Nicely put Black Ice, my own journey was pretty much the same. I was always the 'artist' at high school, the guy who had borrowed all the books on ancient Egypt from the school library, who had a thorough knowledge of mummification and ancient religions and the occult - all this while having to wear an immaculate school uniform, with hair cut rules. But worst of all, I went to a 'sports' high school whose main raison d'etre was to produce football players!
So I quickly developed a reputation for being weird. I thought long and hard about my 'image' and decided to adopt an attitude of refimement, courtesy politeness and gentlemanly manners - along with a good dose of subtle sarcasm and irony. Reading Oscar Wilde probably had a lot to do with it.
So while the jocks despised me, my teachers were impressed by my impeccable manners. The black clothes and chunky silver rings came a lot later. But then this was the early 80s - the formative period of goth.
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