Last year, out of the blue, I let a small, tattooed man with holes in his ears the size of silver dollars jab a needle straight through mine. The pain was quick then gone, and a moment later he held up a mirror so that I could see his handiwork. There it was: a small silver stud shining smack dab in the center of my now slightly bloodied earlobe. After months of considering it, I'd finally gotten an earring. I was stoked.

You see, six months prior I’d moved from New York to San Francisco. Land of hippies, hipsters, dispensary-to-door delivery app founders, burners, billionaires who wear hoodies to business meetings, and other allegedly anti-establishment types with a vision of anarchy so steeped in the city’s tradition that it somehow almost makes its way back around to order. “Disruption,” to borrow a term from my high-tech brethren, is the name of the game here. It has been since before the first joint was smoked at Haight and Ashbury, and it will be long after Google and Facebook vacate the premises. And now, I was ready to disrupt.

But why an earring specifically? As ashamed as I am to say it, the answer’s simple: shock value. You see, I’m a guy that prides himself on subtlety. I genuinely loathe standing out. When it comes to personal style, I have neither the panache of the blogger, with his three-piece suits and brightly colored pocket squares (Seriously though, where are those guys even going?), nor the grim rebellion of the rocker, clad in all black, cigarette hanging from his lip. Jeans and a button-down, that’s how you’ll find me 97% of the time—weddings, funerals and job interviews notwithstanding. Suffice it to say that an earring, such a bold, for-better-or-worse statement, seemed like it would be far enough out of character to elicit a reaction. Plus, Beckham’s got two. And people tend to find him attractive, right?

So I did the thing. I got my ear pierced. And you know what? I felt great. Daring. Badass. Edgy. Adrenaline coursing through my veins, I darted to a friend’s house immediately after the deed was done. I needed affirmation. “It looks…” she paused, “good?” I must have reacted, though I don’t remember it, because she immediately followed-up, “No, I mean, it looks good! It’s just, what’s the big deal?”

Excuse me?

Turns out, she wasn’t the only one who thought that my new hardware was nothing to write home about. In fact, everyone reacted pretty similarly. And, much to my dismay, after some time had passed since its initial introduction most of my friends admitted to forgetting that I even had an earring.

But what did they know? They had nose rings and undercuts, minimalist tattoos of mountains, foxes and a penny-farthing, of all things. They ate pot truffles and went to Berkeley. Of course they saw my simple earring as minor league. People back in New York, however, with their no-bullshit attitude, would surely see my earring for what it was: a misguided stand against authority, like God himself intended.

Wrong again. “It’s not exactly a face tattoo,” explained an old coworker over drinks when I flew home for the holidays. And she was right, obviously. I hadn’t done anything drastic, just shoved a stick of metal through my skin like a surly teenager. But didn’t anyone disapprove?

I gave up hope when my grandmother, a 75-year-old immigrant who believes in only two things—good food and the Greek Orthodox Church—simply shrugged her shoulders upon seeing the stud. “Eh,” she sighed, eyes rolling, “San Francisco.” She then continued to feed me spinach pie.

So, there you have it folks. It’s 2015: go get something pierced. Or don’t. But whatever you do, don’t do it for anyone else—because apparently, no one will care either way.

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