Pariah

pa·ri·ah   (p-r)
n.

1. A social outcast: “Shortly Tom came upon the juvenile pariah of the village, Huckleberry Finn, son of the town drunkard” (Mark Twain).
2. An Untouchable.

I’m such a massive fan of Dictionary.com these days.

Today I went for brunch with a couple of friends of mine.  I’ve been friends with both of these people for about a year now, and they started dating each other after a couple of parties we all went to back in October.  They’re cool folks, but since they started dating they’ve kind of withdrawn from the community and are totally doing the settled-down-couples thing.

Over brunch we caught up on how things have been going and what’s been going on in our lives.  I told them about my legit contract job and my social life.  They began disapproving when I told them about how I went about breaking up with my girlfriend a couple weeks back – namely that I bounced back with basically no effort and I’m thriving as a reborn bachelor.  They finished up the disapproving with a harsh set of critiques for a fundraiser I performed in a few weeks ago that they came to.

It was pretty much done for me when I heard the tones of voice they used to talk about one of my current lovers.  She’s nowhere near perfect, but it hurt to hear someone so close to me, no matter what their reputation, spoken of with such venom.  It made me realize how people view not only my lovers, but also elements of myself that I usually only share with lovers.  The amount of judgement that’s out there – even from people close to me.

I am proud of what I do with my life, no matter how society views me.  I enjoy my recreational drug use.  My aggressive approach to sex and dating – and the passion with which I enjoy it.  My unwillingness to back down until I get my way.  My liberated and educated approach to the sex industry.  Being a strong, unashamed, and progressive person.  I am proud – if my family knew what goes on in my life, "proud" would be the last word they would use to describe it.

Unfortunately, if I move forward on the path that I’m on, and I ever choose to speak about it, there will be people around me, people close to me, who will disapprove.  A lot of people don’t understand why I do the things I do, or what my background is, and they wouldn’t accept the explanations.  I have a lot of values that are out of the norm, and come from such a variety of influences that it would be impossible to explain to everyone why I am the way I am.  To be honest, I’m not even sure.

I make decisions that other people don’t understand.  Somehow my brain makes me do things out of society’s imposed standard, which throws people off because they’ve never seen anyone step out of the mould so far or with such ease – or perhaps they have, but have passed the same judgement.  I will always be judged, because I’m not normal – I am out of the mainstream, and I’m working really hard to accept the fact that a lot of people don’t like that.

I am different.  An outcast.  Pariah.