Heard this on Gossip Girl (Season 5, Ep 4) and immediately tracked it down. Perfect down to the slight laugh in her gravelly, wistful voice.
As I've grown up, I've noticed that certain people use the word 'different' to mean 'someone who is unlike us', 'someone I don't really understand, and most probably cannot get along with'. It's code for 'let's keep a polite distance from this one'.
A: How do you find person X?
B: Hmm, she's had a lot of life experiences. [pauses significantly] She's different.
A friend once shared a favourite book entitled Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli. It was about a girl who was different. It wasn't about daring to be different. It wasn't about trying to fit in. And it wasn't about trying to be someone. She just was herself.
“In our minds we tried to pin her to a corkboard like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.” ...“We had no one to compare her to, no one to measure her against. She was unknown territory. Unsafe. We were afraid to get too close.”
“She's in tenth grade,' he said. 'I hear she's been homeschooled till now.'
Maybe that explains it,' I said.”And the people who chose to set her apart.
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