Some people, even my mother, used the word frequently on me, and for a long time, I internalized it as a judgment, a signal that something about me didn’t fit.

“Be normal like other people”.

“Don’t be weird”.

“Don’t be yourself if you are a weird person”.

Weird: A Label of Deviation

The word “weird” often comes from a social or relational lens. It implies that someone behaves differently from what is expected in a particular context, whether it’s family, school, or society at large. Usually comes from someone observing you and thinking: “Huh… that’s not what I’d do.”

For example, when I was a child, my mom called me weird when I made choices or had interests that didn’t match family norms. It felt very negative. However, I realize now that it wasn’t about harm, it was about difference from what she considered typical.

Eccentric: Affectionate Individuality

At school, my friends started calling me “eccentric.” At first, I wasn’t sure how to feel about that either. Over time, I realized that these two words, “weird” and “eccentric,” can carry very different meanings, and they reflect the perspectives of the people using them more than they define me.

By contrast, “eccentric” is often used by my friends or peers who observe my quirks with appreciation rather than judgment. They saw consistent patterns of behavior that are unique but coherent with my personality.
Eccentricity often has more neutral or positive tones. It can feel charming, quirky, or memorable, sometimes endearing rather than abnormal, with a neutral or positive tone. It usually comes from someone thinking, “Wow, that’s delightfully unusual!”
My friends calling me eccentric captured the essence of my individuality, the way I consistently approached life in my own unconventional style. I know it wasn’t a critique, and they befriended me anyway. It was a recognition.

Context-Dependent Weirdness

Over time, I realized these two words aren’t the same, and that weirdness is often just a matter of taste.

Weird: Relative, context-dependent, often judgmental.
Eccentric: Individual, consistent, often celebrated.

Weirdness is highly relative, and context matters a lot here: What is “weird” in one environment may be perfectly normal in another. One trait may be considered unusual in one society or group but completely normal in another.

First, imagine society says vanilla ice cream is normal, while chocolate, strawberry, and mint are weird. Does this sound right?

Now imagine another scenario where everyone grows up tasting saffron, truffle, or ghost pepper ice cream. Everyone’s flavors are now unusual, so “weird” doesn’t exist anymore, or maybe even vanilla has become the new weird.

Another example, society has historically labeled “average colors” (say, beige, light blue, or gray) as normal. Any color outside that palette, like neon green, magenta, or deep violet, was considered weird.
Now, imagine a world where everyone is a unique, vivid color.
If everyone is neon or glittery or polka-dotted, then by definition, no color is “weird” anymore. Weirdness only exists relative to the average.

Yes, some flavors (ghost pepper) are arguably still more intense. And some some colors are still more unusual or striking than others. Neon green sticks out more than pale lavender, just like some minds are “weirder” on multiple dimensions or more divergent on multiple traits.

But this shows that it’s all basically about relativity: weirdness is a scale, not an absolute. “Normal” only exists if you have a reference point, and some colors are just more or less extreme relative to the current palette.

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Anyway, in all honesty, I also meet people who are… well, truly extreme. Someone who did something I’d never do. That makes my quirks feel downright tame and I feel “normal” in comparison. But who knows, maybe for certain societies, that person is super normal?

This highlights that weirdness is a spectrum: some differences are minor quirks, others are extreme divergences from social norms or functional stability.

Over time, I’ve learned that self-labeling is powerful. Calling myself eccentric instead of weird aligns more closely with how I experience my individuality: unique, unconventional, but coherent.

I never call myself weird anymore. I realized that “weird” is just a mirror of someone else’s expectations, while “eccentric” reflects my own coherent, consistent patterns.

I sometimes still joke: “Normal people would do X, but I do Y.” But that’s just an observation: I notice patterns that differ from the majority. That means I know that based on my experience, most people (I know) didn’t choose the same thing as I did.
Understanding this distinction helped me embrace my quirks as authentic expressions of self, rather than as deviations that need fixing. It also reminded me that “normal” is mostly a social construct, and maybe, it’s better to just be yourself and what you’re comfortable with.