I was listening to Nirvana this morning, and it never fails to bring me back to a time when I was only 13 years old and my best friend was called Sandrine. She was into hard rock and used to wear this pale blue denim jacket that always reeked of stale tobacco. The funny thing was that although she smoked I never picked up the habit with her but later on when I was around 15. She and I couldn’t have been more different and yet we were soon given the nickname ‘clones’ by our peers because for some reason, and despite our frequent fiery arguments, we really bonded for a time and were 'inseparable'.
A lot of people didn’t understand how come she liked me, actually, and I remember meeting her in the morning in front of the school gates once as she puffed on a cigarette, only for her to notice a group of people we knew glancing darkly at me, which prompted her to say something like: “I don’t understand why people don’t like you.”
She said it in the most candid way but it hurt me to hear it at the time. I was taken aback and could only shrug in answer. I didn’t know myself why I kept attracting enemies along the way. Sometimes all it took for people to dislike me was for me to just show up, and I didn't even need to open my mouth or emit a sound. It was as though the mere fact of my existence was excuse enough to reject me at once.
"What do they say about me?" I somehow found the strength to prod her further on the subject and it was her turn to shrug.
"They say you're weird, but I think you're great," she replied, sliding one arm around my shoulders to give me a friendly hug.
Weird, huh? The word bounced around inside my head as I fell silent. What did that even mean? What the fuck did it mean when people found you 'weird'?
I've never stopped asking myself that stupid question. All I know is this: whatever people mean when they feel the need to describe me as 'weird' it always translates in them not liking me to the point of complete rejection. Almost every single person I meet will choose the word as part of their description of my person. Some 'friends' will even have the nerve to say I'm a 'nice type of crazy' and all I can do is scream inwardly, wishing they had a fucking clue just how much their choice of words can hurt another person.
It's like the French thing, you know. How many times am I supposed to find jokes about my accent funny? Or how many times am I supposed to feel guilty because I happened to be born and bred in a country full of snobs?
I am whatever they say I am according to their limited perception of humanity and its people as a whole. That's not really the problem. The real problem in all this is that it keeps me alienated and alone in this big world full of people that will never accept a person like me because, hey, I'm so-called weird... whatever that means. The saddest part is that they probably don't even know what it means themselves.
The end result remains the same: solitude and alienation.
Cheers.
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