First, a couple of announcements: Spwug issue 3 is now shipping! And until December it’ll still count as your first issue for a subscription. Secondly, if you’re wandering here from Comedity, hey! Pre-orders for the book are over here ! Finally, in case of invasion by Evil Space Goats, we are now safe! The Goat Justice League will be there to save us! Or at least to make it legal to keep pet goats in Seattle.

Now then. One of the things I’ve really come to appreciate about being a grown up is the freedom to be ME. No, peer pressure hasn’t let up. Yes, I’m still encouraged to conform with the company I keep. Usually this means being ‘normal’ and eschewing talk of WoW or whatever show I just found. At work I’m either leered at by the guys in the scene shop (dude, she plays WoW? A girl??) or poked fun of for being able to discus the plot points and character development of the anime showing at the local art house cinema. I get funny looks when buying games for my PS2, or when wearing my Girl Gamer shirt. It gets rough.

Traditional Geek Literature is chock full of characters defying pressure to conform. Look at Harry Potter, to use a recent entry. While living with his Dursley relations for 11 years, he never gave in to the easy option of giving in to their attempts to make him fit in with their view of how the world ought to be. Or to take a classic, Frodo never did settle in and live quietly like the rest of the hobbits, much to their chagrin. And ultimately, being true to himself helped to save the world.

So yeah, peer pressure never does go away. There will always be someone who needs to heckle me in order to feel smarter/more attractive/generally better about themselves. but I’m an adult now. I survived high school and college and all that tough stuff, the fiery gauntlet of Peer Pressure, and I came out the other side with super powers. I now have the Ability to Be Myself, the Power To Think For Myself, and the Mystical Force of Making My Own Choices. Yeah, it’s tough sometimes. Thing is I’m an adult now. And you know what? That old saying is right. To my own self I will be true.

Share This

Stumble it!

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 30th, 2007 at 10:49 pm and is filed under stuff, Neomera, news. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.