I’m a contrarian

Nº 012

I have been a contrarian for as long as I can remember. I never set out to be one. It formed over time, the way rust creeps into the seams of an old truck. Quiet. Steady. Easy to ignore until someone taps the metal and hears the hollow sound.

I don’t follow trends. I avoid them without thinking. I do not chase new shows, new albums, or whatever people insist I have to see or listen to. It happens so often that the pattern feels baked in. Someone will ask if I watched the latest must-see series or listened to the artist everyone streams on repeat. I pause. I feel a small weight in my stomach. Then I say nothing helpful. I smile. I shrug. I redirect. I pretend it slipped past me. I stay vague because the truth feels strange to say out loud.

I am not proud of this. The feeling that runs through me each time is regret. It hits in a soft, dull way. Not shame. Not panic. Regret. Like I missed something and cannot admit it. But I chose this lifestyle.

I have spent most of my life in rooms where people bond over shared culture. Movies. Songs. Lines from shows I never watched. I am present, but slightly outside the circle. The words reach me, but they do not land. The jokes fly past. The references float by like birds over a river. Close but not close enough to touch.

Do not get me wrong. I have enjoyed my share of popular culture. I grew up with it like everyone else. I can quote a few movies. I still know the hooks of the songs that played on the radio while I killed time in my room or rode around with friends. But new things feel different. They feel forced. They feel loud. I get bored fast. The old stuff pulls me back like a warm blanket I keep folded on the couch. It is comfort food. It fills a space. It calms the noise. I know I use it as a shield, though I rarely admit it.

People think this habit must come from snobbery. It doesn’t. I don’t think my taste is better. I don’t think I know more. I don’t even think my choices are interesting. They are habits. They formed in the years between my latchkey afternoons in the 1980s and my long stretch working in cubicle-filled office spaces. I learned to sit on the edge of things. I learned to keep my distance. I learned to stay alert and hold my ground. Over time, that stance spread to other parts of my life. Pop culture became one of the first places where I stepped aside.

I tell myself this is a Gen X thing. We grew up in the cracks. We kept things close. We did not trust anything shiny. We played our music too loud for our parents and ignored anything that felt like it belonged to the crowd. The instinct stayed with me long after the bands broke up and the mixtapes fell apart in the sun.

But I can’t blame my generation for everything. At some point, it stopped being a pose and turned into a pattern. I avoided shows because everyone talked about them. I avoided albums because they climbed the charts too fast. I avoided animated films without ever giving them a chance. That last part is the one people tease me about the most. They look at me with a mix of confusion and pity. No “Spirited Away.” No “Up.” No “Coraline.” Nothing. I built a wall around that whole genre and never looked through the cracks.

Yesterday, a friend noticed this. She asked if I had watched that new series that everyone seems to love. I admitted I had not. I offered no reason. I tried to move on. She stopped me and asked why with a confused look on her face. She was not mocking me. She was curious. She started to pick at the edges of my reasoning in a kind way. It caught me off guard. I felt exposed in a way I didn’t expect.

It is rare for someone to call out my contrarian streak. Most people let it go. They figure I am busy. They figure I am out of touch. They figure I am being myself in whatever way makes sense to me. But she asked real questions. She wanted to know where this came from. I had no good answer. I realized how little I have looked at this part of myself. I know I push away from the crowd. I know I build distance, but I don’t know what that distance protects.

The truth is that this pattern has cost me more than it has given. It has kept me from easy connections. I sidestep conversations. I stand outside jokes. I linger at the edge of shared moments. People try to include me. They ask what I think of the thing they all love. I have nothing to offer. I retreat into silence and hope the topic shifts. It usually does. But the gap stays.

I want to break this pattern. I want to be open to things that feel new or strange. I want to let myself say yes without analyzing the shape of the yes. The question is how to start.

Lately, I have been thinking about watching all the Studio Ghibli films. It feels like a small act of rebellion against my own rigid ways. These movies are loved across generations. They are gentle. They are rich with color and quiet movement. People describe them with a kind of warmth I do not understand yet. I want to see what I have missed. I want to sit still and watch the light shift through those strange, bright worlds. I want to feel the pull that so many others talk about.

I do not expect this to change me in a deep way. I am too old to transform myself into someone else. But I can loosen my grip. I can tilt my head toward the things I once ignored. I can step closer to the circle instead of holding the wall.

I don’t know if I will like the movies. I don’t know if they will stir anything in me. I don’t know if this will lead to other shifts. But I want to try. I want to understand why I have spent so much time pulling away when stepping in might have been easier.

Maybe this contrarian streak is not a fixed trait. Maybe it is a habit that needs air. Maybe I can watch something loved by many and not feel like I am losing something. Maybe the world will feel slightly wider if I stop turning away from it, and for now, maybe that is enough.