Normality

[lillibet]

The subject of normality pops up from time to time in various discussions and often engenders debate on what is "normal" and whether there's any such thing, etc. I found myself thinking that one way to potentially get at the subject might be to ask the question "if you don't think you're normal, in what ways would you be different if you were normal?"

Anyone?

Comments

[eclecticavatar.livejournal.com]

There's a long-standing debate in psychological anthropology

1) Deviance is inherent.
You are different because you simply are different.

2) Deviance is a creation of the culture in which you live.
You're only "different" because other people say you are.

I tend to believe in the second argument!

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Well, it seems to me more the case that people are different because they, themselves, say that they are. That's what I'm curious about, really--how would you have to be different in order not to be "different" :)

[bookly.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't get so tired out by spending time with people. I wouldn't have so many paralyzing issues about sex, and hence about relationships. I would be funnier and more spontaneous, less uptight, less ready to draw into myself when I feel unsure about the situation I'm in. I would be more flexible and less judgmental, and in particular, less concerned with people obeying the "rules". I would make more of an effort to make people feel good.

[bookly.livejournal.com]

But perhaps this isn't what you meant. :)

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

I think it's a very interesting answer and, in many ways, exactly what I meant.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

I'm intrigued by the fact that you perceive "normal" people as not having issues about sex, humor, spontaneity, uptightness, flexibility, judgmentalness, and obeying rules. :-}

[trowa-barton.livejournal.com]

Isn't it normal to have issues about sex?

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

I'd say it's way more common, and therefore "normal," to have issues about sex than not to have them, yes. Whether the issues stem from religion, or bad personal experiences, or fears, or misinformation, or whatever, I'd feel comfortable estimating that the number of people on earth who have hangups about sex is up in the billions. :-}

[bookly.livejournal.com]

Well, OK, maybe most people have issues with some or most of those. :) But regarding sex and relationships, I haven't had a real relationship that lasted longer than a month in about ten years now. While that may not be unheard of, it doesn't seem normal, either.

[xthread.livejournal.com]

And in any case, it seems deeply no fun.

[bookly.livejournal.com]

Well, that too. :) On the other hand, I was out of the country for a lot of that time, so either was having too much fun otherwise, or didn't notice the lack-of-relationship-fun because it was lost in the i-have-no-friends-here-lack-of-fun.

[xthread.livejournal.com]

I'm still not grooving on this lack-of-fun theme...

[marmota.livejournal.com]

I'm certain it's not from lack of opportunity.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, some of it was. It's hard to meet someone in a country where (a) most of the people you come in contact with are either female (my students) or transient, and (b) most of the straight men are off chasing (or being chased by) Asian women. But for the most part, your statement is correct. I think the situation is partly due to overly restrictive standards and partly due to trust issues (which might be a subset of 'overly restrictive standards', I guess).

[bookly.livejournal.com]

Oops, that was me, posting from the office. I came back to say this:

The other problem is that most men can't keep up with me. ;)

[dpolicar]

Hm.

Being "normal" is one of those funny cases where I usually think what people say on the subject is flat-out false, but that there's a potentially-true-but-hard-to-say thing similar to what they've said, so I move forward on the assumption that the second thing is what they meant.

Which is, I guess, what you're getting at with your "one way to get at this" approach.

So, OK. Some intuitions about how to end the sentence "If I were normal..." without much editing for accuracy:
...I would talk less: use simpler sentence structure, use fewer and shorter words, communicate thoughts with fewer subsections.
...I would enjoy watching professional sports.
...I would pay more attention to groups and less to individuals.
...I would spend less energy trying to find ways for people I disagree with to seem reasonable.
...I would have either more faith, or none at all.
...I would choose sides more.

There. How's that?

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

if you don't think you're normal, in what ways would you be different if you were normal?

*I wouldn't care so much about what kind of community I lived in, and wouldn't be so concrete about my need to live in an urban environment (as opposed to suburban or rural). Normal people value "most property for your dollar" over anything else and could pretty much live anywhere they felt was the best deal.

*I would have married someone before I turned 40 even if I wasn't really in love with him and only liked him. Normal people stop waiting for the love of their life at a certain point and settle for simply compatible after a while.

*I wouldn't smoke.

*I'd want kids, and probably already have them.

*I'd want to drive and own a car.

*I wouldn't listen to emo and alternative music at my age and would have switched to jazz, classical, and soft pop, and oldies.

*I'd have more physical ailments than I do.

*I wouldn't be into community theatre! (just kidding on that one :-)

[ceelove.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't devote such an enormous portion of my energy to understanding myself.
I wouldn't feel so passionately about the environment and humankind's relationship to it.
I would watch television, and spend less of my time reading.
I wouldn't pay so much attention to how I and others experience our bodies.
I would feel jealousy.
I would be able to hear music in my head, and see images with my eyes closed.
I would have debts, or at least would have had them at some point in my life.
I would value music less.
I would require (when not-pregnant) more than five-six hours of sleep to feel refreshed.
I would be less competitive.
I would practice an organized religion.

[jimmystagger.livejournal.com]

I assign "normal" to be what mainstream pop culture deems is normal. So I (as an American male in his mid-20s) would work a desk job downtown for State Street or something, wear a lot of clothes from Express for Men (at work) and Hollister or American Eagle (on the weekends), know everything about my baseball team (stats, players, etc) but little to nothing about politics, watch a lot of Spike TV, drink a lot of Coors Light, say things like "bra", I would have belonged to a frat in college, and date a girl who would probably be blonde and have an eating disorder. I'd be this guy:


...and I would want one of you to kill me.

My $.02

[muffyjo]

I am completely "normal" for all values of me. I really have no clue what would make me more normal than that.

There have been many moments in my life where I would have a better answer...I would be normal if:

I were Filipino
I were British
I were thinner
I were shorter
I were smarter
I were male
I were less bodaciously endowed
I were less lazy

But really, those are so completely subjective to the time, conversation and place I was in and what I've really come down to is that all that stuff is transient, normal is whatever I am today - which I suppose isn't a normal way of looking at that. :)

[dreams-of-wings.livejournal.com]

This is a bizarrely hard question for me to answer. Some of my answers overlap a bit with dpolicar's, only switched in certain directions for gender differences. (I.e., I would substitute something like "an obsession with make-up" for "I would enjoy watching sports")

But there are other things that come to mind which are more unique to me. So when I think "if I were more normal I would be ____" these are some of what I come up with.
- I would be less aware of my body, the ways in which I use it, the space it inhabits.
- I would attach myself less to the people around me.
- I would spend less time seeking out aesthetic experiences.
- It would be easy to be comfortable being bored.

[dreams-of-wings.livejournal.com]

to clarify: these are not things I wish for myself, simply things that would make me "more normal"

[dpolicar]

This is a rocking icon.
Which is not to say the others are not-rocking.

[dreams-of-wings.livejournal.com]

Why thank you! It's all coraline's fault. :)

(Happily, that can be said of many good things in my life. *grin*)

[mdm-sosostris.livejournal.com]

Were I normal, I'd be defined by my absence.

(Clearly, it's in the best interest of the greater Boston community and the good people at Cuervo that I'm *not* normal.)

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

Grr, livejournal barfed on me the first time I tried posting this comment,
and lost what I had typed. but I still find this interesting, in a lj-meme like way, so I'll try again.

I also want to observe that I think I've gone from a) feeling like I wasn't
normal, wanting to fit in and wishing I was normal (up to about age 16),
to b) surrounding myself with people I thought of as happily weird and different, but tending to be one of the least weird among that crowd,
but feeling freer to be myself and much happier with it than i was in my youth, to c) feeling like in a lot of ways my life has settled down to more of a normal/mainstream rhythm, and voluntarily having a lot of communities that are more normal than me again but no longer feeling awkward in them, and still being glad of my my weirdness and hanging out with those among my friends who are weirder than me.

if I were normal...

I would watch a lot more TV, have cable, etc.

I would not play board games.

I would never have played roleplaying games/LARPS.

I would not have hung out with the goth kids.

I would eat less adventurously.

I would probably keep kosher and do other more observant Jewish things

I would be wanting to move to the suburbs by the time my child is in school.

I would not be seriously considering moving to Eastern Europe by the time my child is in school.

I would travel less, and go on organized tours when I did travel.

I would not enjoy being a geek.

[infinitehotel.livejournal.com]

I've read about normal people, but I don't think I've ever met any. The most normal people I've ever met were absolutely fucking bizarre.

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

If I were "normal" I would not surprise or amuse other people by saying that I think I *am* normal. I mean, I make perfectly good sense to me, and I don't imagine that the impulses and experiences that I've had are that far outside the realm of experiences that other folks have, modulo a little individual texture here and there. And yet, too, I have this impression that other people would kind of chuckle and and say "Oh, yeah, sure, *you're* normal, dear... and I'm the Queen of Latvia," in response to my saying I think I am normal.

[hotpoint.livejournal.com]

Picture if you will multiple axes defining me, where I'm not at the location marked as average on each axis. The axes aren't necessarily orthogonal, but for this discussion I'll assume they are.

One axis would be physiognomy and appearance. If my arms and legs were a couple of inches longer and my frame was smaller, I'd be of average proportions for an American male. I could wear henleys and turtlenecks and other garments that never work me, buy shoes at retail stores and go rollerblading and ice skating and bowling. Independently of that, I could get a short haircut and shave off my beard.

Another axis would be intelligence. I wouldn't be able to hold down the job I'm in, and I would likely have chosen a different career field, if I wasn't above average there. I'd likely also have an entirely different group of friends, but I might not have entirely different interests. If I were a science fiction fan, I'd probably watch more movies and TV and read fewer novels. I could keep an aquarium or drive road rallies or volunteer at cons or whatever; I'm just not sure what I'd find fun if I was less driven to think about everything.

And another axis would be education. I could be bright but untutored, and in that case I'd likely have gravitated to activities where experimentation and self-education are rewarding: being a good auto mechanic or plumber or computer technician, having a hobby as a sabermetrician and rotisserie league player to complement my friends' sports fandom, or spending time on a shooting range with a gun club, and perhaps making money on poker on the weekends.

Yet another axis would be the syndrome of common interests I share with the bulk of my friends. Many of my classmates in school and most of my coworkers now, while quite intelligent, often liberal-leaning and curious about computer experiments, lack interest in science fiction and role-playing games and city living and travel. In that position, I'd be more likely to be living in one of the suburbs up Route 3 with a spouse and children, doing home improvements and working on electronics projects in the basement workshop in my little spare time, inviting friends over for barbeques in order to see them, and subscribing to satellite radio for the commutes. I'd probably get that short haircut, too.

Also, would I be more 'normal' if I lived in Kansas City, or if I hadn't born during a baby bust, or if my last name was one of the top 50 in the US population? Or would I just be more average? I'm not sure that I'd end up as 'normal' with just one of these axes adjusted toward the averages, but I'd likely be easier for a random person to pigeonhole.

Finally, at what point do I stop being me? I think if I was slid along all of the axes I identified to the point marked 'average' I would no longer be someone I or anyone else would recognize. If only one of them were adjusted, I would probably still be recognizably myself, or I'd seem like a relative of mine.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Interesting question. I have had relatives say to me, when I call myself weird, that I'm not and I shouldn't think that; my response is that I tend to find out from people around me, in various ways, how weird they think I am. I can pass for normal at times, but if I get too comfortable and let out some of my real self, I get funny looks from the "normals" around me.

Personally, if I were "normal," the way I perceive the society around me, I think I would:

- Be more obsessed with dieting, makeup, doing my hair, fashion, and the like (not that it's bad to care about this stuff, but I think it's bad to obsess over it).

- Be religious in some way.

- Have a far less warped sense of humor and be vastly less able to perceive irony and cosmic humor.

- Feel that I were somehow incomplete without a man in my life and would not feel comfortable self-identifying as a feminist.

- Care less about reading and literacy.

- Have crappy taste in culture, especially pop music and television. ;-)

- Not be a vegetarian.

- Probably weigh less, though still be somewhat overweight, and wouldn't have such huge feet, and would hate my body.

- Respect authority for its own sake more without questioning.

- Not tolerate anything but monogamy, but would think that cheating would still be less fucked up than polyamory.

- Be much more hung up about sexuality.

- Not have a college education.

- Not have lived overseas or travelled as much.

- Drink more, especially beer.

- Be less open-minded, smart, and critical-thinking. I know this sounds horribly snobbish, but, well, there you go.

[marmota.livejournal.com]

My knee-jerk response to that is, "I think, therefore I'm not normal". The word 'normal' to me, as with jimmystagger's response, conjures up an image of a zombie who works, clothes, feeds, befriends, spiritually consoles, and entertains themselves exactly as they were programmed to do. Pat-pat, good serf, here's your white picket dog and 2.3 kids in the garage. Or whatever.

I'm introspective, body-aware, spatially aware (ask me for my Rant on Situational Awareness&trade sometime), analytical, and critically thinking. For this I get labeled by 'normal' folks as stand-offish, moody, and cynical.

Most of the other things that come to mind stem from that basic conclusion, such as how I vastly prefer reading to any visual media, instrumental to lyrical music, speak when I have something to say rather than to just fill in silences, usw.

So much for the intellectual, now for the material;

I would consume rather than create. Our culture has done a fine job of convincing most people that it's better to buy something new than to use so much as a piece of tape, let alone a screwdriver, to fix a broken one... let alone actually make something from scratch.

I would be insecure, clingy, jealous, and acquisitive. Another thing our culture has done a job on is to convince us not to accept that whatever we have will slip away, so hold on tight and always try to get more. Not surprisingly, material attitudes carry over to emotional ones.

I'd be less uncertain about how much attention I wanted or required. It always amazes me how 'on' most people seem to be all the time. I oscillate between feeling lonely and wanting to be left alone, with very little middle ground and very little warning of where the transition point is on any given day.

I would be more polarized on my life choices.
For example, I have a love/hate relationship with city vs rural living, career paths take at most two years before they start feeling like ruts, and my mental image of the ideal of 'settling down' is in constant flux.