WHY-Wednesday: Why I am odd.

I am the person who asks the odd questions without knowing they are odd.

What is a dime?

Who are the Beach Boys? 

and 

Where is Ohio?

(The last two asked just this past month)

These things should be common sense, right?

Wrong.

You see, I am what experts call a Third Culture Kid (TCK).

"A person who was raised in a different culture outside of his/her parents'."

Now please, do not get me confused with a foreigner. 

A TCK is one who is raised in a foreign country, and then brought back "home."

Think of missionary kids or military brats, for example.

Okay, Lauren... so what?

***

Remember that scene from Mean Girls when Lindsay Lohan shows up at the Halloween party dressed up as an ugly witch?  

Do you remember why she did that?

Lindsay's movie character had been raised in Africa all of her life.

She then moves back to the States with her parents and is sent to school with other Americans "just like her."

 And gets invited to a Halloween party.

Had she been an African "native," a few kids would have pulled her aside and explained to her:

"Lindsay, Honey... a Halloween party is only an excuse for women to dress up as prostitutes.  Be sure to dress like one."

But she wasn't an African "native,"

she was an American, right?

That's why nobody ever sent her the "memo."
And thus showed up like an ugly witch instead.

She looks American.  She is white.  She speaks English.

Why would she think dressing up as an ugly witch for Halloween appropriate?

(As a contrast to this example, think of Fez from That '70s Show.
Fez is a foreigner, NOT a TCK)

***

Now imagine doing these kinds of things day after day after day.

You are expected to "fit in," but you don't.

You look the part, 

so you are expected to play the part.

This is my story.

A lifetime filled with awkward stares 

and learning American etiquette the hard way.

To enter a gathering, unable to fit in to any conversation because you just "don't get it."

You don't get football.

You don't get dating.

You don't get their "first world" problems.

How can I be part of a food stamp debate,

when food stamps don't even exist in my home country?

When poverty means wearing sandals made out of old tires and rope?

***

The funny thing is that after a while we do fit in.

We are finally Americanized.

We attend our first football game and learn to cheer for it.

We meet a 6'4'' tall, all-American man and fall in love with him... and get married.

And we learn to get excited about our dishwasher finally getting fixed.

***

But an interesting thing happens the day we wake up and realize we fit in...

...we don't want to.

And realize we really never have wanted to.

So we make it a point to be different.

Us Third Culture Kids (unwillingly) make it a point to be odd.

To let everybody know that even though we may look like them, 

we really are not one of them.

We are the ones who have the socially wrong weddings,

or marry the socially wrong people,

or have the socially wrong friends.

***

We are a unique breed.  

But don't treat us differently or any more special.

Just don't be shocked by us

:)