Is it normal that a lot of people think i’m weird?

One of my friends in High-school wrote and presented to his class on creative writing about how weird I was (paper was titled "Concrete Jello" and I have a copy). It finished with the lines about how some people march to a different drummer...

He did this without telling me about it in advance...

Anyway, that paper was the talk of the school the next day (as to how accurate it was).

I asked around and found out where and when that class met (it was an advanced writing class that met in one of the offices with a large table, with about 8 students: I was in a similar advanced math class in another similar room).

There were only 2 people there when I walked in, said "Hi" and sat down at the end of the table that gave me the full view of everyone walking in. The people there that was talking immediately stopped talking. Every student that walked in immediately stopped talking to their friend and froze momentarily the minute they saw me, they just sat down quietly. The Teacher did the same.

My friend walked in - saw me and also momentarily froze; but then said "I suppose you are going to kill me" - as in beat him up - and I had a reputation about winning fights.

My response was: "I want to read it first."

The entire room relaxed a bit as he dug it out of his book bag, and I sat there and read it. Among other things it proclaimed that I was the king of weirdness.

Then I looked at him and just said something along the line of "OK, that's fair" followed by "just get me a copy of it," and left and showed up at my normal class at that time 10-15 minutes late.

I'm told that after I left that the teacher (who was also the teacher who oversaw the High School Student Paper and taught interested people about how to be a "reporter") commented that they should all pay attention to what I did: That I investigated the story before I made any decisions about what to do; which was very rare and counted in its own good way as weird.

Anyway, the fact that I showed up at that class and read the paper, and my reaction, was the talk of the school the next day. I know from going to high school reunions that many of my graduating class still remember that about me.

That paper is in my "If/when I die" folder that contains a variety of important papers and a listing of various financial and insurance accounts. The instructions are that it should be read at my funeral.

Now here are some of the weird things I have done as an adult. I cannot count the number of lessor mountains I have climbed; but there are 2 mountains that only a small selection of people ever climb that I've done. I spent a night on one of them and watched the most gorgeous sunset and brilliant sunrise of my life from.

I've moved from being a very introverted person who was only really good at technical items to developing decent people skills and building several financially successful businesses, after I was downsized out of nuclear power plant jobs.

I've been an Official at 1 Olympics, and 2 World Championships. Need I say that only the best of the best get there (and it takes many many years to develop yourself to that level - and its all as an unpaid volunteer).

I've assisted hundreds of people to do noticeably better in life (the vast majority just as a charity mentor just because I believe that my purpose on this earth is to assist other people to do better).

So please continue being weird. Normal people tend to not accomplish much and lead rather boring lives.

Am I right in thinking that the people who call you weird are in their teens or not much older? It's a fact that teenagers are notoriously judgemental and intolerant of those who are different. It's also a fact that teenagers are emotionally immature, really shit at judging character and few of them are even half as smart as they believe they are.

There's all sorts of weirdness. Charles Manson and John Wayne Gacy were seriously weird. Mahatma Gandhi and Marin Luther King were also considered seriously weird by many. Hell, if you believe what's written in the New Testament, the central character of that story was so seen as so damn weird that the "normal" people decided he had to be killed.

It's very difficult to accept that others consider you strange, particularly when you're trying to figure out who you really are and how you fit into the world. But as long as your uncommon perception of the world isn't resulting in you doing any real harm to yourself or others, you should try to accept that you being different in some ways to your peers does not mean that you're wrong and they're right.

No they’re people in their 30’s & 40’s. Even some in my family think I’m weird.