I've talked about this before, but my high school experience wasn't full of bullying or getting picked on, and I was a prime target to be picked on by any standards, but somehow I dodged the bullet. One thing that always stuck out though, that I'm supprised more people didn't latch on to, is the pure fact that I'm not the 'manly man.'
I'm rod thin, I don't like fixing cars, I cook, do laundry, I know how to quilt, I play the cello, and by just about every standard there is, I am a big ol' sissy.I'm not a masculine man. I don't work out, I don't hunt, I don't have large muscles, I don't fit into that world, it's just not me and I have no desire to change it.
The moment that I noticed this was when I was on the swim team. It didn't come up in the bullying section, because the person that said it was being honest and curious. He wasn't be rude, it wasn't being anything that I would even consider being mean, and he was my friend so I don't hink that he would ever do anything like that in his life. But one day, after practice while we were on the bus, he looked over to me, and asked me, honestly, "Adam, why do you talk like that?"
I had no clue what was going on, because I had never sat down and analyzed the way that I talked and suddenly became super self concious about the way that my voice sounded, the way that I used words, and the sentences that I put together. After asking him what he meant by it, he explained that I didn't talk "like a guy" (whatever that's supposed to mean) and he just wanted to know if I was doing it because of some reason.
I had to explain to him that it was just who I was and how I talked. I hadn't thought about it and said that I was going to talk in that specific way, I was just doing what I had always done naturally. It wasn't a show, it wasn't a mask that I was wearing just because I wanted to act a particular way, it was me. I explained it to him that I talk the way I talk, act the way I act, because that's me. I'm not hiding anything, I'm not trying to add anything to the mix, I'm just being me, and me isn't a hyper masculine lumberjack.
There's a few other great stories about high school into this realm of social expectations and my family, but I'm hoping that I get to use them for a later date in a different segment. I don't want to ruin all of my stories in one go, I've still got 500+ episodes to write for, but just for future reference we'll leave this reminder for later segments - Halloween with black nails, gender bender day.
Oh, it gets good.
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