Why do we love strange?

As I read over my last post, a question occurred to me…why is it that we love strange? Peoplelove to hear weird stories, strange facts and obscure gossip- just look at tabloid sales, they practically fly off the rack! And I don’t know about you, but my favorite page in the newspaper is News of the Odd.

So what’s going on here? Why do we feel this way? Well, I have a couple theories…

1. Nothing interesting ever seems to happen to me. My life is so boring, I have to reach out to other sources to find strangeness. Every once in a while I’ll get a good nugget of strange in my life, so I always share it with other pe

ople to make up for the lack of strangeness in their lives. I like to think they would do the same for me.

photo courtesy chalboardmanifesto.com

2. We are nosy. Oh come on, you know you are. We love knowing what’s going on in other people’s lives and what crazy things happen to them. This goes along with the first theory- we’re just too boring to be entertaining all the time.

photo courtesy atrandomcomics.com

3. It didn’t really happen unless you share it. This is so true! Unless you tell everyone about your strange story, it will fall into a vortex of if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, did it really happen? We just seem to need our experiences validated.

photo courtesy cartoonstock.com

4. We love to laugh. This one may be most powerful of all. We just cannot resist the opportunity to have a good laugh! When we can all laugh together, it strengthens our friendships and even our love, so why not share a strange and embarrassing story at your own expense in order to fall more in love with your friends.

photo courtesy myself and my best friend, Jenna

I don’t know what it is about strange, but it seems to bring people together. Whether it’s sharing the story to make your friends laugh, or it was just so strange you need to say it just to know that it actually existed, we all must continue to share our strangeness. Because without it, well, life would just be less fun.