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Our need to belong and connect is one of our deepest and most powerful. At times it can even supersede our basest needs for food and shelter. We need a sense of identity, of self and individuality, but we also need to feel we belong to the tribe around us. We need to feel seen, heard, understood, and cared about. Balancing the two can be a struggle, the absence of either can be disastrous. Feelings of isolation and invisibility are at the core of anxiety, depression, and battles with addiction.
The moment you form a group of five or more people you start to get societal norms. Beliefs, preferences, backgrounds, experiences, height, weight, skin colour, eye colour, hair colour, musical tastes, philosophies about pizza toppings, there are a near infinite number of metrics each of which will instantly display their bell-curve shaped membership. We can find ourselves smack in the middle of one bell curve then practically falling off the outer edges of the next. The more prominent and pervasive the norm the greater the consequences of being an outlier can become, both internally and externally.
Realizing my sexuality at an early age, and that it would not be welcome in the society around me at the time…