Hello, I blog!

It’s not easy being the deviant child in a world full of norms and conventions, and expectations. You receive loads of frowns, disapproving looks, and remarks brimming with barely concealed skepticism.

Conformity is dead.

That fact that I:-

1. Refuse to put on a mask in a two-faced society, of which its notoriety strips people off who they are at heart and become someone else altogether; what society wants them to be and not what they want to be.

2. Choose to work in a dynamic start-up known for their instability and susceptibility (bearing in mind the cold hard fact that 9 out of 10 startups fail) because of rather than take the conventional route of looking for work in a Big 5 Company or an MNC.

3. Choose to chase my own dreams and do what I want to do despite its risks. Rather than “making practical choices” or going with “what works and is more likely to succeed”.

4. Am an asexual being in an Asian society where coupledom, marriage and starting a family is much encouraged (or even expected), and being surrounded by friends who all have partners themselves.

5. Am the only tomboy in an extended family full of pretty faces – both sides of the family, material and paternal. All my like-gendered cousins are drop dead good-looking. No doubt. And very feminine. Whereas I choose to prance around in tees, jeans, caps and sneakers.

(Until today, I’m pretty sure the aunts and uncles think something, somewhere has gone horribly wrong. We all know the older generation – any form of deviant behaviour is a defect to them.)

6. Refuse to betray in the face of an increasingly vindictive society. In a world where politics and boot-licking are rife, I choose to play fair by competing based on ability and skill.

7. Defy authority. Not to the point of breaking the law. But basically, challenging conventional, old-fashioned behaviour, or rules meant to ‘put you in your place’ or to ‘ensure conformity’.

8. Am an Atheist in an extended family of Christians and Catholics.

– makes me deviant on almost all possible angles.

(Note: Not all mentioned conventions, per se. Some of which are increasingly common behaviour in which new players are “expected” to take on, otherwise “they’d be at a disadvantage”, so to speak.)

The fact that I am deviant and (usually) unable to hold my own in a verbal dispute makes me particularly vulnerable. My mind may be rife with my own thought-processes, which I am unable to properly articulate because emotions take over very quickly. I stutter like hell.

This means that I’d better grow a solid pair of balls. Fast. Before I lose my ground against someone who comes along and stares me down like I’m some freak of nature.

I am beyond proud, and happy to be who I am, and where I am now, and I do not want to lose that.

What are your deviant traits and how do you stand your ground against your sceptics?