The Trauma of Being Different (part 2)

A few years ago, I went to a Bernie rally in Oakland with some sex workers I met at the Anarchist book shop. I was worried I wasn’t weird enough for them to like me.

I was like that in high school too. I secretly wanted to be friends with the metal, emo, goth kids, but I was afraid of being too normal, and they wouldn’t accept me. Whenever I go to The Haight, I see these humans, total hippie archetypes. Once, one of them yelled at me about Capitalism as I walked by because I was on my phone, looking for the cold-pressed juice place. I felt like a white, rich, neo-liberal yuppy.

When I got to the rally, there was a really long line for security. The people I was with started smoking pot and talking to each other about work. They asked me if I wanted some pot, and I was afraid to tell them it gives me even worse anxiety, and I was afraid to talk to them about their work because I wondered if I was a prude, while I kinda wished they’d ask me to work with them. I had packed my journal. We were in downtown Oakland, on the side of a street, and it wasn’t super clean, but I sat down on the sidewalk and started to journal about politics. There were some Trump counter-rally people there, and I was really curious to their motives. Once I started writing, I felt the need to cover it up. I kinda tilted sideways away from them and left the cover half closed. I did not want anyone to know how weird I really was...even though I was surrounded by people who I worried would reject me for my normalness.

Every breakup I have ever had, I decide I am just too weird for this person.
Something like…I don’t fit their mold, or
I make them question themselves too much,
I’m too honest,
I’m too harsh,
I’m too curious,
I’m too much.

The crystal healing guy’s comments, my overly self-critical response to my writing (which represents my creativity), another failed attempt at romantically connecting with the weirdest person I know, and all the research and reading I have had to do lately about The Attachment Theory, developmental psychology, and studying connection and relationship for my upcoming sex coach training…
It all kinda came to a head.

Why am I simultaneously in love with my weirdness,
but also, terrified to be different?