The first time I was called weird was at primary school. I spoke and walked a little differently from other boys and liked playing with girls. That was enough. I was not unhappy, but once christened with the title, I was now “weird”, a sufficiently broad categorisation for everyone to understand. Luckily, there were a couple of other kids the same. Weird loves company. Swelled by minor ranks, I began to notice that everyone gets painted with the “weird” brush from time to time. If you’re fat. Weird. Wear glasses. Weird. Ginger hair, a lisp, a birthmark. All weird. Preferred books to TV? Practically a different species. Super-weird.
