Intro

I am starting this blog to express my opinion about certain things that I strongly disagree with in my home country of Azerbaijan, but cannot do anything about for one reason or the other. Ever since I was a kid my interests, mentality and open mind have always set me aside from my peers which would often result in me being misunderstood and treated as weird. This blog will follow my observations of social protocols and behavior that seem perfectly normal to others who live here, as viewed by someone who has never been affected by them and frankly is still trying to understand most of them. That is why I've decided to name my blog "The Local Foreigner".

"Who wants to be different with me?... Anyone?..."

Growing up in one culture while being immersed in a completely different one can be rare and difficult which is exactly what happened to me. I grew up in Baku, Azerbaijan, where I currently live and work, however due to the fact that me and my brothers have spent our childhood mostly doing stuff the kids in more Western Cultures do (watching American cartoons and movies, playing video games, reading comic books, keeping up with western trends instead of local ones and so much more and doing all of these things in English instead of Azerbaijani) we grew up with a more skeptical view on some of the things that would seem completely normal to a local person, who has spent his entire life here same as we have. This factor I believe affected me the most because my oldest brother adopted all these thing at a much older age than me and my second brother went to study in America when he was 15 and he has remained there ever since. I was a different story. Now I am 22 and I find it very difficult to make friends not due to fact that I am antisocial or shy, I am not, but due to the fact that I have so little in common with people I come in contact with on an everyday basis. And I don't only mean things like me liking video games and comic books and them loving nothing but football (soccer). It goes beyond that, to things like (and this is just an example) not giving a fuck about whether the girl you are marrying is a virgin or not (I actually plan on writing about this sometime in the future). If I say that it wouldn't bother me if she wasn't people will go apeshit and accuse me of being weak (like that has something to do with it) or that I will never be a good husband if I keep thinking like this. 

"Sorry, honey, we can't be together because I actually trust you
and respect your decisions and freedom"

I wish I was making this stuff up, but unfortunately I am writing this out of my own personal experience. People here are not at all tolerant of any opinion that even slightly differs from the general one. It's like they have some kind of a template that everybody is supposed to fill: if you are guy you are supposed to like football, know everything there is to know about cars and beat the shit out everyone who looks at you funny. God forbid you mention an Anime you saw the other day or how excited you are about Star Wars Episode VII. Not only will they immediately dismiss those things as silly and immature but will go as far as to belittle you for liking them in the first place, make you feel bad about it and then act like they did you a favor by pointing out how wrong you are living your life. Again, I am not making this up. This has actually happened to me multiple times.

"Good news, buddy, you don't have to be a geek anymore.
We found a 12 step program for you"

As a result not only do I have to pretend to agree with some things just to avoid a confrontation from people who I don't even care about, but also I have absolutely no one to have a stimulating conversation with, where I don't have to hide my true opinions and world view.

Long story short, the purpose of this blog is to simply get my thoughts and ideas out there in a constructive fashion, because I am pretty sure that keeping these things bottled up inside isn't exactly healthy both mentally and physically.