Odd? Who you callin’ Odd?

About two weeks ago I went to lunch with an old friend of mine and during that repast we wandered onto a blog topic from a while ago. Where was that… oh yeah, here it is: Best Friends Forever. In that teeny-tiny blog post I wondered aloud briefly about the definition of friendship, how friendships come about, blah, blah, blah. You all saw it. It’s printed out and pinned to your wall at work.

Anyway, Charlie (he’s the friend in question, if I may make so bold as to call him a friend without causing him to feel undo pressure to reciprocate that moniker) recalled for me the circumstances under which our friendship came about. I have a horrible memory for EVERYTHING so I’d long ago scrapped all the details about this period of my life but Charlie said that when we first met he was a bit … well, irritated by me. He came to work in my department briefly (one of these ‘job exchange’ deals) and since he was the new guy I had a tendency to watch his trouble ticket queue (this was in tech support you understand) and make sure he got what he needed to get his customer issues taken care of. Anyway, from my perspective I was trying to be helpful and proactive but from Charlie’s perspective I was an interfering prig who was disapproving of how he was doing his job.

This makes me sincerely wonder just how the rest of the world sees me, especially when they first meet me. I’m sure that in a LOT of ways I can be irritating on first contact. And come to think of it, we did have a Euchre party last Saturday for my wife’s co-workers and after it was over she scolded me for ‘glaring’ at our guests. This wasn’t the first time she’s had such a complaint but as usual I pled total ignorance. I distinctly recall not glaring at anyone; since she had complained about it before I was extremely careful to look at people with only the most inscrutable impassivity. I didn’t even use my Lurch impression on people as they came in the door. But somehow, just as with Charlie, I was irritating to people with nothing but the best of intentions (or at the very least neutral ones). I really must figure out what’s causing that and put an end to it.

Then, the very ground of my existence shook beneath my feet. Charlie said something that I can not yet believe and which has changed my life forever. He said *gasp* that I *choke* *sob* was *wail* ODD. Can you believe the audacity? Me?!!? Of all people?!? ODD??!?!?? You have to be kidding or else just trying to fill in conversational dead air if you would dare accuse me of such a thing. I defy ANY of you out there to name even ONE odd thing about me. I’m the most pedestrian, most typical Joe 5-Pack on the face of this planet!

Okay, maybe not MOST typical. Clearly Charlie meant this as a compliment and the fact that I took it immediately as such is clear evidence of my deep-rooted cynicism. I guess what was surprising was that my ‘Oddness’ was this obvious to people, that anyone had actually NOTICED that I was odd. I look at the people around me and it’s obvious from my perspective that I don’t really think like you people. So it’s no surprise to me but to be told by an outside source that there’s something not quite tight in your set of legos; that’s astounding. This means that not only am I probably really not a normal person (whatever NORMAL means) but that everybody around me knows it and only my good buddy Charlie is man enough to tell me. My question at this point is HOW obvious. As I’m walking through Target are people thinking, “My, what an odd person (but DAMN he’s handsome)?” I’d give some significant amount of … well, something my wife wouldn’t miss so not money… but something cool… to walk around in someone’s brain for a day and spy on myself.

Random joking aside though, I’m not really convinced that anyone has any sense whatsoever what ‘Odd’ means. In the most definable sense, Odd just means ‘Not like Me.’ By that standard, everyone I’ve ever met is odd. I completely don’t understand why people do most of the things they do. Oddly enough though, I think people tend to enjoy being around those they consider ‘Odd’ (well, unless they’re scary at the same time) because the odd people around us represent different facets of the human condition that we haven’t experienced yet. Humans are naturally curious so we always want to know what other people are doing and how they live and how they think. I’m deeply curious to know what goes on in the minds of the people I know. So there, come on people. Let’s get some quality blog work going on out there. I need your innermost thoughts and I need them in my RSS reader by this time tomorrow. Chop, Chop!