What phase did you go through as a teenager?

None. I just wore ordinary, plain clothing. I wanted to try most of the phases and styles, but I could never fully commit. I had a lot of gangster (read: white, Norwegian, suburban type gangster) friends, but I didn't like sagging my pants, nor did I wear any head garment (caps/woolen hats were pretty standard gangster attire). I wore a baggy hoodie, that's it.

I decided I wanted to sort of stand out from those guys a bit more, and tried to be punk. I got a buzzcut mohawk (because I wasn't brave enough nor cool enough to go for the proper mohawk) and I listened to the soundtrack to the Tony Hawk games a lot. Unfortunately, this got perceived as emo. And not fully emo, but poser emo. So instead of being a poser punk, I was now a poser emo. So then I tried to be fully emo, but again felt that it would be too much of an odd and drastic change of style. Besides, I really didn't have anything to rebel against. I had loving parents, still married, lots of friends, fairly popular, hung out with the cool kids, no shortage of female interest etc. I didn't do drugs, I wasn't a troubled child, my life didn't suck.

So really, the only link I had to any of the phases was that I sometimes listened to the appropriate music. I eventually settled on a sort of style and persona that fit in with everyone. I was the kind of guy that people thought "Oh that guy is pretty cool, I doesn't care what other people think. He just does his own thing"... which is what I wanted people to think of me. I worked really hard on appearing like I didn't care, actually.

So I never had a specific style, or went through a specific phase. I could never bring myself to commit to anything radical, like colouring my hair in crazy colours, start wearing fingerless gloves, get piercings, start acting like a cunt to be more gangster, etc.

I even tried being a skater boy once. I fell. Haven't set foot on a skateboard since.

(and man, don't even get me started on goth. I wanted to be goth so bad. I listened to Nightwish all the time, and that was as close as I ever got.)

/r/AskReddit Thread