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AskMe: How to become an eccentric (or just look like one)

Suggest eccentricities for me to adopt | Ask MetaFilter

From a fun AskMe thread:

In my quest to become more distinctive, I'm looking for suggestions of harmless eccentricities to adopt. Who better than the MeFi hive mind to provide them? Anecdotes of eccentric folk you've known in the past welcome.

This reminds me of that stage where teenage girls randomly start to affect a terrible british accent, or when college freshmen suddenly stop wearing shoes and take up raw foods and the shakuhachi. Of course, this is not to say that I haven't had ideas of my own.

’Fess up: what was your goofiest affectation and what made you stop it?

Clarification (2006-07-15 10:20:20): The "In my quest..." portion above is a quotation from the link that is referenced; it's not actually me asking for help to (God forbid) become more eccentric. This confused some people, and, well, I regret your confusion if you have any and hope this clarification helps. -- The Management

B Johnsen's picture

One time in my early...

One time in my early twenties I scavenged a change of clothes at my boyfriend's house and ended up wearing plain white men's boxer shorts and a (Salvation Army score) men's cotton Aloha shirt. I'm a small woman and these were men's size medium. I ive in the tropics and rode a bike everywhere at the time, and this outfit turned out to be natural air conditioning. The wind would blow in the sleeves of the shirt and out the tail, the shorts were extremely light weight, and it was just insanely confortable. I was just surfing, going to school, and riding bikes all day, so that became my uniform - white boxer shorts and a small wardrobe of 50¢ Aloha shirts. I had a part-time job in the evenings and I wore (relatively) normal clothes then. I did this for about a year, until my life went in a different direction.

But when I think about it, most of my eccentricities over the years have involved clothing, and a desire to be comfortable. My Converse All-Stars, usually high tops, come to mind - they're the only shoes (as opposed to sandals) that I wear, and I wear them with everything from levis to impeccable professional drag. Fortunately, I work in an "artistic" profession.

 
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