Be Different by John Elder Robison

Author:John Elder Robison [Robison, John Elder]
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-88483-1
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2011-03-21T16:00:00+00:00

I wish there were a better answer to this age-old problem, but there isn’t.

(A few years later, inspired by my actions, the Firesign Theatre released a record called Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers. You should check it out.)

Animal Wariness

The older I got, the more my long history of failed interactions with other people weighed on me. I became chronically sad and angry, skating on the edge of depression. I began to expect and even anticipate failure or rejection.

I became wary, especially of large groups of people. Some of them are probably unfriendly, I’d remind myself. I’d better watch out.

Looking back, I realize that I could stay calm when I was surrounded by my family or in groups of twenty to thirty kids, the usual pack size I encountered in nursery school and elementary school. A few became my friends, more became acquaintances, and a few had to be watched. All in all, it was manageable. I did not fear recess or going to school. The other kids may not have been my buddies, but they weren’t my enemies, either. I didn’t know how to make friends, but I did learn to avoid fights by staying mostly to myself, not grabbing other kids’ stuff, and not calling them names.

That was a vital skill I had learned by elementary school—how to not make enemies. Some people think it’s automatic, or somehow goes with making friends, but they’re wrong. Not making enemies is a distinct skill in its own right, and I began to master it when I learned to keep calm and quiet and to mind my own business.

Things changed when I went into seventh grade. I went from a small-town primary school to a regional junior high, with seven hundred kids. It was huge, and I didn’t know anyone. Most of the kids were from Amherst, the largest town in the district, and many had been together since nursery school in the Amherst system. Being from Shutesbury, I was an outsider, in more ways than one.

Every day, when I got on the bus, I felt like Lloyd Bridges, the scuba diver in Sea Hunt, swimming out of his submerged steel cage into shark-infested seas. When I looked out at the mass of kids in the lunchroom, I saw an amorphous mass of humanity. Hundreds of them, roiling and teeming, like a school of fish. But there was a big difference between the star of Sea Hunt and me. He was big, and he had a speargun. I was thirteen years old, and totally unarmed. I was also essentially alone. My elementary school was so small, it sent only a dozen seventh graders to Amherst Regional. We were all lost. With seven hundred other kids around us, we were truly in the belly of the beast.

Most of the new kids were harmless. One or two even liked me. But I quickly discovered I was right to be wary. Sprinkled throughout the crowd were a number of bad seeds … sneak thieves, bullies, and predators.

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