Lately, especially as I've gotten older and near my 30's, I've become really disillusioned from the whole furry community, and have been finding myself wishing I didn't really like any of this stuff. I don't know, just seems like everything would be easier if my tastes were more normal. Maybe I'd be more normal.

Anyone else feeling this?

You don't need to be part of the furry community to enjoy furry art.

Define normal. Seriously, it’s impossible to define normal when every one is different. Or are you talking about the lifestyle of the elite majority who push their ideal of normality through laws, media and other social outlets in order to create a world of like minded people so they won’t feel uncomfortable and scared when they go outside? You don’t need to live up to someone else’s definition of normal just to be accepted into their safe space, live your own way that makes you happy, if that means changing your life to reflect the majority then that’s fine too. The only one who decides what makes you happy is you. Changing what you want is what’s great about having free will. Don’t feel bad if you want to leave something, no one is going to hate you for it…a lot of people wont even care, we got our own problems in life to deal with.

lekkiyo said:
The furry community's median age is perpetually around the early 20's. Or possibly even earlier. People don't tend to stick around into their thirties, and only a very small number of people your age ever get into it, with that number dwindling further as age increases.

So it's no wonder you feel like you don't fit in. The furry community is inherently a young one, and if you have any reservations about its weirdness, it is pretty straightforward to avoid it. But I doubt your life would have taken a drastically different course if you hadn't gotten involved. For me, I'd probably be mostly the same weird shut-in.

Also, happy 14th anniversary of joining this site, lol. I'm coming up on 10 and feel like I've been here forever.

I hadn't even noticed the date, haha. 14 years here, wow. But yeah, you're right. This is a young fandom, and I guess getting older you start feeling this way about a lot of things. Ah well.

That's odd because I know many artists in their 30s and 40s and I didn't go to my first convention til I was 23. I think some younger furs like to gatekeep and act like the fandom is only for kids. There's probably a lot more older folks in it than you think.

??? The fandom/community has been around longer than a lot of people here have even been alive. That said, it's changed a lot since how it was when I first learned about it. You can like the content without liking the community, especially with how much overlap exists with other media.

there's so many niches that it's hard to say -- condensing the whole community down to one particular group isn't really constructive
most of the people i interact with are mid to late 20s

as I'm getting older I only feel the need to be more involved - feels bad lurking for sooooooooooo long

I just don't know why non furries are on e6.

moonbase-boi said:
I just don't know why non furries are on e6.

the first stage is denial

moonbase-boi said:
I just don't know why non furries are on e6.

Why not?
Someone who visits here probably enjoys some subset of the art( as appears to be the case with OP). Is there any reason beyond that they would need to keep coming back?

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but even in the minimal case I described above, people will disagree on whether such a person 'is' a furry, so it's not even obvious that 'non furries are on e6'.

Unless by 'non furries' you actually mean 'people who don't in general enjoy the furry community'.

The thought of things like this happening to me over time scares me. I've already lost most of my passions, and I'm "only" 27.

pyke said:
Lately, especially as I've gotten older and near my 30's, I've become really disillusioned from the whole furry community, and have been finding myself wishing I didn't really like any of this stuff. I don't know, just seems like everything would be easier if my tastes were more normal. Maybe I'd be more normal.

Anyone else feeling this?

I liked the Furry Art when I found it because it represented what was already in my mind since I was very young. I already had "furry fantasies" at least 15 or 20 years before knowing something like "Furry Fandom / Community" existed. If I try to remember what I thought when I found out about the existence of a "Community", maybe I would say never held much hope that these people will match my ideals. Even when, off course, I had to try to find out.

It do not happens always like that. For example, a couple of "old Furries" - that here in Mexico have something like an indie radio program (*) - commented once, that when they were very young, they also also had furry fantasies before knowing the existance of a community. And when they found out, then they imagined all sorts of things, like thinking other people in the fandom would be ("have to be") something very "special", spiritual, wise... "they said they are deeply involved with their animal side, or spirit... and with Nature"... "something like a druid". "This guy says he is a wolf... he has to know everything there is to know, about wolves"...

But at the end, in the long run, you descover that furries.... are just people. More or less average people.

(Well, except for the fact, as the site Furcience (**) says, they were on average significantly more bullied in school, than other kids).

And there is yet, off course, another case. Currently, most Furries do enter the fandom - this is my guess - not because something in the Furry meant really much to them. The most young segment. There was no time for them to discover something special or “deep” in the Furry. They just had to choose between being (a.) Furry, (b.) Gamer or (c.) Otaku. Or a combination. To most of them, there was nothing particular in being Furry and probably were just following a friend, or friends that declared themselves being furry. This is the segment that behaves more like a conveyor belt... and “what keeps the fandom young”. Today some declare to be furry and the next year, they are not. And they are Furry not mostly for the art, but the parties or meetings with their friends.

But at the end, it is OK, because "Furry" should be just a part of what makes you a person. That for many, it is at the end pretty disposable.

But for me, bit to be a Furry is not an option, even if I do not interact much with other Furries in the "Community". For me, being Furry is something between myself and "the Furry idea", including, yes, the Furry Art.

(*) https://www.ivoox.com/podcast-radioso_sq_f1551659_1.html
(**) https://furscience.com