What is normal?

Norms? What are they? How does is one become acceptable to society? These are just a few of the questions I asked myself while completing this assignment. When I think of a norm, I think of something this is generally accepted by society. Newman defines institutionalized norms as, “a pattern of behavior within existing social institutions that is widely accepted in society” (p.124).

For this assignment, I completed one norm violation on the list on page 123. The norm I tested was standing far away from a loved one during the course of conversation. To explain the situation a little further, I was with my boyfriend of six years. We decided to go out for dinner and to complete a few errands around town. The conversations we have vary according to the social setting we are in. On a normal dinner date we usually sit next to one another in the booth or at a table. This time I decided to sit across the table from him. Instantly I received “the look”.  The look was followed by a series of questions. Questions like, “what is wrong”, “are you ok?”, “why are you sitting over there?” I tried to keep my composure knowing that my little experiment was not over. I responded to him with very short answers like, “I feel like”, “can’t I sit over here”? and “change can be a good thing”. Upon receiving my answers, I could feel his mood/attitude change toward me. During the course of dinner, I kept the conversation very short. After dinner, we ran to target to get a few items. On a normal target shopping trip, we are very organized in getting our items. Each and every time we go into target, we attack the store the same way. This time I decided to throw him a curve ball. I was all over the place. This time I didn’t have a list (which normally I would), I was going from one isle to the next not even getting all items that we needed. I was almost running into other customers, not apologizing for my actions, just basically doing and going wherever I saw fit. Let’s just say after about the sixth isle I went down, my boyfriend had left me and walked out of the store. After several attempts to call him on his cell phone, he came back to target to pick me up. I had him pull into a parking space and let him in on what was going on. Lucky for me, he understood for the purposes of this assignment. I reassured him I did not change overnight.

When reflecting upon this assignment, I realized that we as a society have many unspoken norms or common expectation of one another.  When asking my friends and family about these norms, a common theme I found was “it is just how it is” or “that is what they say”. First, I have always wanted to know who “they” are and second, who defines what norms are? Do we as a society just follow what the next person is doing? Are we truly individuals?