Hi, my name is Lindsay Palmer and I am socially awkward. If you actually know me, then you probably know that isn’t true at all. However, what you may not know is that I was homeschooled for all of my life. The only times I stepped foot in a school was for speech therapy when I was 5 and for three months of second grade.

In high school, when people would find out I was homeschooled, I always got the question, “Well, do you have friends?”  Or, “Why aren’t you weird?” “Do you get to wear your pajamas to school?” One of my personal favorites was, “How do you meet people?”

These questions always made me chuckle a little bit on the inside.

Yes, I had friends in high school (besides my five siblings), no I didn’t wear pajamas to do school work, and I am actually weird. These statements are amusing but what’s actually funny is how people place stereotypes and labels on everyone they know and they believe them.

In high school, my neighbor thought about homeschooling her children so she pulled me to the side and asked me how homeschoolers have friends. I explained to her that sometimes when I go to events, I meet people and I actually talk to them.  I say that with sarcasm now but my neighbor genuinely believed that all homeschoolers were doomed to be socially awkward.

I explained to her we have a common misconception that every person who is homeschooled is weird. However, homeschoolers aren’t that different from “normal people.” We have compete in sports, we hang out with friends and sometimes even go on dates (gasp).

The labels that are put on homeschoolers are merely a stereotype. Merriam-Webster defines a stereotype as, “a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.” We do not realize it but we see see stereotypes every day.

We see something and we assign a label to it, whether it may be true or not. I hate to break it to you, but not all homeschoolers are socially awkward. I know this may be shocking but some homeschoolers actually have friends.

In the end, I just embrace the stereotypes that come with being homeschooled all my life.

My name is Lindsay Palmer and I am socially awkward.