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me_irl (thelemmy.club)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/me_irl@lemmy.world
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[–] 8 points 4 months ago (3 children)

I grew up in a small town. You can get by if they accept you as sort of a mascot/walking encyclopaedia. That's how I once got the entirety of Year 6 to come and defend me against the depredations of evil highschoolers.

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  • [–] 9 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    That's possible when people in your town see knowledge as something positive. I was (still am) socially awkward so the mascot strategy never worked. I tried the encyclopaedia one but turns out bigotted farmers are not fond of people who know things. The only way to stop being bullied was leaving the town when I was 18 to move to a big city.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    Yep, I definitely got lucky. And people certainly do not appreciate actual knowledge that defies their pre-existing beliefs.

    It wasn't all great.

    But my particular type of weirdness, combined with a tendency to ignore or not recognise what would normally be humiliation, got me enough laughs that I could spout all sorts of facts about astronomy or whatever without being threatening to the ones that knew me best.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    Are you me? Moved from 3500 pop bumfuck Wisconsin to 3.5m pop Los Angeles at 18. Greatest decision I've ever made, although staying out ended up a harder challenge than I expected due to the aforementioned lack of and hostility toward knowledge and behavioral health care.

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