help w/mental health and work?

[TedEH]

Now, when I meet someone new, and once I start realizing that they are figuring out that I am weird, I tell them to their face "If you notice that I am a little werid that's great, cause I am weird, and i am not bothered to change who I am, and I prefer to be myself than some pretentious jackass" - id say that like a joke truly meant.

I get what you're going for but it's worth being careful that you're not getting needlessly antagonistic with people. Most people, when meeting them at random or while working etc., don't care how "weird" you think you are, they don't care about your self image, they just want to go about their day and deal with whatever they're there for. It very well might be that insisting on driving your first interactions with a new person by rambling about "pretentious jackasses" and "your true weird self" could be read as confrontational or antagonistic - it could be what made them uncomfortable in the first place.

 

[HoneyNut]

I get what you're going for but it's worth being careful that you're not getting needlessly antagonistic with people. Most people, when meeting them at random or while working etc., don't care how "weird" you think you are, they don't care about your self image, they just want to go about their day and deal with whatever they're there for. It very well might be that insisting on driving your first interactions with a new person by rambling about "pretentious jackasses" and "your true weird self" could be read as confrontational or antagonistic - it could be what made them uncomfortable in the first place.

I don't mean it in an antagonist way at all. It's like us getting to know each other and you get a sense that I have an slightly unusual thought process, I might be like 'yeah, I'm known to think differently', as long as we get the job done. I'd say something like that to get it out of the way. Most people have welcomed that in me like they appreciate I don't try to be something I'm not.

Now, I wouldnt suggest walking down the street and publicizing how different or weird you are to every soul, but you do you, not my place to judge.

People dress up weird, have creative personalities etc, sometimes they own who they are. They have not conformed to how society expects you to be. Prince, Madonna, Wes Borland, Phil Anselm. I'm not saying that being automatically means you are a superstar, just saying that it's totally cool to be who you are.

 

[TedEH]

What I mean is that everyone is weird on some level. Not to say this is what you're doing, but pausing to make a serious point about just how weird you are, just in case can be - in itself - weird. The big missing element there, if someone did that, is that there's no rapport being built before you dive into what's being phrased as a potentially really personal detail. If I walked up to someone at a counter, for example, and they paused to go "before I process your transaction, it's important that you know I think a bit differently, but that it's ok as long as I do my job", I would probably ask someone else to make my subway sandwich.

Perfectly cool for anyone to be themselves. It's less cool to make yourself the main character, so to speak.

Maybe that's not what you're doing - I do get what you're trying to say, and I'm kinda running a different direction with it - but I know some people who act like this and just don't realize it. I dunno if it's a social skill that can be built up, or that they just completely lack self awareness, but it's an important thing to learn in terms of how to interact with people without weirding them out. That is to say, in the context of a thread that started as a sort of "how do I get people to like me", there's a potential lesson here that you shouldn't volunteer unnecessary (unsolicited) information to someone before you build some amount of rapport with them.

 

[HoneyNut]

"there's a potential lesson here that you shouldn't volunteer unnecessary (unsolicited) information to someone before you build some amount of rapport with them."

Haha. Not at all. Only people I want to befriend. Strictly professional with others.

But to reiterate my point, it is much easier in life to go about being who you are rather than conform to try people to like you. You don't have to be antagonistic about it. But don't let people tell you how you should behave, as long as you aren't threatening people.

Its people like the ones who tell you how you should do this do that. Fuck that.