Clumsiness, bizarre behavior aren’t the worst traits to have

When I was 6 years old, I jumped – belly-flopped might be a better word choice, actually -… When I was 6 years old, I jumped – belly-flopped might be a better word choice, actually – off a 2-foot-high Fisher Price table and managed to collide with the millimeter-thin metal rim of a toy bin in the basement of a friend’s house. My forehead split open, and a scar where eight stitches once held the wound together is still visible across my eyebrow.

Fast forward four or five years. Throwing a softball in my backyard with my dad one afternoon (touching, I know), I held my glove up to catch a pop fly and missed entirely. The softball smacked me squarely, if not lightly, between the eyes. This happened three times before we finally called it quits.

Just last winter, I was walking across Bigelow Boulevard in a pair of flip-flops, slipped on a puddle and landed on my butt in front of a crowd of strangers. Of course, I had been walking alone. And mere days after that, I zoned out staring at the boots of the young woman walking ahead of me up the steps to the Cathedral, tripped and scraped my wrist.

I think it’s safe to consider myself a klutz.

Not so extraordinary. But what many people do find strange is the amount of pride I take in the walls, doors and telephone poles I’ve collided with over the years, the number of times I’ve stubbed my toe, the frequency with which I arrive at my destination bruised or bleeding. Should I be more embarrassed by my own awkwardness?

Probably. But aside from the fact that it forces me to laugh at myself, I relish in my clumsiness because it gives me character. It doesn’t make me unique, per se – the definition of that word being “existing as the only one or as the sole example,” according to Random House – but I do enjoy telling stories of my inelegance to a sarcastic chorus of “Well, I’m shocked.” I like being known for something. It gives me a sense of security of who I am. I’m a klutz. While there are other characteristics that I hope also define my personality, I like that I can put my finger right on that particular one. The evidence is undeniable.

I think all of us have to admit that it’s the silliest parts of our personalities we love the most: a passion for quantum physics, an addiction to Sweet Tarts or the ability to recite every one of Peter Parker’s lines from “Spiderman 2.” These are the traits that we appreciate the most in ourselves and in others, too. We each have the ability to be different every now and then.

It’s a concept that is highly valued in our society. Sometimes, we go to extremes to achieve that goal – piercing our faces, dyeing our hair, dressing distinctively. And while all of those actions demonstrate an admirable level of creativity, it truly is worth it to count what may seem like our goofier attributes as equally interesting.

For me, it is my total inability to make it smoothly from point A to point B, keep my body intact for 24 hours straight and even cleanly field a ball that gives me pride. For a friend of mine here, an otherwise perfectly intelligent human being, it’s her repeated failure to understand almost every pop culture reference made in her presence. Until she saw a poster for it in someone’s dorm room, the girl had never heard of the movie “Pulp Fiction.” (She did, however, decide that the name Quentin Tarantino “sounded familiar.”)

But it’s exactly what we love about her. It mystifies us that she’s able to discuss colonization in Africa and its effect on the continent’s present-day politics but hesitates when asked to identify two characters on the TV show “Friends.”

Everyone has some streak of ridiculousness, some bizarre attribute that presents him or her with two options. We can pick self-consciousness and opt to hide the more peculiar aspects of our personalities, blushing when they come up in conversation or when friends use them to taunt us. Or, we can flaunt what we’ve got and demonstrate what pure confidence really looks like.

Even if your personal “defect” is a lack of common sense – for many, this just might be the case – I think the choice is pretty clear. The only personal characteristics that should truly embarrass a person are racism, sexism and the like. Eating your Cheerios smothered in chocolate syrup hardly compares, don’t you think?

Share your not-so-shortcomings with Carolyn at ceg36@pitt.edu.