Social Renegade at last!

I was that kid you hated in high school, you know, the quiet intelligent one that NEVER did anything wrong, not even misspelled a word…okay, my spelling wasn't perfect, but I was never even remotely close to rebellious; I was too terrified to rebel.  My clothes didn't have holes in them, my hair wasn't purple, I never got a tattoo or piercing, everything I learned about drugs and alcohol was from a book, I didn't even go out with anyone or listen to loud music.  Growing up and moving on with my life, I still never found my way into 'trouble,' even as tattoos and piercings became mainstream; I did skip class once, in graduate school, to buy movie tickets…wow, now that is rebellion!  Sigh, I'm still that kid you hate.

Then I woke up one morning and discovered I was a rebel at last!  I had attained the status of social renegade through no effort of my own.  I'm still the same, ho hum, theoretically boring, drab person I have always been, but the world has suddenly turned on its head.  I grew up in the midst of the divorce craze that ravaged so many families at the end of the last century (boy I sound old) and have watched marriage rates plummet in the intervening years until it is no longer a cultural norm, but rather one lifestyle choice among many, and then the whole institution has suddenly been redefined, meaning it will soon have no definition at all, at least among the majority of Americans.  Get married if you like or don't, it doesn't matter, marry whomever you want, break it off when it gets cumbersome or dull; it's all the same, at least on the level of cultural perception and acceptance.

So the cultural rebels of yesteryear had long hair (it was green) and tattoos and listened to stuff that could not possibly be classified as music at headache-inducing decibels.  Today's rebels will marry someone of the opposite genetic sex and remain in that sordid relationship indefinitely; weird, that's like so retro, man.  Talk about countercultural!  Does this mean I'm finally cool?