To Fringe, Or Not To Fringe

As of this moment Lumsk, a Norwegian Folk Metal band, is playing. If that does not sum up the tone of this little missive then allow me to expand a horizon. Imagine classic operatic soprano voice, folk violin, and your usual metal instruments and you’ll be imagining what I am listening to (though I admit it is hard to imagine). This helps to set the stage but like the proverbial iceberg this is just the tip (though in truth it is but a spire of the tip); my interests lie along the ragged edge of our culture, and on occasion culture catches up with me and then I wage a battle of nuance. I’m not here to complain about being on the Fringe, because it’s not really something I have a lot of control over. The Fringe happens to be the place where my natural interests lie, not something I choose to like just to be different. However, there is a price to pay for the kind of Fringe I live in, and that is a price I struggle with.

Like most good stories this one has its root in what is now the distant past. I cannot pinpoint a day or even a year but somewhere in that nebulous time of Change known rather colloquially as Jr. High School I began to develop outside interests. By outside I mean I began to cautiously explore the world as I had access to it and make decisions for myself as to whether or not I liked something, not simply accepting my parents’s attitudes and opinions about it. As if life as a young Christian boy in a public school system wasn’t hard enough I came to the conclusion that the normal and popular activities and past-times were boring and uninteresting. The only club I took any interest in was the Chess Club, and that I fear was the first step towards marginalization.

Over the years I have continued to find interesting things to invest my time and energies into, and nearly every time they have been outside of the normal pursuits and activities of the day. It has not always been easy, but it has always been rewarding, until now. I am in a pursuit of social activities through games, and true to form these are the kind of games you have to find at a specialty shop. This has presented a whole new set of challenges for now my involvement among the fringes of our society is becoming a problem I might not be able to overcome; in nearly every other odd fascination and pursuit of mine I have been able to go it alone; I have up until this point been interested in things which are anti-socially tolerant. Being forced into looking for and finding people who share interests with me and then spending large amounts of time with them has dredged some rather disturbing emotions, fears, and thoughts.

Among “The Fringe” as I have met and associated with I am a noted oddity. I dress conservatively, I am polite (when not found in my natural habitat), I am politically neutral to “right wing conservative”, and the clincher, I am an evangelical “born again” Christian without any hint of liberal theology or thinking. I suspect I am not alone, and I can indeed confirm there are other like-minded and like-valued people who share some of my interests, sadly they don’t live in my state. The struggle I have is that “The Fringe” as I have met them have radically different values and belief systems than mine, some have even gone so far as to declare themselves Satanists. How does one spend time with people who are fundamentally different, yet share the same hobbies and interests?

Any easy solutions are probably wrong solutions, and when I add in another gradient things might gain a grain of clarity. There is a slight but significant difference between fellowship and socializing. To have fellowship is to share things in common, and in my experience it affects a person down to the deepest levels of their being. Bonds of friendship, trust, and love are formed that often cannot be easily sundered. Socializing is spending time with people but shutting out opportunities to affect deep change in another person. When I look my little personal quest I have to recognize the one from the other and I admit that I am looking for fellowship, and I know I will probably not find it in and amongst “The Fringe”, but I also want socialization, and that can be had anywhere, even with the Satanists (though I’m sure it wouldn’t be stellar nor long).

My search for people to join with me and share some adventures around an assortment of table-top games isn’t made any easier by this little revelation of mine, but it does help to divide and separate what I am looking for and what I can likely expect to find. If I want fellowship I should keep looking for it among fellow Christians. For the game days I’ll take what I can get, and keep looking for anyone and everyone who would be interested and available. We may or may not hit it off, but at least I’ll know not to go looking for lasting and profound friendships (though if any happen I won’t mind).