I wrote this for xojane.com. I’ve been mentally and emotionally dealing with this for a while. Basically, I realized last year that, like everyone, I’m a cliche*. My cliche happens to be that “manic pixie quirky adorkable grown up nerd girl who gets awkward around dudes.”
Sometimes we stare into the void and someone who owns an ocarina in her twenties stares back.
*We all fit some kind of personality trope, even if we’re weirdos. Then we fit the weirdo trope.
I’ve started writing something like this a while ago, but in my case it would say “I’m afraid I’m a hipster”. It seems that anyone who likes anything outside the norm these days gets called that. People aren’t “allowed” to have their own tastes in music or clothing anymore without having their frankness questioned and their preferences dismissed. I choose not to care, but it really is annoying to come across people naming other people “Hipster!” and thus implying “You can’t possibly like Tom Waits/those pants/Lomo cameras/whatever, you’re just trying to look as if you do”
