I don’t mean any harm, but I work at a public library and alot of homeschooler families seem slightly.... how should I say this.... otherworldly, weird, set-apart? They don’t seem to communicate well with other people outside of their family unit. Ofcourse I am generalizing, but the few families I have met have shy, spacey type moms and children who run around leaving books all over and keeping up alot of noise. But when they come to check out, they clam up like they are afraid they’re going to be devoured by strangers. ..Just my observation.
Hey, you could be one of OUR local librarians! Maybe you're intimidating those homeschoolers. I often get the feeling my local librarians consider me an exotic species, a city slicker come into their midst by some unknowable yet suspect motive. For my part I consider them stiff-necked, chilly and provincial, just short of xenophobic. I've been trying to break the ice for nine years.
Nine years.
We go there at least once a week (would be more if not for the genius in the house and her 5000+ books), and I make a cash donation at least once a month. We are extremely quiet and we don't borrow the trash (and they have lots of that). We're always pleasant when we speak to them. We still get no friendly hello, and I don't know their names.
Not complaining, there are lots of people like that in this area. But it's almost as if we have the misfortune to resemble folks on wanted posters.
All of which has nothing to do with you I'm sure, and I mean no harm either. Just saying, people hold one another at a distance these days, and at a distance you have to infer things, and read into things, with the ingredients at hand (your own preconceptions mostly!) And that's not as authentic as, say, a five-minute chat with a stranger at a bus stop or in a checkout line. One day perhaps we'll run into a librarian at the market; she'll find out we haven't horns, and we'll finally see her smile.
We see a lot of missionary kids visit our church while their parents are speaking. They’re all home-schooled. All of them have been “weird” compared to the other kids, in that they’re more polite, neater, better able to converse with adults, and brighter overall. Weird, but in a good way.