I'm Fine With Unpopularity / Peer Pressure

I don't know how, but tonight I actually learned alot about myself. I think the 3 causes of these changes that I noticed are: 1. Going to Counseling, 2. Accepting Aristotle/Thomas into my brain, 3. Becoming Catholic (I know everyone's sick of me talking about it, but it will be really brief I promise).

Tonight, I was guilted into going to a party I didn't want to go to. It was with a bunch of friends from my Mennonite high school. The birthday boy is an atheist and all night he was provoking conversation about God and/or Atheism. But to my surprise, I didn't take the bait. I just accepted him as he was - not to say I thought he was right or anything, but I felt he needed time and space and that it wasn't worth arguing about right then.

After everyone was finished at the bar we were seated in, they all wanted to go to another bar. I felt that I was done, I'd had a great time, but didn't wan to go to this new bar. Everyone started guilting me and trying to persuade me. The nicer folk tried to make excuses for me ('he probably has to work in the morning'), and one friend even used Religion to taunt me "it's because we aren't Catholic isn't it!" (I enjoyed this ridiculous red-herring, along with people shouting about Ireland). But I thought - what would Aristotle do/what will make Andrew most fulfilled. After pondering this I thought, going home will be the happiest choice. I didn't owe any obligation or responsibility to anyone, I had been nice to everyone, so why did I have to go out afterwards? The short answer is: I didn't. So I just refused, I just said no. I decided not to lie and make excuses, I just said it plainly that I didn't want to go. So I left.

I remember my counselor once saying about depression 'if you're sad, just say "I'm sad, and that's ok, so what?" So tonight I just said "I don't want to be cool, I don't want to go to another bar, and that's ok". It was classic peer pressure - my friend caved and went with everyone else (though I think he was just chasing a skirt). But on the drive home I had an epiphany: I don't need to be cool, I never will be cool, and that's ok. I have facebook quotes from 18th century Tory MP Viscount Henry St. John Bolingbroke, and the medieval philosopher Boethius, that's not cool or normal. I'm 275 pounds give or take some, that's not normal, that's not cool. I have depression that comes and goes. And I'm Catholic - which to cite Evelyn Waugh just makes me completely different from the surrounding world. There's nothing normal or cool about me, and I'm just accepting that. ... Maybe that makes me cool...