high school reunion
I am not normal
[day 27/30 - epistemic status: 100% true, I tell no lies
I arrive quite stressed and dissociated: this place has been limited to my dreams for the past 5 years. Most people look the same, the main difference being some men are bald. I have changed a lot: I have boobs now. These people remember a version of me that is very different to the person I am today, call it âmaskingâ if you want. Contrast that with me nowadays where I donât know how to be anyone else other than myself, and in doing this, I was confronted with how âweirdâ I truly am.
I start chatting with them: honestly, the most remarkable thing is how much they seem to like alcohol. They seem to have strange beliefs and priorities. Things I suspect they heard on Instagram or something. âI am paying for ChatGPT plus but I feel bad because itâs not good for the environmentâ. OK then.
I ask someone about his hobbies: he answers: âI go to bars and ravesâ. To me: mere variations on âways to consume more alcohol with peopleâ. Some are employed, mostly in sales or some other sector I would personally consider baffling as a career choice. Others study for degrees that they are clearly not passionate about and are paradoxically also not very employable.
I tell them that about my Swiss, Irish and British friends and how I recently am getting close with someone from London and Iâm chatting with a couple people from SF too. They ask me where I meet these people and I go: âleague of legends and twitterâ. It takes me 2 seconds plus the looks they give me to realize oh my god I am so much more weird than I thought.
They express negative sentiment about coke, I ask them what drugs they have done and they say âjust alcoholâ, I try to steer the conversation to psychedelics but rapidly realize absolutely no one cares.
One of my old friends is so drunk he looks like a 2006-era reinforcement learning agent learning to grab stuff. They convince him that vaping indoors is allowed (weâre in the school cafeteria). He accepts this as gospel and hits his vape while everyone laughs at the situation. Childish excitement of breaking the rules. He does not even register this. I do not know what to make of this scene but I find my face involuntarily contorting into a smile and my belly muscles all the same.
We all go back to eating paella (which me and my friend were the only 2 of the 250 people to take the vegan option) and like god writing a mocking piece of EA fan fiction every single dish is delicately topped with a dead shrimp.
I talk with a former friend. He asks me if I still play video games. He tells me he bought a ps5 with his first paycheck but he hasnât touched it because he is waiting for GTA 6. I remember people care about GTA 6.
I think about what I will do with my paycheck.
I turn to my friend and ex partner, who tells me âI feel like the weirdest but most normal person hereâ. I think the truth is much simpler: weâre the weirdest people here.
I go home and fall asleep in vc with a woman I met via Substack that Iâve known for a week. All I know is that I wouldnât want it any other way.
Weirdos
What is it about these people that contrasts with my favorite people
I am clearly not normal. I also donât like people who are ânormalâ. I seem to desire âpeople that are like meâ: weirdos if you will.
I like weirdos so much that Iâm starting to suspect I am overindexing on making sure that the city I move to is full of them.
Iâve been confused then as to what constitutes a weirdo. An earlier version of myself thought it was just autism, but my autistic weirdo friend repeatedly insists this is not the case. They tell me I should look at the DSM-5 for autism. And yes, she has a point, when I do I donât see a description of the type of person that I like. So itâs not just autism. Itâs something else entirely.
Maybe thatâs beautiful, maybe attempting to define it would make it sterile.
Maybe itâs best left to the platonic realm, with she/it skateboarding OCaml developers at the head.
I just know I love my friends.