Response Paper 3: Deviance

I am a goody-two-shoes. There's a part of me that feels very rebellious, but the rest of me knows better. My “rebellion” extends to listening to 90's punk bands and thinking about doing things. If I break a rule, it's because I think that a) I have a good reason to, and/or b) I won't upset an authority figure. I have always been that kid. I feel that if I get less than the highest possible grade on any assignment I have personally failed my teachers. They are authority figures, I did something bad, and I should feel bad. I also feel incapable of being deviant. If I have no respect for someone in authority, I will argue with and possibly disobey them, but that is the exception to who I am. I am not deviant. I have difficulty believing that a car can move without my seatbelt being buckled. It's kind of a strange kink of who I am. I will talk about doing rebellious things, but unless I am given the green light by someone in authority, I will rarely do those things. My kind of thrilling deviancy is walking on the grass. You aren't supposed to do that, you know.

When I got this assignment, I actually gasped. Out loud. I would never dream of taking anyone's seat, and I knew that I was having ankle surgery during the time we would be working on these papers, which complicates tall building escapades. This left me with imagining it, or using my hands to eat something. I chose the latter. I found it so devilishly exciting, because I am so profoundly vanilla. It is worth noting that I hate having things on my hands. I love me some french fries, but eating them means rubbing my fingers on my jeans to get the salt off. It drives me crazy. When I was very young I would tentatively play in the mud, and then run inside, frowning, to my mom, hold my hands out, say “dirty!”, and wait for her to clean them. All this added to my excitement to eat something with my hands. Most people don't do that, you know.

The night before I had talked to my sister about my plans, “I'm going to eat pancakes or something with my HANDS! Isn't that crazy?” as I grinned and told her of my planned deviancy, I started to realize how silly it was to get worked up about eating with my hands. How silly it is that someone my age considers syrupy fingers deviant and exciting.

So Easter Sunday, post-surgery, I wheeled into an IHOP with some devilish smirk on my face. Everyone was looking at me, because I was in a wheelchair. Some people kept looking as I very excitedly discussed Portal 2. But slowly, most of them started to look away, onto their own breakfasts or a child making noise. After our food arrived, I almost immediately had to explain myself to my breakfast date. I am completely transparent when I'm up to something. “Ok! So, I....nevermind.” I wanted to keep it a secret and get his response, but of course I suck at that. Some skeptical prodding led to me finally admitting that I had to be deviant for a class and was going to eat my french toast with my hands and wasn't that so crazy? The official response from my companion was a laugh and an eye roll. I tore my french toast into small pieces and dipped them into syrup. The whipped cream and berries caused me wide eyes and giggles because I had to directly touch things that were “messy”. Again, I received smirks from the other side of the table.

We continued talking as we ate, and I tried to surreptitiously observe anyone's reactions to me. Before I did this experiment, I assumed that everyone in the entire world would stare at me. Because who does something so crazy? Eating with your hands. Ridiculous. I looked around for evidence of that, and found the woman seated at the booth next to our table was giving me a disgusted look. Because I have poor impulse control, I loudly and immediately said, “I think that chick hates me.” in order to freak her out and/or make her stop looking. However, further investigation proved that that was just her face, and she was probably looking at me because I kept looking at her.

At the time, our server also seemed a little off-put by my shenanigans. However, looking back on it, I think I was just projecting my own feelings of doing something strange and being afraid of people confronting me.

Other than the wheelchair, I did one other thing that got me many more strange looks than eating without utensils. I stared out the window for a couple of minutes. People started to glare at me. No one was even sitting where I was looking. Why they cared about this, and not my attempt to be deviant, I will never know.

I had expected this assignment to be a great lesson in human behavior, and why innocuous things are considered deviant. For example, there is no law enforcing silverware use, but it is extremely strange for an adult to eat many food items with their hands. I was quite surprised that no one cared, but I think that had a lot to do with the fact that out at an IHOP on Easter Sunday, everyone had bigger things on their mind. Another thing that is frowned upon in society is staring at people who are behaving oddly, and so it is possible that some people noticed and discussed my behavior, but were just stealthy about it. I think that this would have turned out to be a little bit more enlightening if I hadn't told people beforehand that I would be doing this. But in my defense, I assumed everyone on earth would care, judge, and give me things to write about. I was also super excited about being “bad”, if only for an hour or so.

Despite the lack of response by my my fellow restaurant patrons, I did find this very eye-opening. Talking in elevators and eating without “proper” utensils are not inherently bad. They aren't wrong. They're just different. This means that the fact that my sister's boyfriend eats pizza with a knife and fork isn't bad, just different. I think it's weird. But why? It can be a messy food. I have just been socialized differently, and that isn't bad. Another implication of this assignment that I found was that I have no reason to not do some things. So why not talk to cashiers, or change seats? Being deviant is not always the same as being “bad”. If I'm not breaking any laws or moral code, then it is only my self-conscious, goody-two-shoes attitude that is stopping me from walking on grass and climbing trees and having adventures. Because when you are that strange way that I am, adventures can be found in things like french toast.