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6knotty6thotty6 · 11 months

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Non-Furry (Normie) Friends

There’s a tweet that’s been circling around that’s caused some interesting discourse.

Here’s the tweet (along with the sub-tweets due to the character limit):

“Every furry should have at least a couple of boring normie friends to keep themselves grounded in reality tbh.

Generally speaking, I don’t think it’s wise to surround yourself ONLY with people that exist within your niche. Diverse friends is good, I like my boring friends :)

This was meant to be interpreted as “sometimes hang out with people who like boring stuff like sports and cars”

This doesn’t mean you should try to be friends with conservatives and bigots, thas a completely different discussion

aight i see now. my biggest mistake was using the word "boring". obviously these normie friends should still have common interests you guys share. i mainly meant people who arent all about anthro animals/do not associate with the furry fandom. thats all. muting this now.”

This tweet is a mixed bag for me. Obviously, I don’t blame the writer of this tweet. Character limits make any intelligent discussion borderline impossible without just copying and pasting a twitlonger. Some of the comments though show me that some people just fail to realize why some people joined the fandom in the first place.

At the risk of sounding cheeky, the answer is most of us joined the fandom BECAUSE we couldn’t make “normie” friends. Here are some reasons why:

1. Some people live in small towns where public transportation and sidewalks either don’t exist or are only available in cities. Gas is more expensive than ever, so driving to see friends isn’t a sustainable option. Befriending co-workers is an option, but certain workspaces are so hostel and competitive, it makes friendships more of a liability. It's even harder if you're a different age, race, gender, sexuality, etc from the majority of your co-workers. This is an example of how even "normies" don't like making friends out of their comfort zone. These are especially true with jobs in Corporate America when bosses will hold promotions over people’s heads and force them to see their co-workers as enemies to gain superiority over. Social spaces that don’t require spending money, in general, are almost nonexistent. So if you’re too poor to afford to hang out at bars, coffee shops, or gyms, then there really aren’t that many good options for adults to just hang out and meet people. There are clubs for adults, but almost of them require money for entry, and again the ability to transport yourself there. Volunteering is also an option, but some people's jobs are so time-consuming and stressful, that people are too exhausted to spend energy anywhere else.

2. Many furries were traumatized by non-furries from being bullied in school. Even now in 2023, kids are still being bullied for being furries. School can be a real social nightmare for children who aren’t considered “normal.” Any iota of difference can be grounds for bullying. I’m sure a lot of people had that one “weird kid” in their school that everyone was told to say away from. I doubt that “weird kid” was gonna grow up to be a social butterfly. Cliques are also a big deal. If you weren't in a clique, you didn't have friends. I didn’t fit into any cliques in my high school. I wasn’t smart enough to hang around the AP kids. I was rejected by several sports teams for not being able to keep up, so hanging out with the sporty kids was out. I was in band, but the teachers discouraged socializing as it was a distraction from practice, and I was too much of a teacher’s pet to disobey the rules. I was also an introvert. People in general don’t have much sympathy for introverts, especially if they’re not neurodivergent. People often tell us “Just stop being shy” or “just walk up and talk to people, it’s not that hard” when we lament how hard it is to make friends. Some real bootstrap mentality and victim-blaming rhetoric. When you add having niche interest, or god forbid interests outside of your assigned race/gender, then it's no wonder many teenagers end up feeling lonely.

3. On that topic, being disabled and neurodivergent also makes finding nonfurry friends extremely challenging. We sadly still live in an ableist society where the vast majority of people think you can just buy some magic pills that’ll make you feel normal. If people either chose not to do that, or can’t due to lack of money, then they’re seen as selfish/lazy and deserving of being alone. Even though I’m neurotypical, it doesn’t take a genius to do some basic research to see why it’s not easy for neurodivergents people to just “act normal.” Even when neurodivergent try explain themselves, people either don’t listen or still treat them as lesser because they’re “too difficult to deal with.” For neurotypicals, “acting normal” is as second nature as breathing. So meeting other people who can’t do it, causes a lot of judgment and even resentment. "Acting normal" for some people can feel like playing 5d chess with quantum physics. This is the same struggles that cause some people to become hikikomoris. Hikikomoris are seen as losers who are too lazy or selfish to fix themselves. In reality, a lot of them are just mentally ill and/or neurodivergent people whom no one made any effort to understand. Instead of receiving help, they got left behind with nowhere to go but the internet.

Reminds me of another tweet I saw months before the current one (written by an autistic furry):

“i get so comfortable and caught up in the "normalcy" of my social groups and my every day lifestyle and get violently snapped back to the reality that i am fundamentally Different. trying to have any kind of conversation with a neurotypical feels so very alienating. I spend so much time holed up in my little cave talking to my friends and the comfort of it lulls me into a false sense of "...maybe i am fine and okay? my brain works perfectly and i can function well" but any deviation from that is so disastrous to my self and my routine. It just feels like nothing i do or say is the right thing to do or say. and suddenly they're getting mad at me for things i couldn't anticipate. what am i missing? i apparently missed every single warning sign.”

4. It’s no secret that the vast majority of furries are queer. It’s also no secret how queer folks often get treated in the real world. Especially if people are unlucky enough to be queer in the South. For queer people who grew up away from any major cities in conservative households with no access to any transportation, finding anyone who treats you like a human, let alone a friend, can be a real needle in the haystack situation. I'm aromantic asexual and an AFAB non-binary. I have “normie” friends, but all of them are allosexual cis women because they were the only ones who tolerated me. They were nice, but I had little to nothing in common with them outside of caring about our grades. Sexuality is a big deal in high school due to that being the time when everyone is going through puberty. I never cared about dating. So engaging in “who’s the hottest?” “who’s more marriage material?” or “who are you taking to the prom?” banter was impossible. I had to lie about who I was crushing on so people wouldn’t spread roomers that I was a lesbian. I tried being friends with boys, but cis straight teenage boys don’t exactly treat female-presenting people the best, or at least in a non-sexual way.

5. The furry fandom has a level of communal support that "normies" just don’t really provide. Every day I see so many furries promote their friends on their social media pages to help them pay for debt, medical procedures, or just to keep up with bills. Nonfurries don’t really do that. Not to say people's nonfurries have never helped them. It's just that we sadly live in a very individualistic sociality where we’re encouraged to only look out for ourselves. People may make exceptions for their best friends, but it’s unlikely that a community of nonfurries would donate to a random stranger’s GoFundMed compared to furries, especially outside of the internet. People don't open up their doors for official charity associations, let alone strangers asking for donations. The closest you’ll see nonfurries showing any kind of communal support is a church, even then that type of support is only reserved for Christians. It’s also doubtful that they’d pool their money to help a trans person receive gender-affirming surgery. This goes into a bigger discussion about how the concept of communities doesn’t really exist anymore. We live in a very individualistic society where asking for help is a sign of moral failure or weakness, especially if you’re a man. Neighborhoods, especially in the suburbs, are built so it's easy for people to only look out for wherever lives in their home. Everyone else doesn’t matter, or at the very least is second nature. Unless you’re lucky enough to live in a “safe” neighborhood that hosts community events like house parties and BBQs, most people’s neighbors are basically strangers. This is why suburban housewives are prone to feeling isolated and alone. The furry fandom fulfills that need for community that a lot of people were lacking in their personal lives.

For clarity, I have absolutely nothing against non-furries, or befriending them. I still try to keep up with my "boring normie" friends by sending birthday shoutouts on social media and mailing them Christmas cards. The harsh truth is I’ll never be as close with them as I was in high school since we’re just too different at this point in our lives. They’re all in separate states, have time-consuming career paths, and as previously stated are all allosexual cis women who are either already married with children or dating. It’s just not possible for me to make friends outside of the fandom, at least in my current state. I’ve moved 8 times throughout my life, so I have no childhood friends. I went to college during the peak of the pandemic and took mostly online classes, so I didn’t make any college friends. I live with my mom and have all solitary hobbies. I’ve also mentioned that I’m introverted, so hanging around people irl physically and mentally exhausts me.

So with all this in mind, I hope it’s easier to understand why most furries aren’t exactly interested in having “normie” friends. The fandom was originally created as a safe haven for people who were rejected by the outside world and had nowhere to go. This sentiment grew even more with social media where people outside of America were able to find a home. I wasn’t able to socialize with anyone my age or have people to call my best friends until I joined the fandom. Also, it’s not fair to think of all furries as the same. Yes, some furries are extremely infantilized, self-centered, and only speak in “uwu” and “owo.” However, in my personal experience, furries are just normal people who happen to indulge in the same hobby. I have furry friends who are STEM majors, work in music, are married with children, and have vastly different queer experiences. I think the fact that all these vastly different people who never would’ve even spoken to each other in real life are united under the same common interest is kinda beautiful. As the world grows more and more hostile towards, well, anyone who’s not a cis het white middle-class man, people need the communal support of the fandom more than ever. Instead of shaming furries who are “terminally online,” we should instead address the larger issue of why our current society is built in a way that makes certain people heavily rely on online spaces for love and support in the first place.

If “normies” treated each other with the same unjudgemental kindness and support as furries, then the fandom wouldn’t have been created in the first place.

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