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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Do you consider yourself normal or weird?

113 replies

ILTWL · 19/03/2024 13:21

YABU - normal
YANBU - weird

OP posts:
Allfur · 19/03/2024 13:37

Isn't feeling weird, normal? Most people thing they are different don't they? Although I don't particularly

DramaAlpaca · 19/03/2024 13:41

I prefer being called quirky to weird. I'm definitely quirky.

NotestoSelf · 19/03/2024 13:42

Pineapplewaves · 19/03/2024 13:25

Weird - I'm a very quiet, introverted person who just likes to stay at home and live a quiet life - people don't get me and I've been told many times that I'm weird or there's something wrong with me!

Yet the majority of Mners consider this entirely ordinary and in fact desirable! Even assuming that an anonymous online forum may disproportionately attract unsociable introverts who prefer engaging with others via keyboards rather than face to face, what you describe can't be all that unusual, surely?

I've lived in enough places to have been made forcibly aware that ideas of 'normal' and 'weird' are both culturally specific. Finnish ideas about what constitutes 'introversion' are very different to those in the UK, for instance -- much larger idea of personal space, physical and emotional, far less smalltalk, more comfort with prolonged silences.

Most British people are far more indirect in their communication style than Dutch people, who aren't going to pretend your new haircut looks good if they don't think it does, and have different ideas about privacy (which anyone walking through Amsterdam at night will see -- you can look in uncurtained, brightly-lit windows into people's living rooms.)

I'm not a Brit, and consider myself deeply ordinary. When I lived in London and Oxford, I was 'ordinary'. When I moved less than 100 miles out of London to a large village near a city, I was suddenly deeply weird, despite being exactly the same person. Whether being a foreign, professional mother of one who cycles or walks everywhere is 'weird' or not depends on who's looking.

MojoDojoCasaHouse · 19/03/2024 13:43

I have always felt weird and out of step. I was labelled a loner by teachers at school and felt desperately lonely. I started learning to act normal in my teens and have a mostly conventional life now. Luckily my DH is weird two so I’m not alone anymore. I have lots of friends but I still feel an outsider and a fraud being in a social group. I feel like Adrian Mole, an intellectual who isn’t very bright.

DuskyEvenings · 19/03/2024 13:45

Weird. Recently diagnosed with adhd and awaiting ASD assessment

Elphame · 19/03/2024 13:49

Definitely weird.

How boring it would be to be normal!

CranfordScones · 19/03/2024 13:55

I don't know, but I suspect other people regard me as decidedly weird.

MojoDojoCasaHouse · 19/03/2024 13:55

I’d love to be normal. Seems much less tiring. I keep making friends with people who seen normal but aren’t and that’s exhausting too. Us pretend normals must attract each other.

UnctuousUnicorns · 19/03/2024 13:57

Beenaboutabit · 19/03/2024 13:26

I’m normal.
everyone else is weird as fuck tho

☝️This.

EasterBunnny · 19/03/2024 13:58

I’m a weirdo.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 19/03/2024 14:01

KalaMush · 19/03/2024 13:23

Normal!

I don't think anyone is normal. I remember watching an episode of QI where they talked about the statisticians who tried to define the normal Australian woman, based on all their stats. They produced a definition of this normal woman, but couldn't find a single actual Aussie woman who fulfilled all the criteria!

When I was doing therapy for depression, my therapists were not at all keen on the word normal - as they said, how do you define what is normal?

Of course there is the other viewpoint - that I am the only normal one, and you lot are all weird. As the saying goes, "All the world is mad, save thee and me, dear - and even thee's a little peculiar!"

WinchSparkle80 · 19/03/2024 14:03

Absolutely Weird

CurlewKate · 19/03/2024 14:03

Normal. In my experience people who self define as weird are even more normal than I am!

DitheringBlidiot · 19/03/2024 14:04

I've never considered it. I've done/said things where afterwards I've thought "well that was weird" but as a whole entity I haven't thought about it. Not sure what that says about me as a whole.

gano · 19/03/2024 14:04

I pass as normal, but I'm definitely very weird.

RockRollRing · 19/03/2024 14:04

Weirdly I'm normal

But normally I'm weird.

Tittyfilarious · 19/03/2024 14:10

What's normal though , who decides what's normal and what's not 🤔

ILTWL · 19/03/2024 14:34

The reason I ask is Im neurodivergent and I know I’m unusual and always felt like a weirdo but I wanted to know if most people find themselves weird. It’s up to you to decide what ‘normal’ is for yourself.

OP posts:
Tittyfilarious · 19/03/2024 14:37

ILTWL · 19/03/2024 14:34

The reason I ask is Im neurodivergent and I know I’m unusual and always felt like a weirdo but I wanted to know if most people find themselves weird. It’s up to you to decide what ‘normal’ is for yourself.

I'd say most people are probably normal but have their own weird quirks 😊 that's how I'd describe myself

SherrieElmer · 19/03/2024 14:38

Everybody is weird these days, so it has become normal.
There is no normal normal, just weird normal.

Containerhome · 19/03/2024 14:40

What is normal any who?

Hoolihan · 19/03/2024 14:42

I voted normal because I don't believe there's anything particularly unusual/remarkable about me, I live a pretty standard kind of life albeit with the unique quirks and preferences and habits that we all have. I'm very happy.

thisisasurvivor · 19/03/2024 14:42

Pineapplewaves · 19/03/2024 13:25

Weird - I'm a very quiet, introverted person who just likes to stay at home and live a quiet life - people don't get me and I've been told many times that I'm weird or there's something wrong with me!

See I don't see anything wrong with this at all

Needmorelego · 19/03/2024 14:43

@ILTWL my daughter is autistic (high functioning). I have never been diagnosed but probably am too.
She goes to a SEN secondary school where all the children are autistic.
Clothes - they mostly dress in comfortable trackies, t-shirts and hoodies with trainers -
comfortable easy to move around in clothes.
No one cares if it's designer label or Primark.
Many have hobbies (aka special interests). Sometimes the hobbies are shared, sometimes not. But they are all so accepting of each others interests.
No one makes fun of anyone else.
No one makes fun if all someone eats at lunchtime is yogurt everyday.
No one cares if one day someone decides to turn up with pink hair and a my little pony backpack.
These are the children society would call "weird".
Personally I think they are the ones doing life the correct way.
No hatred. Just acceptance.
🙂

BeaRF75 · 19/03/2024 14:43

Doesn't that depend on how you define "normal" and "weird"? We will all have different views, opinions, lifestyles etc so impossible to answer. Shouldn't we be celebrating the fact that we're not all the same?