When Did Normal Become The Most Dangerous Word?

"Your views are way ahead," my mother would say, half-teasing, usually after some conversation in which our opinions differed. “Your thoughts go too far, too sideways.” It wasn't meant to offend. It wasn't intended to hurt. However, it settled with an odd heaviness. Not because I was hurt or offended, exactly, but because it confirmed something I had already grown to suspect: that variance, however gently worn, is noted. Sometimes even by those who love us best.

The term "normal" has a lot of masks. It appears attired in kindness, worry, and even admiration. It's a term that folks use when they don't want to say "You're too much," or "You're not like us," or "I don't get you." It purports to be impartial. But its strength is subtlety. It labels without labelling. It shuts out without conflict.

When did "normal" become a line that we get punished for crossing? And why do we continue to yearn for it, even when it leaves us small and out of sight?

Normalcy as a Masquerade: The Sense of Belonging

Normal promises comfort. Belonging. Less questioning and less resistance along the way. To be normal is to be known without having to explain. It is to be automatically given access, trust, and love. Even in a loving family, where the table is open and the lights are warm, "normal" can still vibrate in the background, establishing quiet rules.

The temptation of "normal" is impossible to resist. It delivers smooth roads, unchallenged acceptance, and being part of the group without translation. It's the security of conforming to the mold. My family is open and loving. My siblings are engaged with the world, far more so than generations before. But even among this warmth, "normal" remained the default, the ideal. Conversations would wander – occasionally, but inevitably – towards queerness, LGBTQ+ lives. And there it was: the unspoken pause, the uncertain hesitation, the unspoken line.

They'd say they "understand" gay or lesbian. But then the whispered second thought, near automatic: "But why does this guy have to wear a blouse and announce it on the road? Why must it be so out there? It just… spoils my mood." The message, albeit not intended, was unmistakable: You're welcome here, but on our terms only. On our terms only, if you don't cross too far into the untouchables. If you don't make the unseen uncomfortably visible. Why then was my view, my plain acknowledgement of others' visibility, the deviant behaviour?

Who Gets to Be Normal? And Who Decides?

Who draws the map of "normal"? Who determines what expressions of self are acceptable and what are disruptive?

Learning that discomfort with visibility — the blouse on the road, the soft assertion of being — was not outright hatred. There was doubt. A hesitation. A blink at something unexpected, something off script. Not "they shouldn't be seen," but a quiet withdrawal from what doesn't comfortably reside in the unstated contours of familiarity. Their love, their selves, their existence weren't rejected — they were borne, as long as they remained low-lit, muted, and hidden away.

"My parents haven't had that level of exposure. I do get it," I say to myself, as if understanding could alleviate the hurt.

But knowing the why does not alleviate the pain. It's a specific type of loneliness — to be enveloped in love that will not, or cannot, expand its view far enough to acknowledge the world you view, or the individuals you feel should be allowed to live whole and openly within it.

Why should one person's ease rest upon another's diminishment?

Intimacy Without a Script: Why We Fear Fluid Bonds

This policing is far from queerness; it infiltrates the very existence of how we are connected. I'm straight. But love? Love bursts into stars, not binary constellations. The profound, grounding love between two dear friends can overshadow much. The respectful, healthy connection with an ex, no trauma, but one that wasn't destined to be romantic, yet still so deep. Why should that be cut off because society can't categorize it? Why is crying in your best friend's lap, finding comfort in their arms, suddenly called into question? Why should emotional closeness dressed in a label or result in a couplehood to be acceptable? We place an unrealistic obligation on romantic partners to be our only confidante, therapist, cheerleader, and haven. Why? Why should the richness of varied, profound, non-romantic emotional connection be viewed as a threat, a "red flag," rather than the gorgeous, complex array of human attachment that it is? Why should intimacy need to be so strictly contained?

This is the quiet, insidious violence of "normal." It's seldom a scream; it's a sigh. Not a slammed door, but an eyebrow raised. Not rejection, but a soft redirection: "Don't talk about that." "Don't be so close." "Don't be so loud." "Don't be so… different." Conformity is learned softly – by jokes like my mother's, by the hesitant pause in a brother's voice, by rules swaddled in the tissue paper of "concern" or "decency." It's the disorienting paradox of "We understand. Just don't show it." This polite enforcement cuts deeper sometimes than blatant hostility because it comes laced with love, making the exclusion a matter of personal failing. Why should authenticity need to be concealed to be honoured? Why should love, identity, or profound friendship stifle itself to lie within the comfort zone of "another"?

Can We Save the Word?

Can "normal" be reclaimed? Can it be something generous, expansive? Or is it too embedded in the history of borders and binaries?

I don't know the answer. There are days when I want to make "normal" large enough to encompass all our contradictions. There are days I'm ready to discard it altogether. Substitute it with "truth." With "fluidity." With whatever enables us to cease apologizing for being real.

I'm still learning. Still unlearning. Still trying to accept that my way of existing in the world doesn't require a stamp of approval. Still attempting to rid myself of the guilt that creeps up when someone says, This isn't the way things are done, by responding with: Good.