I’m feeling a bit uneasy at the moment. I’m sitting in a café in Stockholm central station, and I haven’t bought anything. I know that there’s an unspoken rule that you have to order something if you take up a spot, but I’ve decided to break that rule.1
I could try to rationalize my behavior by arguing against privatizing the commons, but that would be beside the point.2 The real reason I’m sitting here is that I have a strong counter-phobic tendency; I’m sitting here because it makes me uncomfortable.
I used to feel uncomfortable a lot, judging myself for breaking (micro-)norms. I don’t like imposing limits on my behavior for no reason. I also don’t like shame.
Many things are stigmatized for no reason. Weirdness and harm get mixed up. There’s a web of micro-norms constraining our everyday lives, stories we tell ourselves about how things should be. I’m particularly put off by the way such norms can restrain my agency while staying invisible, completely obscuring taboo action paths.
My main way of detecting these invisible norms is by hanging out with people that are Different. Oddballs extraordinare.3
My lover is weird in ways I’m not. During a hotel stay, she wanted to stay in the room and eat trail mix rather than go to a restaurant. Her trail mix was healthier, cheaper, and left more time for sex. I preferred the restaurant.
The restaurant was fairly typical: overpriced and filled with loud drunk people. No great harm done, but I’m fairly sure “trail-mix&chill” was the better choice.
So why did I want to go to the restaurant?
Because eating trail mix instead of food is weird. Because I have a notion that eating out is very romantic.4 Because internalized micro-norms.
I want to grow additional awareness of the internalized norms that influence my behavior. I want to be able to “play along” when convenient, without taking them seriously.
And I want to be able to drop out without facing a visceral shame reaction.
I’m at least sure that’s the reason cafés have comfy seating in general.
I also barely know anything about it. It sounds good from some contrarian viewpoint, but if there were no café I’m pretty sure the leather armchair I’m sitting in would not exist, at least not in a clean state. That would save some animals from getting killed. But anyway, besides the point!
Don’t be the oddest person in all your peer groups!
;)