(http://people.freenet.de/vanrozenheim/ablage/different.jpg)
Being different is an experience which is shared by many people, who out of some reason are growing in an environment were they actually do not belong into.
I have read once an interesting book, written by Hans J. Massaquoi about his childhood in the Nazi Germany (ISBN 0060959614 (http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060959614/qid=1140845299/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_2_1/028-0369300-6914133)). Mr. Massaqui was a black boy born 1926 in Hamburg to a German mother, and was very early confronted with feeling "different". He describes that one of his greatest wishes of his childhood was to join the "Hitlerjugend", and he suffered much from rejection of this request by the leadership of his local organization. >:) A black boy amongst white Nazis, can you imagine the extent of feeling different and at the same time the fervent wish for belonging?
Weren't we all tormented by the same impossible desire to belong to a species, which is definetely unwilling or unable to accept us as being theirs? A gay man acts wise to recognize the foolishness of this impossible desire, and instead search for the others of his own species. One feels "different" and "strange" solely as long as one is misplaced; by finding his right place, the individual recovers and begins to flourish.
Just like the Ugly Duckling in the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, we learn to unfold our true personalities among our likes.