The court of public opinion

Whoever came up with that phrase probably took English 101 at a community college.

Community college is going good so far, but my English class has become a bi-weekly trip to the dentist’s office.. with extra fluoride treatments.
I’ve always known I was different, and both lamented and been proud of it, sometimes simultaneously. However, on the rare occasion when I’ve been in a class/public setting and I’ve made a heartfelt opinion known, there is often a lot of backlash/people scoff at me, and I get self-conscious. I probably shouldn’t be surprised, I mean – I like a lot of “normal” things, but the majority of things I like are either not part of my “demographic” or are considered “just plain strange.”

I read an elseworlds comic (insert title here) that was written from the perspective of Lex Luthor. In it, Lex Luthor was the hero, and was vigilant towards the supremely powerful alien Superman, who had made Metropolis his home. Sometimes I know what that Lex Luthor feels like, when I see all the “bro” guys who easily make friends with other “bro” guys, and are “scoring chicks’ numbers” with ease, while I’m given cautious looks and called “sir” or some other formal salutation because I’m not smiling and/or dressed like everyone else. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any buisness scoring “chicks numbers” but it wouldn’t be horrible to give off whatever aura it is that makes people comfortable with you, instead of the egalitarian death aura.. or whatever it is I have going on.

I’m not sure where I ”forked away” from the mainstream so dramatically. I’m sure it doesn’t help that I don’t have any friends down here to hang out with, most of my co-workers can be kind of “back-stabby” (so I’m not interested in seeing them outside of work), I listen to 90% jazz.. or punk/industrial/metal (and not new music), and the only person I really have human conversations with is Kristina.. but maybe I’m in a sort of echo chamber, and it’s making we weird/out-of-touch with “mankind.” I wish people could see how laid-back, and open-minded I try to be.. but then again, it’s probably for the best that people don’t have telepathy or some questions might come up about how many times I visualize going GTA3 while I’m sitting in traffic on the way home from work. : P

I started thinking about this post tonight because we had done a reading on the implications of calling a tank-top a “Wife Beater” and the author of the piece’s opinion was that that was causing people to downplay the horror of someone actually beating their wife. She asked something to the effect of “Does the author prove her opinion?” and I answered “Maybe if she pointed out a survey that 90% of all people who use the term “wife beater” to describe the shirt also thought it was o.k. to actually beat their wives..” Apparently, that was a bad answer because someone in the class said “Whaaa?” in disbelief, and the teacher said “Well, I don’t think you’re going to find a survey that says that..” kind of condescendingly.

..and it’s shit like that, that makes me just want to keep my opinions to myself. ; P