We’re all pretty conventional as a social species. We like what we know – of course we do. We feel safe with what we know. And that applies to people as much as situations. You can tell so much about someone from the way they dress, speak, behave, wear their hair. When you meet someone new, you can pretty much pigeon-hole them straight away. You can see what type they are.

So it’s quite disconcerting when you meet someone you can’t categorise. Someone who stands out as being different. That doesn’t feel safe at all. In many ways, the easiest thing is to avoid them if at all possible. Especially if they come across as someone who not only looks odd, but also seems to follow different social rules – you know, they don’t get the unspoken stuff about where to stand or when to speak or how to address people.

What’s interesting is that it’s all to do with fitting in with other people. If you go to places where everyone is like this, suddenly it becomes acceptable, the norm, expected. And then the weirdos aren’t weirdos at all. I used to live in Glastonbury, in southwest England, which is where the hippies hang out. A friend of mine once described them as people who ‘like rainbow colours, don’t brush their hair, and wear all their clothes at once’. They also talk a lot about chakras and healing crystals and how there’s no such thing as coincidence⁸ because everything is ‘meant to be’. If you meet one of these people in Glastonbury – which you will – you don’t even notice because they blend into the crowd. But if the same person turned up at an office furniture sales conference, you’d definitely mark them down as a weirdo. Same person, different scenario.

Of course, if you were a hippy working in office furniture, you’d probably save the rainbow clothes for your days off. But all these people are doing is being themselves in every situation, instead of trying to blend with the crowd. Whether it’s a deliberate choice or an inability to recognise the effect they have doesn’t really matter – the point is that they’re simply being themselves. Which is rather refreshing actually, don’t you think?

Once you step out of your safety zone and speak to these people, they can be among the most interesting and inspiring people to know. Obviously – as with all people – a few of them might be tedious or not very nice, but it’s no more likely than with any other group. Sometimes they have intriguing backstories which shed light on why they appear as they do. Sometimes they’re quite brilliant at their jobs. Sometimes they’re exceptionally kind. Just like all of us.

If you play it safe and give the weirdos of this world a wide berth, you deprive yourself of the chance to know someone who might be a real positive in your life, in a small way or even a big way. And you miss the chance to learn that stepping out of your safety zone will enrich your life. So what’s to lose? Stop avoiding people you can’t quite get the measure of, and go and find out first-hand what they’re really like and how they tick.