Social misfits

I noticed that some of us have described ourselves as social misfits. Could we share some stories about that (and also how books play a role)? My story is that from a young age I liked melancholy, sad, or really dark stories. My brother found a collection of stories by Guy de Maupassant on the highschool bus that he drove. The book was never claimed, and he gave it to me. Maupassant wrote some very strange stuff, such as the story about a man who was so overcome by grief at the death of his wife that he dug her up three days later. Another story was about a funeral pyre. Still another was called "Mother of Monsters." It was about a woman who purposely bound her womb with corsets and sold her misshapen babies to sideshows. All this from the man who is considered by some to be the father of the modern short story! Admittedly, it was all a bit much for me; I was just 13, but I was really fascinated. I actually thought the book might be obscene so I hid it under my bed for fear that my parents would find it. It was a big secret and I never told anyone about it, not even my best friend at school because I knew she would just think I was strange. My reaction to the book branded me a social misfit in my own mind, and I was never able to shake the feeling. Years later, I wrote about this event in a short story, which was published soon afterward. Writing the story gave me immense pleasure. It was such a relief to get it out in the open at last. The fact that it got published and people read it gave me even more pleasure. My "secret" was out at last, and I didn't have to carry it around like a big burden any more.

Interesting question, TheresaWilliams!

A hearing disability turned me into a social misfit!

I was a quiet and shy child who turned social and rowdy in my college years due to a very outgoing roommate who is still among my best of friends.

About eight years ago, I began to lose my hearing. I was diagnosed with a moderate bilateral neurosensory hearing loss and since then have worn hearing aids in both ears. In the beginning, I was helped by the hearing aids. As my hearing loss started to include decreasing word discrimination, I found that being in situations of many people (too many contrasting sounds, too many echoes, etc.) decreased my ability to function in many social situations.

I do fine in one-on-one situations, but desperately try to avoid crowds of people now. It's not that I don't like them. It's that I can't understand what they're saying.

Enter cyberspace and books - my salvation!

I can go online and understand everyone! I am particularly addicted to LibraryThing and BookCrossing.

At work, I can avoid the noisy luchroom, grab my favorite book, and sit and read in a nearby store or on a sunny bench. I even look forward to my midday reading time. Don't get me wrong. I do very much like the people with whom I work. Is it just that I'm a social misfit? :-)

P.S. I'm really a likable and formerly social person! In fact, can we have a 60th birthday party in my honor this October here at LT? ;-)

I, too, have been losing my hearing for several years now and am plagued with permanent tinnitus. Too many years standing too close to the speakers at rock concerts in places that were too small. The fruits of a misspent youth.

I try to make the best of the situation though. Quite often, comparing what I think I hear and what people actually say can be a real hoot. If I hear something that makes absolutely no sense I just repeat it back with an expression in my voice that says why are you saying such a ridiculous thing. More often than not it helps set people at ease and makes them more willing to repeat themselves.

I too have great problems hearing in restaurants and other places where there is too much ambient noise. I just take one hand and put it behind which ever ear is singing the quietest and cup it forward to catch the sound, This looks goofy, but usually works.

I have this fear that I will live to be 130 (that's my goal) but be blind and deaf for the last 40 years.

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Whoa! Another social hearing-disabled, bibliophile misfit!!! :-)

Aren't hard copies of books wonderful? Some of the audio tapes of books (actually CDs) I listen to on my way to work can be a real challenge!

I am a classic social misfit. I am one of those people who spend almost all their time reading, with very little time in conversation or more than minimal social interaction. Books to me are like the air, essential to life.

Besides the people I live with (i.e. my wife), usually the only real conversations I have are with a friend in Japan whom I call once a week. Even then, he does most of the talking. The fact that I am married is a constant source of wonder; my most common thought about being married being 'how does she put up with me?' On social occasions I have always tended to be the one who says the least.

I don't want to give the impression that I am misanthropic. It is inability to communicate and not dislike that keeps me silent around others. Also, like SqueakyChu, I am going deaf which tends to exacerbate my social inadequacies.

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A hearing disability definitely puts a crimp in our style.

Self Help for Hard of Hearing People has an internet forum on which we can all gripe together. You don't even have to talk. You can just type! :-)

Hearingloss.org

xenchu, it sounds like the two of us are really alike. Social situations are very weird for me. Even as a child I was that way. I have a clear memory of once being taken to a daycare while my mother shopped. I sat on an upside-down chair and just calmly gazed out at all the children, feeling like I had absolutely nothing in common with them. As I've grown, gotten older, I've found I just can't be articulate in social situations, so I just stay quiet.

It's often the silent ones that have the most to contribute. And silent ones LOOOVE the Internet, group talk, blogs, message boards, etc. Gives us a chance to think through things before we express ourselves.

I've read so much of people who are deaf or losing their hearing; they adapt really well, most of them.

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It's often the silent ones that have the most to contribute. And silent ones LOOOVE the Internet, group talk, blogs, message boards, etc. Gives us a chance to think through things before we express ourselves.

The internet has really been a boon for quiet kids. My oldest son was generally very quiet during his youth. In high school, he found the internet opened a world of friendships to him because he was able to silently communicate with others only through the written word. Consequently, he has met many of these "cyberpeople" in real life and developed real friendships based on shared interests.

Me? I miss being in social situations. I learned to love to talk. Can you tell? :-)

I guess I'm a social misfit because I'm, hum, not a snob exactly. Hum, not a misanthrope exactly because I don't hate and distrust all people. Not an anything, exactly. I've never felt that I fit in, or wanted to fit in, with any group. People like me, for reasons I can't discern, but that doesn't mean I have to like them. I'm generous with everything but my time, so maybe that's why people like me, they don't have to see much of me. (laughing)

xenchu and tontine2: are we related? LOL.

SqueakyChu: I'm so glad for your son. I know how he feels.

Wouldn't some of you like to tell a little story about your misfitdom?

What's to tell, TW? Drifting around at parties like a ghost. Being in small groups and saying nothing, always the same thing. Even at work I never said more than enough to get the job done.

If you don't fit, you don't fit; end of story.

I'll tell a little story. I went through a series of husbands and boy friends before I finally admitted that the "tied to" state was not for me. I think I have room in my life for one more fling, but not if he gets too close.

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I've read so much of people who are deaf or losing their hearing; they adapt really well, most of them.

Often it appears that we are adapting much better than we do in reality or that we feel inwardly. When we respond to conversation appropriately, others have no idea of how much conversation we are actually missing.

xenchu: A story begins like this: "Once upon a time" or "One day I"... Oh, there is always more to tell. xenchu, you could write a whole novel about it. Here is another story:

Once upon a time, when I was just starting my first Master's Degree, I was given a ride (I don't remember where) by a young man who (I later realized) didn't know I was married. I didn't wear a ring. It turns out, he was cruising for a girlfriend, because shortly after I met him, he attached himself to another woman in the program.

Back to the ride: So we're riding along, and he is fiddling with the radio, or the tape player, and he says, "What kind of music do you like?"

And I froze. This was in 1985; I'd been married 11 years, had three children, and had been so busy with home and school that I hadn't listened to music in years. Not since highschool, really. And all I could remember was: "I am woman, hear me roar." And I thought to myself, "You can't say THAT."

And I said, "I like everything."

And he gave me this very odd look, this really FISHY look, and that was the end of the conversation. I mean forever. He never talked to me again.

And I was relieved. But at the same time I felt a deficit.

Now, you can tell me a story, can't you? Hmmm?

tontine2: A SERIES? Well, how many were there? A series sounds like a lot for somebody who's antisocial. :-) There's got to be several stories in there. Pick one: one man, one event. I know there's more you could be telling. Push, nudge.

SqueakyChu: Yes, I can imagine that a lot of emotions are masked by people experiencing hearing loss. My husband's hearing has been going for a while. It changes the dynamic of your communication with one another. Life involves so much loss. It's hard. You seem to have a very good attitude, though. Happy. And social. :-)

xenchu: I really need to write a short story someday about that incident with the man and the music. It's one of those events, like with the Maupassant book, that has hung onto me since it happened. I used to burn with embarrassment everytime I thought about it. I don't so much anymore, but it's more like an aggravating itch. I felt like such a fool. And that look he gave me. Ack.

I'm also one of those people who would prefer sitting down with a book rather than do almost anything except spend time with my family. I've never enjoyed parties, and my friends think that makes me a social misfit...but I don't care. I will get together with them for small group events, movies, and lunch. I don't join book groups because I don't want to read books on schedule or read a book that's been assigned. I enjoy classics, and most of the book clubs around here are touting the latest best seller on the independent book list. I don't really like much contemporary writing.
I have a story about my dating days when it was all about trying to retain the "good girl" image. A guy I dated once or twice parked somewhere quiet to "talk". So we talked awhile but it was clear that discussion was not what he had in mind. I don't know how it happened that we had started to talk about books. He said something about "Alice in Wonderland" being a story for grown ups. "No kidding," I replied between his next wet embrace. "Umm". Slop, slop. "Why?" I asked. "Something about the Queen of England..." Yummy. "Really, that's amazing. And so on, I think you get the picture. No matter how insistant he got, I just had another question to ask about Alice, until he pulled away and smiled: "You sure can talk," he said, as he finally got the hint and turned the motor back on. We talked about Alice all the way home.

Hmmm, a story.

OK, this is something I remember. I was sitting in my room at college with one of my roommates. He had just taken the exam for Law School, the LSAT. He was complaining about the questions on the test. He said, "Who knows Michaelangelo's last name?" I responded with the name "Buonarrotti" and he shook his fist at me and said, "I mean _normal_ people!"

xenchu ~ that's really funny! I can relate. Give me a trivia question about history or literature and I will probably know the answer. TV or pop culture trivia? I'm all "huh?"

Okay, a story. I was about 12 or 13 and an avid reader with few friends. One day, I was curled on the sofa reading as usual and my mother (who was also an avid reader and should have known better) scolded me saying, "You're always sitting around the house with your nose stuck in some book! You need to get out more!" So the next year, having discovered boys, I did (go out more), and then she was always yelling at me about never being home!

Seriously, although I was always out, it was mostly because I didn't really fit in at home. I also didn't fit in with the good kids, the cool kids, or the studious kids. Who did I hang around with? Other misfits, of course! They included the geeks, the dorks, the rebels, and the wild ones.

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Other misfits, of course! They included the geeks, the dorks, the rebels, and the wild ones.

You realize, of course, that being a geek, a dork, a rebel, and/or a wild one is very cool these days!

Maybe that's my problem, SqueakyChu ~ I was born too soon. Or maybe it was too late. lol

I think I might have fit in better in any other era than the one I was born into ~ the 50s and 60s ~ although maybe that's just wishful thinking.

xenchu: I love your story! It really made me smile. Yes, a really sweet--and bittersweet--story. It makes me think of that line in a Bob Dylan song: "Behind every beautiful thing, there is some kind of pain." So lovely that you actually knew Michaelangelo's last name (I didn't); but that knowlege somehow made you not "normal" in your roomate's eyes. This story seems like it might be highly illustrative of much of your life.

Storeetllr: Oh if I had a nickel for everytime my mother told me to get my nose out of a book. It sounds like you created a real social network for yourself because you write in the plural (other misfits, geeks, dorks, etc.) For me it was a matter of finding one or two people who I could be with, eat lunch with (Lunchtime at school was a horror for me if I was alone), have sleep overs with.

When I hit puberty I got caught by the siren call of the "bad boys." Oh dear, that's another topic.

I think of Emily Dickinson, a recluse with such a rich inner life. I've read some of her letters. People who visited her said she was so intense and demanding that they could only take her in short spurts. All her energies must have been mounting and mounting in all that silence. I used to feel like that.

I think for me it was a matter of finding what to give that energy to. It is a subterranean energy that bursts forth with great power like a volcano. How to spend that energy?

SqueekyChu: thanks for visiting my blog and leaving a message. Your comment made me think of something, and I'm not ready yet but I want to write it down soon.

I don't think I could have ever been considered "cool." Sometimes even the teachers in school forgot I was there. I'm serious.

Vivenbrenda: Brava! What a great story! I am laughing now even as I type this. I can see that. It's like a scene in a great movie.

One of the things I continue to have a problem with is people who get together with other readers/writers solely for the purpose of the social interaction. It's like the young man in your story; art is the means to an end, not the end itself. I always feel duped in interactions with these people because I'm genuinely interested in the art. Has this ever happened to any of the rest of you??

I have always been self-conscious, even when I was alone, especially as a teen age boy. I found early on that a few beers loosened me up and allowed me to feel more comfortable in groups of people. As life went along a few beers became a six pack or a couple of pitchers over pizza with friends and co-workers. Then I discovered that mixing beer and weed just really let things loose. For about ten years I was a full bore alcoholic and really learned to party hearty as they said then.

During the roaring '70's everyday several drinking buddies of which I was one, would go to the bar next door, Brandywine Downs, and partake of the six for one happy hour. Six of any drink for the price of one. Five or six of us would meet there and each order a round before we rolled out the door. I was somewhat successful at meeting women this way, but I think it was the times more than my drunken charm. After ten years of partying like this I began to wake up suffering from blackouts. I fainted, not passed out, but fainted, several times. I tried to run through the wall in my bedroom because there was a giant spider lowering itself onto me. I realized that people whose company I enjoyed were no longer coming around. I got the distinct feeling things were going very wrong. Fortunately, I met the woman who is now my wife, she did not drink and over time she weaned me away, mostly by going places where drink was not the focus. Of course, when I stopped drinking I became my old, shy, unsure self again. Since I've been married to my present wife, we have developed a couple of very close friends with whom we hang out at parties and events, go to supper with and enjoy each others company. There is no drinking.

I have not given up alcohol completely, I enjoy a glass of red wine with supper and about once, maybe twice a week, I have a very iced down glass of bourbon. I still have a very ambivalent relationship with alcohol.

Alcohol is like a very jealous lover. She will drive everything in your life away so there is nothing left but her (or him, I guess, if you are a woman), and then, as you look up at her from the gutter, laugh at you and taunt you, daring you to leave her. She's nearly under control now. I must be ever vigilant against her seductions, for those of you who know her intimately, not sex, not food, not housing, none of the necessities of life can stand up to her charms.

It takes quite a while for my body to recover when we make love, and I really don't like being hung-over for days.

Is this a good story for shy persons needing the strength to get up and do what has to be done?

Gene, thank you so much for sharing this. You are so much like your name. "Gene Greathouse." There is so much in you. Many of the great artists and poets drank/drink. I think for some of the same reasons you talk about here. My favorite poet Theodore Roethke self-medicated himself this way. He had a mental break when he was 27 and had hallucinations. He was bi-polar, but the drinking couldn't have helped. John Berryman drank too much. And James Dickey. And Dylan Thomas: lordy did he drink. I think the drink gave them the courage they needed for social interactions. From what I gather, each man, in his way, was lonely and shy, and also afraid. When you say you became shy again after not drinking I wonder how you greeted that.

TheresaWilliams said: xenchu: I love your story! It really made me smile. Yes, a really sweet--and bittersweet--story. It makes me think of that line in a Bob Dylan song: "Behind every beautiful thing, there is some kind of pain." So lovely that you actually knew Michaelangelo's last name (I didn't); but that knowledge somehow made you not "normal" in your roommate's eyes. This story seems like it might be highly illustrative of much of your life.

Thank you. I suppose it is slightly illustrative of my life. How many times have you been asked, "How did you know that?" I don't consider myself well educated not even by reading. Reading is a good way to pick up bits and pieces; education requires discipline I lack.

Xenchu, I haven't been asked "How did you know that?" very often. I don't remember details most of the time, just broad concepts. I have to hover over details like eggs, keep them close at hand. They just don't stay in my memory.

Actually, like xenchu, I used to be asked, "how did you know that?" Now I'm just the one that my friends turn to when they can't recall an author or a book title.

One friend a month ago looked at me and expected me to remember a fantasy writer who was at the end of the alphabet, but it wasn't Jane Yolen. Fortunately, I was able to come up with Patricia Wrede out of nowhere.

I think any childhood medical problems for those of us over fifty may have landed us in the category of social misfit. I had polio as a child, but could read and thus stay with or ahead of other kids a year or two older than myself. The world wasn't as accepting of physical disabilities back then. If you sat out of activities, you had to make up for it in some fashion.

Someone earlier in this thread commented how the Web had helped a lot of us and I think that's true. For some certainly, perhaps not for all.

I wonder which came first, the need to be alone, or the lonliness --- Whatever it was, I'm happy that my childhood gave me the opportunity to disappear into books. As an adult, I began to write myself, and had some success. Today, I am back to reading, having decided that there are so many better writers out there me, it's silly to waste my time with a blank piece of paper when I can be enjoying the words of someone else.
By the way, I'm not the least bit lonely any more...I have a wonderful family, grandchildren, lots of friends, and so many interests that I'll need five more lifetimes just to get to the ones I have now.
Thanks for starting this site. It's so wonderful to know other people that too their lives lemons and turned them into tequilla sunrises.

i don't see any real MISFITS on this page so far. i see a bunch of hard-of-hearing oldsters that mostly have learned that people aren't that much fun.

i have a coffee mug that says: I LOVE MANKIND; IT'S PEOPLE I CAN'T STAND!

Ditto. when I went to a central school in the mountains (school population was about 200 from Kindergarten through 12) I was the class

jock
brain
clown
and hood

all four of these separate personnae have followed me through my life. I have a muscularly disabled body, three degrees, a weird and sometimes quite unacceptable form of humour, and have belonged to two motorcycle "clubs" (3 piece patch type).

the one word my friends, or should i say passing ships of my life, use for me is "weird."

for the real misanthrope or hermit, here's some advice for you if you'd like to disappear within society:

do not file an income tax.
do not use your social security number for ANYTHING after you've received your disability.
dont have a driver's license (unless you dont live in a city with a good mass transit system) or have friends who take you out.

basically -- get out of the system!!

and READ READ and, yes, if you feel compelled, WRITE under a psuedonym, publish yourself, and sell them at social events.

andyray: How DARE you call us unmisfits! Well! :-D

...and andyray called us "oldsters", but I'm not going to be 60 until October 18th of this year!

What's an oldster? Is it an age or a state of mind?

When one of my grandchildren started school, she was diagnosed with "Attention Deficit Disorder". One, by one, the other grandchildren were also labled ADD. My children & I did some investigating & we realize we ALL have some aspect of ADD. I was never able to function in groups, noise attacked me from every direction & concentrating on any conversation was impossible. In social settings, a drink in my hand was my best defence. Actually, I HATE social situations. So much nicer to be alone (or with family) in front of the TV with a good book.Some of the kids were saved by musical abilities, being smarter than average, or self medication (not really saved)
Inour day, we were "loners" at best, "unsocial" at worst. Now psychology has invented whole new catagories for "social misfits." And a pharmacy of pills to correct the problem. This "oldster" (a retired person who can remember every detail of the past but not what I just put in the microwave) prefers the "lose yourself in a good book" solution. Who needs social?

I am thoroughly convinced ADD is caused by watching television before the age of puberty. All kinds of social connections are being made during that time, and if the primary and even secondary activity of a child is watching television these elements of socialization are not taking place. Television, IMHO, is mental poison. I am of the first generation of television watchers, and suffered severely from what was called "daydreaming" at the time, but had many of the earmarks of ADD. Both of my children watched TV when they were growing up and suffered from it. I blame television for many of our social problems.

Another problem we have in socializing our children is not letting them be children. Children aren't little adults, no matter how proud of them we are when they act like it. Children are learning to create social positions, learning their place in the pecking order, what works for social advancement and what doesn't, what social behaviors are acceptable and what isn't. they are learning self-discipline and self-control. Most of all they are learning how to create through unstructured play. Most of our kids anymore get very little time for unstructured play. In an effort to discover the next Hank Aaron, or Joe Montana, or Cobie Bryant we force our children into permanently regimented lives, school, church, karate, T-Ball and Little League, Pop Warner football, Rec center basketball leagues, boy scouts and girl scouts, summer camp. We've taken the pickup baseball game and made it a competition instead of fun. Same with basketball, Soccer and football. This pertains to both boys and girls. Children are being turned into miserable little automatons through structure. No wonder they seem to be all ADD. Between learning to take information in in discrete segments with no time for questions and digestion, to living busy, highly structured lives, void of real play, it's a miracle we all aren't parricides or worse.

OK, 'nuff said. My favorite TV show, around which I build my day is coming on now.

the definition given by MarianV above is accurate and generally accepted. My memory is wonderful from 1950 through the Reagan years, but I think I just put the cat in the microwave. What a noise
its making!

For whatever it's worth, I don't own a television machine.

We are all misfits! Just being here in Librarything indicates that we are book fetishists. In the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, being a book-worm labelled us as misfits. With TV now so dominent, book people are obviously misfits.

Naren559 ~ Hear, hear! :)

andyray ~ I just read what you wrote about the cat and not owning a television machine. lol Right there with you, except I don't have a cat and I own two TVs, but since they're not connected to cable only one station comes in (and that one is almost all static).

(In case you're wondering, I keep the dang things for when my daughter comes to visit ~ she says she can't sleep unless a TV is on in the background. (Kids!) Also for editing the occasional home movies I take on my camcorder and for watching an occasional video ~ er, I mean, DVD.)

#39 Store...

people think we are weird; we who read voraciously! Well, I think a person who cannot sleep without electronic noise in the background is

WEIRD

hoohah!

Weird is as weird does. You are weird if you do not conform to the stereotypical TV culture. Our household has TV sets for playing Teaching Company DVD lectures. We stopped watching TV (news) in 1972. Turned it on again to watch Richard Nixon squirm over Watergate; haven't seen TV news since.

Lately I've been looking around at all the "normal" people and have been thinking they are the "weird" ones! LOL

No news since 1972? You'd be shocked at how bad it's gotten. All canned and prepackaged. It's just sad.

Our news comes from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. What is nice about newspaper news is that one does not have to wait through comercials for the next bit of news and you can be much more selective about what you read. From what I hear FOX news really sucks big time.

Ok, so I am even different in this group (-;

I am older...duh. But I have always loved social events and can shine, shine, shine but not many long lasting friendships. And I do feel wishful about that.

I grew up in a typical dysfunctional post WWII family which fell apart - j.d. older brother, alchoholic father, died young, alchoholic martyr mother, bla, bla, bla

So, in college, I drank. Similar story to most shy, insecure people who drink to excess - 20 years later I was a full blown alcoholic. You can imagine what that did to my "close friendships". But, you know, I started reading to escape from my family and continued reading to escape from my life. I used to try to read myself to sleep even when I was completely drunk. Not an easy task, reading with one eye closed (-;

So, I stumbled thru life, with books frequently being my only friends. Books have entertained me, advised me, and loved me. I am now no longer drinking or smoking but I am still reading. And I do still go to social events. Sometimes I even make a friend or two.

I love LT because it keeps me good company in my retirement, along with my two dogs.

Thanks for this thread, it has been quite entertaining and touching.

Your so-called "difference", appears to me as one more case of why you probably just fit right in. I'll bet that every one, who has signed on to Librarything, has a way of defining themself as a "misfit" aside from just being a book-worm. (even a misfit from LT), primarily because reading a lot seems to cause a great deal of introspection: e.g., "Maybe I'm that way"; or "God! I do that too!" or "That's what I want to be when I grow up.", etc., etc. Hell, with a "life-story" as f......ed up as mine, I am surprised I made it to 74.

Hi, maggie1944 ~ thank you for sharing your painful story. You are not so different in this group as you may think, tho. Your story is also mine, except it was my alcoholic martyr mother who died young and my alcoholic critical father who lived on; both younger bros. were JDs and drug users/dealers; and of my 3 younger sisters, only one is "normal," & she's a major control freak, while another is currently in recovery from crack addiction. My own addiction is different ~ I'm addicted to damaging relationships.

Anyway, what you wrote made me think about my own behavior in social situations. All my life, others have told me that I'm looked up to and admired, that I seem to be very comfortable in social situations, & that I always seem to know just what to say. Hard for me to believe, since I've never felt comfortable in groups but rather am desperately hoping I don't say or do anything too stupid and wishing I could be anywhere else, esp. in a quiet room with a good book. :)

In my early 40s, I had kind of an emotional breakdown. The most obvious symptom was a sudden inability to speak without stuttering. During the subsequent years of therapy, I realized that my facile speaking ability masked massive feelings of inadequacy, allowing me to function in society but keeping a barrier between me & my own inner self, as well as others, and preventing lasting friendships. As I slowly regained my ability to speak without stuttering (except when I'm under a great deal of stress), I vowed I would no longer use "chit-chat" to hide from others and myself. Sometimes I may appear surly, but I'd rather say nothing than pretend to know what I'm talking about when I don't. :) And I'm still not comfortable in most social settings but at least I know what's going on and can deal with it. And I still have my love of reading too, maybe even more now since it's less a form of escape as it is just something I love to do.

Anyway, I'm so grateful for this group and for everyone who has been so generous to share their own experiences.

Store - I appreciate your sharing your story. We are seldom as different from each other as each of us alone might imagine, eh?

Until I was well into my 60s I felt like a misfit both socially and professionally thoughly oddly I think I was perceived by others as succcessful in both realms. I was pretty good at covering up my unease and discomforts. It was not until I began to value and enjoy my sometimes eccentric behaviors and interests and to care less what others think that I found it possible to be happy in the deepest sense. Life is good these days in my late 70s. One of the joys is my library of some 1,100 volumes with its generous store of books that almost no one else reads.

Thanks everyone for sharing your story. Have any of you thought of writing about it in a memoir or in fiction...or have you already? Just asking because writing about my family history helped me.

Many years ago I actually started writing. I poured out about 15 pages and then, somehow, that felt like enough. Now, I am not so sure. It crosses my mind occasionally that my small remaining family (2 nieces) really might be able to enjoy some of the hard lessons and great joys I've experienced.
I'll think on that a bit more now.

On a completely different topic - is there any method for spellchecking what I write in these threads? I am such a bad speller.

maggie: and store:

i, too, had the alcoholic mother who used me as her emotional other because DOD worked from 6 a.m. thru to 11 P.M. six days a week. Until I pulled my head out of the Jim Beam bottle, I didn't realize my family was "dysfunctional." they made a damned good living. we just didn't have things like hugs, kisses, touchings (except my massages on my mother) or what i now know as love. (sex is not love as I had believed for 50 years). I am a very proud member of my AA group for a decade and a half and am happier living alone with my two dogs than I ever have been with anyone else. I'm just wondering -- Maggie -- r u from Buzzards Bay, Mass. and did we used to go together? I was an abuser of my Maggie in 1969-1971.

Hi andyray - nope not from Buzzards Bay. I am a Seattle native and live outside of Seattle now. I, too, do AA although not as much now as before. I have over 24 years sober and almost 11 years without the demon nicotine.

My "Maggie" is just a screen name, real name is Karen.

Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving with a more functional group of people. (-;

Andy, congratulations for kicking the addiction to alcohol.

I never managed to get addicted to alcohol or cigarettes although I tried hard in High School. The reason, I think, was that I was already totally addicted to books and had no time for any other addiction.

I went through four years of college almost completely without studying and doing the minimum amount of work. I was too busy reading to bother with schoolwork. I came out of school with an almost exact 2.0 average by making two A's in summer school.

This is all amazingly interesting and touching. I'm not sure exactly how I fit here, which is certainly a clear marker for a misfit. I'm (naturally) a reader from a family of readers and was fortunate to grow up in the country far enough from town to discourage casual visitors. My parents loved each other and me. I always had a lot of friends without being popular; I always felt as though I didn't belong. Part of it was having less money than most of them and part was the tendency to hold back. Now I'm married to a man who is less social than I am, and most of the time I'm quite content to stay home. (My husband is another one, xenchu, who spent his initial college years either in the library or the pool hall or fishing, and who went into the Coast Guard with the lowest gpa of anybody in the history of UNC-CH who was still in good standing. His academic career was also hurt by his making an A on his first composition in freshman English.)

We are discussing "social misfits"? In the universe of all those literate enough to read a book all the way through, I would posit that all of us who are members of Librarything are social misfits of some sort, particuilarly if we would prefer reading to the TV. I do have a TV set to play DVDs (Teaching Company lectures, etc.) and movies. Anthony Hopkins performance in War and Peace supplemented my finally getting immersed in and finishing the book. I could only get half the way through it during my Navy tenure (circa 1953); I got waylaid by starting Anthony Adverse, which, at the time, seemed much more fun.

In this brave new worlds of ours, the schools are spotting children who don't "fit in" spend a lot of time day dreaming & read books while others play games. There are questionairs to be filled out by parent & teacher, compared, doctors (childpsychiatrists) to be consulted, the child evaluated for sociability & "working up to potential" as well as traits like "confrontational" and "anti-social." New definitions of Autism, attention deficit & hyper-activity - these terms are replacing "troublemaker" & "plays well with others."

I don't know what the end product will be. My grand-daughter is in 2nd. grade. she is very good in art, her drawings look likee those made by a hi school student. She also (gasp!) seems to prefer reading to watching "I, Carley" on TV. Her mother was the same way, though very talented in music. She still likes to read, non-fiction preferred, but had a big problem with drugs, alcohal ect. in her teens & 20's. Maybe they can prevent this. A Majority of the kids she ran around with in those days have passed away. So I hope they find a cure for the drugs & alcohol, but not the reading.

Both peers and parents contribute in their way. There can be a differentiation between the self and the "rabble" (aka the TV viewing herd); strive for that.

Ah, social misfit-itis! Two short school stories...

One sad... I was a painfully shy nerd in school; you know, the kid that knew the answer, but never raised his hand. In seventh grade we all wrote an essay on something. The teacher singled out my essay in front of the class for use of the phrase "the silence was deafening" and ridiculed it saying that it made no sense and there was no such usage. I was embarrassed and crushed. During summer break I was reading the Chicago Tribune (I said I was a nerd) and there was the "silence" phrase used in an article. I ripped it out and saved it for the first day of school. I was ready. But, she had retired after the spring semester. Not that I hold a grudge, but I still remember after about 60 years. Grrr!

One humorous... The grammar school I attended always pushed for selling memberships to the PTA. One year they offered "any book" to the kid who sold the most memberships. I took them seriously. Sold 24 memberships versus the next highest kid at 8 or 10. Went to the school librarian to order my prize, a Scott's stamp album. Hey, it was a "book" and I was a stamp collector & those albums were expensive. At the time, I didn't give it much thought, but looking back at it, it probably blew a hole in the book budget for the school library. Turned out that the school head librarian collected stamps and she was very gracious and would talk to me about stamp collecting after that. I learned a lot from her about stamps and the world.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

Here's a nerd memory for you:

When I was in the 8th or 9th grade the teacher required the class to hand in a paper with 10 vocabulary words every week. One week among the others I submitted the word 'extrapolate'. The teacher asked where I got it and I said from science fiction books. She refused to accept it since it wasn't in her dictionary. It is certainly in dictionaries now (I just looked). Ah well.

extrapolate is the sort of word that would appeare on Wordsmith.com

I'm sure but when I was in high school computer was a word in science fiction books just like extrapolation.

I hope that you all will forgive me a personal observation…

Wow, an ancient topic thread from August, 2007 lives on. Did Theresa Williams realize what she was starting? It is interesting to me that so many of us, including yours truly – #60, remember general trauma or specific incidental trauma from grammar or high school. Given the name of the group, that is a long time ago.

What is also interesting is that folks are willing to write about it in a more-or-less public open forum. Would most of us have done so 20, 30 or 40 years ago given that quite a few describe themselves as shy, nerdy, anxious or with similar descriptions?

Here is my theory; two theories in fact. One, many/most have found a secure and comfortable “home” at LT. Two, as I get older, I have personally developed a more “what the heck attitude,” it won’t kill you. I suspect others have as well.

As to the secure, comfortable “home” at LT, I’m a very recent homeless (in an LT sense) person that just moved into the ranch house at 79 Wistful Vista (mmm, remember?) down the block from you all; still haven’t totally unpacked. I feel quite at home in the neighborhood. Thanks!

#64
Are you Fibber or Molly?

You just had to open that closet, now didn't you?

I would be Fibber (#65) and, yeah, I had to open that closet door (#66) at Fibber McGee & Molly's house.

To comply with the "purpose" of the "ancient topic thread from August, 2007": At teenage, we all want to "blend in" with whatever peer group is "cool"; as soon as the maladies of aging kicked in and I could "associate" at will via the Internet, I give little thought of "self-image" vis a vis how others perceive the self.

A story.
With some friends I was in a pub quiz (sorry if this is not a concept you recognise). One question was - 'Name Donald Duck's three nephews.'
I was the only one to know the answer - Hughie, Dewie and Louie (of course).
At the urinals in the gents during the break I was challenged aggressively - 'How the **** did you know that?' The implication being that only a social misfit (or someone with privileged prior access to the questions) could possibly have known.

I haven't checked in the last year or so, but they were mentioned weekly by Click and Clack, the Tappet brothers, on PBS.

Robert

Along with their legal staff: Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe. Although I think they may have changed lawyers a few years ago.

#69 Their names are a mnemonic device, which is quite easily recalled

Donald Duck cartoons are still shown on the Disney channel. If you have grandchildren or great grandchildren & you watch TV with them, you will also meet Daisy Duck & Uncle Scrooge MacDuck.

The category social misfits brings to mind a story that I must tell.
In 1956 I was nine years old and in fifth grade in Gainesville, FL. My mother had gone back to college to get her masters degree and I would often spend time listening to her and her friends talk about current events and books they were reading. This was in the days before television killed the practice of sitting around and talking to each other.
In my class we were having a discussion of integration. I raised my hand and said that I had heard that Gunnar Myrdal said that the cure to the race problem in America was racial intermarriage, something I had heard from my mom's friends. You have to remember that Gainesville, FL is very close to South Georgia. My teacher looked at me for a moment and said, "Bill Rucker, you're nothing but a nonconformist." I have always remembered that moment with pride.

Perhaps a significant majority of people, who are LT subscribers, particularly those, in advanced age, who did not pick up, right away' a dependence on all of the electronic gadgets (and are thus, "non conformists") that have appeared in the last 30 years or so, and thus stuck with reading books as a beneficial pass-time. I was just starting to get checked out on those new type-writers. with spinning ball fonts and along came these word processing computers. I am definitely considered a conversational non-conformist in that I do not chime in on talk about what the latest American Idol show is. My contribution is usually "TV Sucks!".

OK, here's a nonconformist act: stop ignoring this interesting thread.

Are there newer members who have not wrestled with this vital question? Is this group, or thread, still populated by social misfits? Will you be skipping all the New Year's Celebrations and going to bed early with a good book? What is your story?

I will definitely be in bed with a book well before midnight. Of course it may be an ebook on our new iPad!

I know. I think my current read is on the Nook. So much easier for arthritic hands to hold.

I am a part of a small (4) real life book group which meets once a month at Third Place Books, in Lake Forest Park, north of Seattle, WA. We would welcome new members in 2012. Send me a PM if you might be interested and/or have questions.

I expect to be in bed early tonight. Just a small early evening celebration, then some reading followed by bed. I've been through enough of these things now that I know tomorrow will probably be a lot like today. Someone once said today is made up of yesterday and tomorrow and I find that to be mostly true. Got to be up early to catch UP! with Chris Hayes.

I don't know what I'll be doing tonight. Probably going to bed early. I've been living on a farm for the last year, and farm critters don't get the stay-up-late, sleep-in thing at all.

But mostly, it's a weird day for me. I always liked New Year's Eve, although I prefer small celebrations with good friends and lovers, or potential lovers. Kissing is acceptable on New Year's Eve!

One New Year's Eve has been much on my mind today. On Dec. 31, 2007, I married a great love of my life. He said we should get married on New Year's Eve, so he'd never forget the date. This was our "rocking chair romance" as a young friend of mine called it, the one for keeps and for growing old together. Unfortunately, he died in 2010. He was 60.

Right about now, right about this time, our friend the Rev. Dr. Dr. Bill (he has two PhDs) was saying the words for us in our living room. Our upstairs neighbors were the witnesses. Then we drove over to the town hall, filed the papers, and took Bill out to lunch. Later that night we went to a party and were two very happy goofy 50+ newlyweds.

It was the happiest New Year of my life, and it's gonna be hard to top it.

Phaedra {{{hugs}}}

I'll be in bed early with a good book and maybe a cup of herbal tea (or an eggnog with brandy?) after cleaning out one of my closets, an annual ritual. This year, it's going to be the pantry, I think, though the storage closet in my bedroom is in as desperate need.

With all of the crud (medications), I"ve been taking to stay alive, day-time narcoleptic naps are just about the only sure sleep I get, however, as I do sometimes begin "drifitng off", shortly after hitting the sack, and we have become quite accustomed to noise (fireworks, etc.) on Friday and Saturday late evenings and as we live in close proximity to the Texas Rangers' Ball Park and the Dallas Cowboy's stadium I am certain that the canaille will be out in full force. So, I expect, that, tonight's orgy will also be a bit noisy. As far as New Years are concerned, I have yet to become accustomed to 1949. I think I was in Compton, California that "New Year".

You are not a Misfit, you are just Old. This has never been fashionable or trendy. Some people try to that we are still middle aged, but I say that when you have gray hairs growing in your nostrils, you actually are Old. One only becomes Elderly when those hairs turn white.

Old is when long, coarse hairs grow in your ears and at the ends of your eyebrows. Actually I saw something a few years back that said old is sixteen years older than you.

>85 geneg: said "... old is sixteen years older than you." Actually I think old is your parents' age (and for me that's 111 years old).

It's all in the bell-curve: the misfits are the stistical tails of the curve, whereas the rabble are in or near the top of the curve--these are the market targets of our "free enterprise" all-American society. Then, we have the "out-lyers" who are not even in the flow of the curve. Cuey sarah sarah.

Hi everybody. I saw and joined the group this morning and have been reading some of the threads. And to prove I am old enough to be in this group, I can't remember now how I came across it!

I am shy and hate parties, except with the family (and even then, I wish sometimes I could just escape for a little bit and read). I feel somewhat awkward around people. My husband is more social than I am but is also a person who needs his space so we get along well.

I'm looking forward to chatting with all of you. I'm so happy to have found Librarything and this group!

Hey, marell! May I be the first to say "Welcome!" Glad you found the group, and, from what you posted, you will fit right in, at least with those of us on this thread! (We could be twins, except I'm not married anymore.)

Welcome Marell!
Sounds like we could be fraternal twins.
My wife is the outgoing one and the older I get, the more I'm uncomfortable in larger groups.

Marell,

Welcome. I love this thread though I usually lurk rather than post as I am shy like you. I need role models on aging well. My mother died when I was 12. I love retirement because I have way more reading time and because I don't have to interact with so many people now. This place feels like home.

June, I'd like to borrow your comment - "I need role models on aging well." for a new thread. I am sure most of us have some little gem of wisdom we believe is helping us in our journey through these "elder years" (I don't think I like that phrase!)

Is it OK with you?

Thanks to each of you for the warm welcome and a place to call home.

Right now I'm immersed in Doc by Mary Doria Russell. It is turning out to be one of my favorite books.

In February I will be reading David Copperfield for the Dickens Read-A-Thing and The Wayward Bus for the Steinbeck-A-Thon. Perhaps some of us will meet up in those groups as well.

Thank you again and happy reading.

For those of you, who would prefer a recipe book for "aging", I have yet to finish an "Early members' reviewer give away book":
Aging as a Spiritual Practice: A Contemplemplative Guide to Growing Older and Wiser, by Lewis Richmond. This book actually only came on sale in January. Lewis Richmond is, apparantly, Buddhist; thus a Buddhist perspective, which for me, being an existentialist, fits right in in my "being toward death" (see Martin Heidegger) approach.

Welcome, Marell, to "Social Misfits" ; not "being shy", in addition to lurking for occasional opportunities to vent sarcasm, I could more properly be classified as a "loud-mouth".
Pax Vobiscum

#94 Thanks for the welcome. I look forward to some interesting conversations in this group!

#92
Maggie1944,

You are welcome to the phrase "role models on aging well". I look forward to seeing the responses.

#94
Naren559,

I am off to see if my library has a copy of Aging as a Spiritual Practice.

I have just received (this AM via Fedex), and intend to begin reading, The American Nietzsche, by Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen, Associate Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin @ Madison.

I am a classic social misfit and have more or less learned to embrace that status.

I can't stand people in general. Get me in a committee setting and I end up wanting to shout at the numb skulls and leave so that I won't waste more time.

I was in a medium sized break room yesterday for a going away "goodby" for my administrative assistant (who was effectively fired by my boss for doing too much work). As much as I wanted to be there in her honor, the mass of people made me very very uncomfortable.

OTOH there is nothing I love more than an "engaged" conversation with an intelligent person. (Its people I hate, not persons.) As someone who doesn't care about other people, "tone" doesn't bother me a bit. The conversation can be polite or strident, so long as each person is more or less listening and making good points. (I think I would have loved a classical Yeshiva without the master.)

I have always aspired to being retired and sitting on an open front porch while waving a walking stick at and yelling at the "young whippersnappers" walking by. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I'm ever going to attain to that status. Too much work to do.

One of the things wrong with our society today is the belief that if you are not working you are wasting time. We are a society that tends not to reflect much on where we're going or how we're going to get there. We just think of today. This lack of reflection brought us two wars paid for by borrowing billions from China, BushCo and the absolute, total disaster they brought our country. Not to mention non-reflective people have no way to deal with all the fear the fear-mongers are spreading, because they don't know how to think. We have millions of people slaving away in various jobs, some exciting, and/or fulfilling, most just putting in the time, making the widgets and waiting for the day to end. What do we get for this? A smaller and smaller pay packet, more debt, and further and further behind. I don't care what you are doing, the most important thing is to take care of yourself first, then take care of business. Oh, and by the way, if that store doesn't open on time or that program is late there are an infinite supply of tomorrows in which to get it done. Don't bust your butt for some moocher living off your hard work, while partying it up on a yacht somewhere. Let him earn the money for that yacht. By rights that yacht belongs more to you than it does her/him.

What this country needs, like an emetic, is a good general strike. Let the head of your company figure out how to get the work done if no one shows up to do it. Then he/she might actually earn that monstrously inflated contract.

Have you all been noticing the popularity of having an "aging " relative living in the home? And NOT the old age home. Relatives with pensions are moving out of old folks homes & into the homes of grandchildren, or children. At least someone in the household has enough $$ to keep the furnace running & the lights on when the younger folks' unemployment payments run out.

~99

Well, I would be the last person to support a view that if "you are not working you are wasting time." (I have so many damned hobbies and have invested so heavily in them that any one of them could easily become a new preoccupation if I gave up my main income-earning occupation.)

The more interesting issue is, of course, the tension in the term "work" that you point out. On the one hand "work" is technically doing something for someone else that you would not otherwise do in order to receive payment. OTOH, however, what may be principally that sort of "work" is often also an opportunity (an opportunity that one might well not otherwise have) to exercise long developed skills at which, modestly, one has become quite good. The exercise of such skills - particularly if they involve some element of combativeness - can be often very satisfying.

Marian V....
I haven"t noticed but I sure hope the popularity of that will continue. Perhaps we will gain the respect we hopefully deserve.. something like the Asians do still, I think.