There are few things that raise my ire quite like people trying to force eccentricity just so that they have a manufactured quirk that they think makes them an interesting and individualized unique snowflake of a person. It’s transparent and sad. I have a coworker who only drinks water out of a vase. He tries to pass it off like I’m a square for not understanding that anything can be a drinking vessel, when I want to scream at him that he’s just substituting personality with a fabricated quirk. It’s why people don’t like hipsters.
That said, now that I have a kid, I want to manufacture some eccentricities to embarrass my kid. Granted my kid is only 5 months old, but I have to start planning now so that when she gains sentience she thinks this is just things I do. These are just some thoughts I’m bandying about:
I want to record an album of me whistling Lady GaGa songs then insist all her friends follow me on Spotify if Spotify still exists.
Snot rockets for accuracy.
I can tell her that I was once the World Champion of Connect Four, but there’s no record of it anywhere on the internet because this was an underground tournament, you know, where the real Connectors drop pieces. But then I’d actually have to get really good at Connect Four. Hey, maybe that’s a good eccentricity, actually getting really good at Connect Four.
Don’t drink or do any sort of drugs. . .except quaaludes on weekends and opium on Arbor Day.
Start a snake handling church. But that’s more of a lifestyle. The problem is, I don’t want to have to do a whole lot of work for this. It’s a quirk, not a passion project. I’m not George Lucas adding more CG racial stereotypes to a 20 year old movie.
Start blogging solely about my body oddities and read them aloud at dinner. That’s where this blog has been heading the whole time anyway.
Collect belly button lint, but that’s been done, right? As terrifying as that may be. Okay, scratch this one, it sounds like some serial killer habit.
Tattoos are too big of a commitment, but what if I got really into Henna?
Or, I could just do something really simple and subscribe to a newspaper.
Good luck, kiddo, I’m shaping your personality.
Strangely Naked 
You don’t need to be a serial killer to collect belly button lint. I know that personally, but collecting other people’s belly button lint, yeah, from co-workers. . . now that’s the ticket. It’s never been done and by then you’ll have quite a large ball of stinky belly button lint sitting in the corner of your living room that you can brag about.
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All I ever had to do was be myself and I embarrassed the hell out of my kids. I continue to do so.
Love,
Janie
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Yeah, I’m with Janie. Just be yourself because in a few short years, your daughter will be rolling her eyes anyway and saying “Daaa-aaad” like she’s too, TOO mortified by your simple existence on earth.
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I’m sure my kids think I’m weird but they seem to like me anyway.
They find it highly amusing when mum tries to show an interest in current fads like Pokemon but yet gets all the terminology twisted. (Did you just catch another Squidgy?)
As Debra said, you won’t need to be too quirky to be a complete embarrassment, just wait until the teenage years.
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I hope you’ve stocked up on dad jokes, because those will trump wacky quirks any day.
“I’m eccentric,” says vase-drinking-guy.
“Hi, Eccentric,” replies Pickleope. “I’m Dad.”
*child proceeds to squirm and cringe so hard paramedics are called*
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I hear ya, I don’t know why people cannot just be who they are and not so fake that they look fake
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Connect four can be really hard and competitive. I’ve been in tournaments before. It’s no joke.
(Ok the tournaments were at a daycare BUT STILL. Don’t take away my achievements.)
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My uncle used to tell me that my dad had won me in a poker game but was afraid to tell me because Muslims aren’t supposed to gamble.
He swore me to secrecy that I wouldn’t tell my dad I knew.
It took me years before I was finally 100% sure that it wasn’t true.
That kind of screws a kid up.
Can’t you and your significant other simply pretend to be speaking your own language and leave it at that? Everything you add to that is just one more year of tehrapy.
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Fabricated quirks… I don’t even know what that means, but of course I’m now trying to trick you into thinking that I’m unfamiliar with the whole concept. Unfortunately, you are not 5 months old, so my attempt is futile. I’m sure tricking a kid is the only way. I wish my parents had tricked me into thinking they were perfect, but that’s another story. Would you say that raising a child is pretty much the same as cultural brainwashing with a smattering of forced eccentricity? No?
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No.
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