Is anyone normal?

Hmm...not sure about that roses! Since when do politicians of any party freely admit it when they've made a mistake, unless forced to do so because they've been found out...?

What is this thread actually about, anyway? Normality, or voting tendency?

For the record, despite my previous flippant comment, I'm proud not to be normal. I've always been a bit of a weirdo and a misfit. I live on the borders of Bromley borough, but I'd describe myself as more green rinse than blue. Or perhaps red rinse. Or half and half.

Some people would just hate to be considered 'normal' though, wouldn't they?

Thinking of those awful 'I'm so wacky, me' types you meet sometimes - who aren't really!

I don't try to be abnormal. I just am.

But then aren't we all unique in which case there can be no such thing as normal.

When I was in my early twenties someone said I was the most normal person they had ever met - didn't know what to make of that - not sure I liked it.

I never sought not to be 'normal'. As a child and a teen, all I wanted was to be like everyone else and to fit in, but I just didn't, however hard I tried. At that time it feels you have no place, no niche. That feeling stayed with me for decades, on and off, but these days I don't care that much and I just want to feel OK in my own skin. That's one thing I've tried to teach our children (not totally successfully though, due to extreme circumstances).

But 'wacky'? Nah. Though I am drawn to eccentric people

Ana, you have put your finger on the nub. I would go so far as to say that most of us like to think that we are not like everybody else and not absolutely normal, but a little different.

However. fighting that tendency in myself, I have to admit that Rowantree's post reflected my childhood, except that in my case, while I would quite like to have been normal, I never could pretend, so I decided when I was quite young to be myself and take the flak. There were always one or two other mavericks around, and my closest childhood friend remains a close friend. We were both described as being 'deeply subversive' and we haven't changed much.

Ana, know what you mean, 'I'm mad, me!' As a comment from anyone who I have only just met ( at a club I joined) I feel straight off that I wish I hadn't joined, and at the very least not sat next to them!

Most people are normal, at least enough to fit in and live , work, and enjoy themselves.What we have to realise though,is that others don't think in the exact way that we ourselves do.

The OP seems to have done a runner.

Where would lefties be without 'class'? They are the only people who bang on about something that is of little or no interest to most of us.

Someone else who thinks he speaks for "most of us".

Are you saying you're not a 'lefty', durhamjen?

No. That's why "most of us" was in " ".

Well said, durhamjen - and I note that the word 'lefty' is used almost as a term of abuse, much in the same way as 'do-gooder' is.

I don't think "lefty" is so much abusive as disparaging and dismissive. How come people who support the Conservatives (or even further right-wing politics) are never called righties?

They are usually called fascists, which is pejorative.

Conservative supporters are fascists? First I've heard of it!

As far as 'lefties' is concerned, I prefer to use the term 'left-leaners' but in my previous post was following on from feetlebaum's comment.

Fascist may be used inaccurately to describe right-wing views in a derogatory way but is not necessarily a pejorative term. Fascism is simply a type of extremely authoritative right-wing government, although probably not one of which most Gransnetters approve. cf communist.

Totalitarianism is the kind of government you have described, absent and it includes governments of both right and left persuasions.

Back to politics are we?