Outside, the air chilled and a dismal scene unfolded. Pit crews in ponchos pulled tarps over their cars and rolled them into the haulers. Julia’s family ducked for cover and silently looked on.

The qualifying session was canceled. Julia would be starting the race twenty-first out of twenty-six cars. Her task would be to fight her way to the very front from the very back.

There is one scene in the movie Dumplin’ that is a terrific representation of the conundrums facing people who are unique in their environments.

Dumplin’ is, in many respects, not very good. It’s the story of a looks-obsessed Texas mom and her plus-sized daughter, Willowdean, who rebels by signing up for the teen beauty pageant over which her mother rules with an iron fist. Jennifer Aniston, weepy and coiffed, plays the mom with too much twang and not enough Prozac. Every other scene is a schmaltzy opportunity to hammer home the value of being yourself. It was kind of hard to watch, as a writer of a book about the value of being yourself.

Still, what it lacks in artistry, it makes up for in psychological case studies about what it’s like to be weird. Willowdean joined the pageant to make a statement, but her friend Ellen, who is thin and conventionally pretty, mostly did it to support Willowdean. Willowdean acknowledges this state of affairs, referring to herself and the other outcasts in the pageant—another overweight girl and a goth feminist—as “the weirdos.” In one scene, the pageant contestants are assigned to learn a dance, which they would then rehearse as a group. Rehearsal begins—and lo, the weirdos don’t know the steps. They never bothered learning them. As the other girls dance, Willowdean stands in the back sulkily while the goth feminist flings her arms around, as though to mock the whole thing. Ellen, meanwhile, gracefully executes the steps with a smile.

Dumplin’s world, like all of ours, is ruled by norms. With Dolly Parton songs and floral dresses, the girls live under a sugary code of Southern femininity that they are trying desperately to subvert. The girls, each in her own way, are determining how to navigate their weirdness. Should they openly flaunt the mainstream, like the goth feminist; ignore it, like Willowdean; or embrace it, like Ellen?

The Hollywood depiction is cheesy, to be sure, but it is also strikingly similar to the decision process my interviewees underwent. Should they correct everyone who makes an unenlightened comment, or ignore them? Should they behave like what’s typical for their gender, or like what’s typical for their profession? In the end, each of them has found a specific approach to life that has allowed them to remain unique while, for the most part, being blessedly free of the kind of impostor syndrome and social anxiety that often plague even the normiest of normals.