Question, at what point in your life did you stop caring about conforming to what everyone else was. At what point did trying to fit in and be like everyone else stop mattering to you, or is it something you still care about?
Question, at what point in your life did you stop caring about conforming to what everyone else was. At what point did trying to fit in and be like everyone else stop mattering to you, or is it something you still care about?
but I never changed from being me and standing up for myself.
Good for you!
It is interesting what you say about the American midwest, it is somewhere I always wanted to go, partly because I imagined it to be the opposite of that.
I agree with you about London, I love being there. Camden Market used to be a fantastic place for that, you could be as different as you wanted to be and anyone could just be themselves and no one cared. Sadly it has become so coperate now it is almost just like everywhere else.
Interesting point. I think most people dont let themselves care about how messed up society is and what a con it all is. I think the reason for that is because if they allowed themselves to see through it then they would not be able to conform to it any longer and they want to conform. Sometimes it is easier not to see things I guess but once you have seen through them you cant unsee them
Thank you, I've started posting some of the things I muse about in my head and its interesting to see how many other people on here think about these things too
Wow I cant believe a headmaster would say that! Although thinking about it actually I can, thats all school does is brainwash you to try to fit in. I guess in some ways Im glad I never went.
I certainly try and help my students to see through it and to realise that they dont have to be part of the system. Schooling in Sweden, Finland etc teaches kids to be individuals, school in the UK teaches them to be clones of each other.
Just another brick in the wall as Pink Floyd once said
Good for you for not fitting in though! Most of the people who do great things in life are people who refused to fit in with the crowd
I don't think I've stopped caring what people think and what I should be like. There's a lot of pressure espech at school and if you don't be like the cool people then your a loser and targeted. It bothers me how I look and I hate being judged so I follow the trends and make sure I'm right for the world otherwise people just judge and say hurtful things
I think I'm a bit of a paradox. Somehow I'm a resolute individualist, I've uncompromisingly, though not always as a complete matter of choice (or - unconsciously - was it?) gone the paths less taken, run slightly or fully against the 'should's that bring you all the orthodox things you're supposed to want: Status, money, children, big house, ambition, 'the next thing'. whatever's trendy, any old relationship as long as there is one, and so on. I will not 'make do' to fit in, or risk the total burnout that would inevitably result from the attempt, I simply refuse to do that. And I always knew from a young age that that's how I'd be. I could sense what was for other people, and what was for me. It wasn't a plan, just an intuited direction of travel, oblique to the near-mandatory one. But at that age, it caused me less stress to know it. Less fear. Much less.
And yet... I'm also cursed with being the world's most self-conscious man, feeling continually judged by the ultra-orthodox majority and even at times (until recently) feeling entirely anolmalous in some respects to the point where fully taking that on board after years of holding it (barely aware I was doing so) at arm's length resulted in a series of major and minor breakdowns and shutdowns/burnouts over the last 5 years in particular. I'm getting better at shielding myself from that, caring less. But it's hard. Only solitude indoors removes from view the pattern of judgement encoded into society's very fabric. But it's not like amnesia starts and ends between entering and exiting my wonderfully modest house. The rumination continues - the signal of all those 'should's cushioned but still existing. And as soon as the television is turned on in any ill-disciplined way (channel hopping), prescribed norms are again relentlessly blasted at me again.
I suppose a lot of my anxiety comes from being this walking conundrum while not entirely understanding why. So the strange mobius loop of an answer I'd have to give on this one is: I never started, and I never stopped.
Looking back, I had a strong anti-authority streak in me from childhood - I didn't trust authority figures. Plus, I don't remember wanting to fit in or wanting to be like other children. I still found friends - not the "popular" kids, just kids who I got along with and who didn't make me uncomfortable.
After my school years ended and I started working, I still didn't worry or care about fitting in; however, I didn't want to be seen as a "weirdo" who wasn't like all the other people. Having someone take the mick out of me upsets me a lot. Not because I care about being different - I just hate cruel people. So I stayed as true to myself as I could and I felt animosity toward people who thought I was "weird". I just wondered why society doesn't value all kinds of people.
Moving from Chicago to London at 31 gave me even more self-confidence to be myself and not try to fit in. The American Midwest is big on conformity - how you dress, how you behave, how you live, what you watch on TV, etc. To me, London had more tolerance for people and acceptance of "eccentric" people than the USA. Since this move I felt less like a "weirdo" in society. However, my work environment here was just as bad as living in Chicago. Not conforming to the "norm" made me the office "weirdo" but I didn't care at all. However, I didn't like being treated in a disrespectful manner and it made me ill and anxious - but I never changed from being me and standing up for myself.
The point you made about masking to avoid being rude really clarifies what I have done. Thanks for that.
I have communication issues, including interrupting people as they speak, pointing out incorrect things they say or lies they tell. I have an intense need for factual information. To me, things are true or not true, black or white with no grey areas. My masking helps with not interrupting and looking interested by nodding my head or making sounds showing agreement. I try to control my confrontation with incorrect information and lies but if it's building up in me and/or it's important in the situation then I politely say something. I care more about correct information than I care about being liked (by people I don't respect or like)
Don't think it ever mattered to be.
My old headmaster did once say to me that it was my fault I was bullied because I wouldn't be like the other children, I should try to fit in more. Yeah, I took one look at that vile, cruel bunch and decided I was nothing and wanted to be nothing like them at all. I got the degree, they got pregnant at 15. Hmmm.... not fitting in did me no harm.
.......flipping excellent question btw Billy - bravo!
Billy,
When I started to appreciate and understand just how duplicitous and "unfair" the systems and protocols of my societal experience were, I started to withdraw somewhat.
When I started to speak up and explain what I had come to understand and how horrific I thought it was.....but was greeted with a response of "no one cares"....THEN my conformist, "fit-in like a good citizen" aspiration evaporated. I reached a point that could be considered quite childish, ie "well if you don't care about what I consider important, then why should I care what you think of me."
I suppose the "moment" at which this happened was circa 2010.
I can still mask like a sociopathic pro when I want to....but mostly (these days) I'm leaning more into a "I'm very different - deal with it, or leave me alone" attitude.
I note that most good/reasonable/"my type of people" are more than happy to accept my difference....I'm not the demanding type! People who seem unreasonable, nasty or mean - I just leave them alone.
Number.
This assumes that I don't care about conforming, which I don't think is entirely true. It's more a complex dance of wanting to conform more and less.
As an Orthodox Jew, I'm very aware of dressing a bit differently and living profoundly differently to other people in many environments that I find myself in (albeit less now I work for an Orthodox Jewish organisation than when I was working in other areas). And I'm fine with that, although it's hard navigating social interactions at times (e.g. not being able to eat in non-kosher restaurants with non-Jewish or non-religious friends). And I like being unusual and unique in my interests (albeit that none of them are that unusual).
On the other hand, I desperately want to fit in wherever I am. I want to be accepted and liked and doing what other people do seems the only way to do that, perhaps due to my misunderstanding the "rules" of neurotypical behaviour, or just the conformist behaviour of the Orthodox Jewish world. But I refuse to compromise on my religious practices (in a secular environment) or on things that feel like the core of my personality and interests (this is more among other religious Jews), so often I just mask everything and seem fairly "blank" to people. My fiancee says I probably come across as weirder doing this than if I just came out and said, "This is what I believe/do/enjoy" and let people decide if they still liked me. I admit it's a fairly maladaptive strategy, but after probably thirty-five years of masking, I'm not sure how to do anything else.
It's been happening in stages all through my life tbh.
I realised that people were always going to find me weird whatever I did, so I just started doing it on purpose
I used to do that a lot when I was younger too. Subconciously I think, I knew I was going to stand out anyway so I thought I might as well do things on purpose to make me stand out
In my mid-teens I realised that people were always going to find me weird whatever I did, so I just started doing it on purpose. It's nice to fit in because you're around people who share your interests, rather than because you're working hard to be 'normal', but these days I would rather just find those people.
Most of the masking I've been doing this whole time is because I don't want to look rude, rather than not wanting to look weird. I know my need for certainty and clarity of language can come across to NT people as rudeness, and I know that my need for routine can come across to them as selfishness. Those are the things that I hide from them.
But being Normal? Nah. Don't care.
My response to pressure to conform to societal norms is strangely dichotomised. On the one hand I never felt any need to follow fashions in anything. Though a number of friends in my teenage years smoked, I never once even tried a cigarette. The idea of inhaling smoke from burning leaves just seemed so damn stupid. However, I was always very self-conscious and concerned by what other people thought of me and was, to the best of my ability, a people-pleaser.
I was quite happy as a child - outside of school, which was a hell for me - but between puberty and my mid twenties was probably the least enjoyable part of my life. I was uncomfortable in my own skin. Into my late twenties and up to my mid thirties I was more confident in being me. I had a settled and enjoyable job and I married at 35, becoming a father at 36. I still felt an, at times, debilitating need to conform to social expectations. After reaching 40 years, and even more so after 50, I became much more comfortable being me and more confrontational with people behaving unpleasantly. Now I am largely indifferent to what anyone, that is any stranger who means nothing to me, might think about me.
Middle of my teens. I had tried so hard to fit in and the result was more bullying to the extent it became a physical attack, result was a bloody nose, swollen and cracked lip... So from that day I stopped tryingto be them, to be popular and cool, and became myself. Went from the girl trying to fit in to the girl who just kept her head down and got on with her own life. Eventually the bullying stopped. I'm still like it now, I don't need to be like someone else, I'm me and I rock 
Not sure exactly when, but it was at some point in my early childhood. I can remember wanting the same unicorn t-shirt that some other kids in my class had when I was 5 (we lived in the USA at the time) and not being allowed to have it. I thought that if I did, I would be their friend. I worked out quite early on that I was the weirdo and just had no idea how to fit in, so I started to embrace the strange. It helped that my dad taught me that it's okay to be different.
I was very lonely though, and it took a long time before I found other people who liked me just as I was but I did find them!
For me acceptance and connection is still important, but I refuse to conform to what other people think is "normal" to get it. I try to be kind, but I am just myself.
