Hello. I am a member of an "out group". I'm an outcast, a freak, a weirdo, and a myriad of other insulting monikers. I don't dress like most people, and I have tattoos, as well as piercings in and on my face. I listen to Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails, KMFDM, Tool and a variety of other "angry" music. When I go to Marilyn Manson concerts (for example), I'm as close to the stage as I can get, chanting with the rest of the crowd "We Hate Love! We Love Hate!" Starting when I was in high school, I had, at one time or another, blue, red, orange, green, turquoise, and platinum colored hair. I wore Doc Martens and combat boots to school, and occasionally had to talk with the principal about my interpretations of the dress code - fortunately for my friends and me, the administration was very democratic, and we were permitted to justify some of our 'questionable choices'. This is a refreshing practice, particularly when considering that this was Saint Xavier High School, a Jesuit-run facility in Cincinnati, Ohio. When I went to college at the University of Cincinnati, I joined the International Socialist Organization. I changed majors four times before dropping out after approximately two and a half years. I'm a pagan, and occasionally practice ritual magic. I play fantasy role-playing games (though I don't play Dungeons & Dragons, it's a good example of the sort of game I play), many of which involve shooting and killing imaginary enemies, with my crew, TeamAD (named after the anime series A.D. Police). I also play paintball, a type of war simulation using paint pellets instead of bullets to "kill" the other team. I also am an avid computer user. I play Quake, Doom, Carmageddon, Diablo, and a host of other violent games. I have a web site that could easily offend a lot of people.

Some things about me may surprise you, though. I began working professionally in the information technology industry as a web site programmer when I was 18 and I bought my first house the following year. I dropped out of college when working full time, going to school full time and remodeling my house (I did the work myself) became too much. Almost all of my computer knowledge is self-taught - I've taken only one computer course titled "3-D Animation"; a topic entirely unrelated to the field in which I work. I am now employed by Bank of America [formerly NationsBank] as a Web Server Administrator (i.e. Webmaster) in Chicago. I have never taken an illicit drug of any sort, including marijuana. I don't, nor have I ever, smoked and I've never been drunk. I own two cats. I get along with my parents now, though there were some tough times during my teenage years.

What's more, I still have piercings, still have tattoos, and still dress weirdly. Often, people don't want to sit next to me on the elevated train. However, I am fortunate to have found an employer who doesn't care about any of that. I do my job very well, and that's what matters. It doesn't bother me that security sometimes follows me in stores, nor does it bother me that I'm usually accosted by the on-site security people who don't know me if I come in to work on the weekend. Of course it would be nice to not be bothered sometimes, but I don't expect that to happen. If it really bothered me, I'd buy clothes at Abercrombie and become another drone. That's not very likely to happen, because I'm quite definitely not a drone.

By the way, I've also never killed anyone. I don't plan on killing anyone. In fact, I've never been in a fight, unless you count that time in grade school when a kid named Eric hit me in the face (That's all that happened - I lost).

Why should you care about any of this? Because I can feel a backlash coming against kids who are different. Of course, some people are disturbed, but the exceptions to the rule are the disturbed people you can pick out of the crowd. Jeffrey Dahmer looked normal, and so did Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy. Just because a person finds comfort in the stylings of a group that is not in the majority does not mean they should be persecuted. All great things happen from exceptional people - we, as a society, need to recognize that 'exceptional' doesn't necessarily, or even usually, match the status quo called "normal". I need not expound on the overwhelming examples of people and their followers who strayed from the majority - Ghandi, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Martin Luther King, Jr., Galileo, and hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of others.

Yes, of course parents and teachers should be aware of any pendulous behavioral swings or signs of acting out violence, but they should also take care not to attack kids simply because they don't look like they looked when they were that age. Some kids like to and will look different or weird. I like to look weird, too, and so do many of my friends and associates.

Hello. A lot of people, friends and co-workers, call me Boinger – My family calls me Jeff.

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