13 March

I’m almost completely disinterested in fitting in, in most situations in life. Which probably makes me seem rude sometimes, but it’s not that. I realised as I got older that I genuinely don’t care about what the expected thing to think or do is, or the possibility of causing friction by going against what everybody else is doing. I’m absolutely not a contrarian either, that would be to be even more interested in what others do, so as to always go against it. It was Kell who suggested a possible reason for this, she said ‘you’re a twin’. And that was an a-ha moment, because twins’ primary attachment when they’re born and maturing through childhood is to each other. They don’t go looking for connection and affirmation from friends in the same way single children do. It’s an incredibly powerful bond, and it makes you feel totally self-sufficient in that human support way. I’ve never felt the heavy weight of peer pressure, it wouldn’t even occur to me to care. And it’s probably because I’ve never needed the approval or support of peers, to feel validated. I have a twin. It’s a brutal strength though too, because I don’t need the validation or support of my twin now, to feel the same way. It gave us both that strength, individually, it was a scaffold or platform that shaped our adult lives independently. It’s likely why status interests me too, because this disinterest in fitting in is also an almost total disinterest in status. It makes status extremely visible, because I bowed out of that game largely at birth.