
waiting for her to come to get me while I ate my bread in a cold chair in the snow. I felt isolated
and alienated, and at that moment I realized how out of place I felt.
Sometimes my mindset is inverted and I think backward about things, but at the same
time, I’m also just like everyone else. We’re all the same and we’re also all different. It's strange
thinking about the fact it's not just me here. I’m sure if I were to really listen and hear and
understand sentences and conversations of those other kids at Starbucks I could understand
them in my own way. But mostly I can't think like that, not when I’m alone, or when I only know
how to coherently talk about internet horror stories, or when my clothes are cold and sticky.
And it's not just me. Those kids I met in my art camp were odd and bizarre for
understanding inside jokes whereas I didn't and the group at Starbucks were all annoyingly
unaware and weird because of it.
But that's just human nature. We're all uncomfortable but conscious, we have no choice
but to be aware and think. We're all weird and we all hate each other, strangers, and odd
individuals that aren't ourselves. But that also means we love, we communicate and we can
bond. Despite differences, we can learn to understand and we can hear to listen and begin to
know when or what, or where we need to know to be with other people.