tattoos

I speak only of my personal preferences, with no way of knowing general sentiments of tattooed humans. I’ve gone from living in an area where most people were tattooed and I was rarely the most tattooed human in the room to an area where I am *always* the most tattooed person in the room, oftentimes the only one.

I am severely averse to people using my tattoos as a conversation starter or means of breaking the ice. I don’t want to compare tattoos with you as a way to get to know you.

My tattoos are of course part of who I am. A piece of the puzzle, as it were. Willing, conscious alterations to my being that will last as long as I do. With the average climate the bulk of my work is nearly always on display and I can understand why it is brought up as often as it is being both obvious, notable and relatively (regionally) uncommon.

Part of my distaste is likely due to the frequency of the queries. People that are unfamiliar with body modifications are naturally curious to the details and motivation behind them. I respect their desire to know more and like to think I have even broadened a mind or two in the process. Regardless, answering the same questions grows old.

Another reason is that it is just too easy, a baby step down from talking about the weather. Probing deeper will provide a rich context for the answers to modification related queries, or they may even come up on their own along the way. Such discourse will get you real answers, the kind given to people who have made it clear that they genuinely care, instead of stock answers that are doled out to numbskulls that ask me what they mean or where they come from right off the bat. Those answers are designed to appease your inquisitiveness in as few words as possible.