To hate hiding how odd i am

[Faye12345]

Hello all. Hope youre all ok. I wondered if anyone else hates hiding how bizarre they are? Im in a new job and its tiring because im having to adjust my personality to fit in. Anyone else with me?,

Yes to adult ed and teaching at uni level. Also running own business and running small projects independently within an organisation. And working from home.

I find people quite difficult to relate to in my office. I tend to sit quietly and allow the conversation to go on around me. The banality of acquisitional need, the prejudice towards anyone with anything approaching alternative about them. My frame of reference isn't the same as theirs (no 'serial dramas here) so I just nod and smile and go about my day. If asked my opinion I share it - sometimes. Life would be boring if we were all the same, at least that's what I tell myself. Daily.

Is higher/adult ed really a place where you could comfortably express, say, sympathy with the Tory cuts to the state? I reckon every workplace has it's own culture, and it's always a bit hard to run counter to it. Take the point that some places might be more extreme than others. I also reckon that you can't be too judgmental about conversations- people don't necessarily talk about acquisition and soap operas because they find them important, but simply because they provide a common ground. I certainly have watched dramas (eg breaking bad, homeland) and keep up with football scores so I can have conversations in work.

The chat round me is about diets, remodelling kitchens/bathrooms, dogs, holidays and last night's television. I do listen and can join in with the holidays discussion.

OP I know exactly what you mean. I work in a professional environment and while, I don't think I am that odd, I do live a lifestyle that is different from many of my colleagues and have very different priorities and political views. I am also socially awkward, rubbish at small talk and seem to have missed out on the natural filter that many people seem to have. Even the harmless Monday morning small talk catches me out, if I am not careful.

"Working in local government doesn't help as they only want bland conformists with zero personality"

I sometimes think that where I work they only want robots (at least at my level).

I think all work places have their own "normal" culture to a certain extent. I work in higher education and people don't admit to things like voting Tory because it would be outside the expected lefty liberal view.

Nobody has talked about any opinions that don't seem pretty mainstream to me.

Be wary of condemning other people and assuming they are all grey drones- they are probably just as colorful and interesting as you........

There was a poster on here who used to talk about "the mundanes" - so dismissive and horrible.

I'm called odd a lot. It's mostly always used as a term of endearment though. I have OCD and I am also brutally honest about myself. I don't hide too much and some of the things I do due to my OCD are strange. I don't have typical obsessions/compulsion that people often first think of when they hear OCD like washing my hands all the time etc so some of the ways I act can be seen as odd.

With new people at work I used to try to hide my ways while I sussed them out but it becomes exhausting after a while so I can't manage it for long. So yes, I'm called odd a lot but after starting a new job and meeting new people all the time most people do things that could be seen as odd so I don't think I'm that different after all. Yes, some of my ways due to my illness might be a little strange but everyone does something others might think is strange, so I'm really not that unique.

Funnily enough, I did find it hard to fit in. After some soul searching on a few threads on MN about making friends I figured it was because I was trying to change myself and I decided to just be who I am straight away and it seems to be working. I have met more people who I get on with than ever just by being my natural self right from the start.

Could you give an example. U2? What's 'odd' about your natural self?

I agree with Bertrand that absolutely nothing that has been said on here as an instance of 'oddness' strikes me as in any way unusual, and I've lived in a lot of place in a lot of different countries.

Having said that, I imagine that, if you've grown up and never left somewhere quite conformist, it's perfectly possible you may genuinely not realise that your 'oddities' may, in the city twenty miles down the road - or, in different circles in your hometown, be pretty mainstream. (Casually mentioning over coffee that I was a member of the Labour party in the run up to the last election, in the overwhelmingly Tory village I now live, in got some absolutely hilarious responses - one very likeable woman I knew through a toddler group said she had never actually met someone who admitted to voting Labour before, far less was a member. But then I am genuinely unusual for the demographic here in many ways. This doesn't make me 'odd', though.)

But in at least some of these comments, it seems as if a straw man version of 'normality' is being set up in order to situate individual posters' self-described 'oddness', which doesn't seem that odd. I'm not querying the oddness, I'm wondering about the version of normality that is so unswervingly accepted. Who determines it? What are its markers?

This is a great thread! I look completely main-stream, and I'm quite good at keeping conversation at a main-steam level, so initially I'm accepted in most situations/groups. However once people get to know me, this seems to change. Until recently, I'd resigned myself to 'not quite fitting in', but then we had a few staffing changes at work, and I can't decide if my new colleagues are simply kinder than the previous staff, or if they're simply a little quirky too, but I feel like I've found a nice few work-buddies.

Also, I joined my local book club - and I fit in (yay) !!!

I have small circle of friends who seem to accept me completely,I can be myself with them, but the addition of the workmates and book club has really been the icing on the cake. This gives me the confidence stop trying to fit into groups where I'm a square peg in a round hole. And sometimes when you stop trying, life tends to fall into place ...... It's taken me 40+ years to get here, but I feel far better about myself than I have done in ages.

The dictionary definition of odd is 'different to what is expected' so that could apply to all sorts of workplace behaviour for someone in a new job. There is always a workplace expectation of what is acceptable and normal which varies enormously from job to job.
The problem is is if your behaviour doesn't fit the expected norms of your environment - for example when you were growing up your family were all artistic and you were very sporty - you will feel you don't fit in. It is the ugly duckling syndrome. Sometimes it takes years of experimenting to find out the place and people where you feel like a native rather than a foreigner and where your abilities and voice are accepted and respected rather than being regarded as an eccentric nuisance.

Totally agree Geranium. I've finally realised that in 'normal/expected/mainstream' groups, I'm unlikely, ultimately, to fit in, so I no longer seek out such people/groups, so I no longer suffer so much rejection, which was really knocking my confidence. I seem to have developed a 'nose' for people who are like me, and my world now feels like a kinder place.

I hid my weirdness from the world for years and had a string of failed/manipulative friendships and relationships, and pretty soon after giving up and being openly mad I got together with someone amazing and somehow found friends.
I'm still with that man, and he is wonderful (and as mad as me) and my friends are utterly wonderful too.
Being open about your weirdness can be a really good thing

So it seems that being brave enough to 'be yourself' can definitely pay off. Or backfire and leave you on sidelines forever ......

But work situations are a bit different - it's far harder to walk away if you find yourself somewhere that you don't fit.

I have been described as weird, misunderstood and generally struggle with people. As my username suggests, aspergers has crossed my mind. I have done the online tests and I score quite high in them all. I honestly wouldn't be able to tell you why people think I am weird etc. Because I don't know. I don't think I am. But I also know people take me the wrong way when I don't mean it. Some things come out and it's not until I notice people looking that I think 'shouldn't I have said that'? But I don't know why really. I can be a bit blunt but I don't mean it in a nasty way. I don't know why one person in particular calls me weird. She has said it on many occasions and it pisses me off tbh. When I was discussing it with a friend, she told me I was misunderstood so I think this is what the case is, people don't understand me and take me the wrong way.

I have found that people seem to really get me and like me the way I am and the others, well I don't know tbh but if they don't like me the way I am, then that's their tough shit. I do find myself saying a lot of stuff in my head though, because I am unsure and think it may come across as too blunt. I don't know how to be tactful or sugarcoat stuff. I'm also pretty honest about certain things (not 'yes you look fat' things, but about my past, if someone asks me a question, I can't help but answer it truthfully or I find I say too much personal stuff and wish I hadn't after, but then why would I hide it when I am not ashamed).

wondering I relate to all of that so much! I don't mean to get it wrong, I just can't seem to be able to do that easy thing of chatting in the "right" way for people. The oversharing thing, I do exactly that. I just answer the question, then realise they didn't actually want me to tell them! and they look at me oddly and avoid me. I'm not even talking about sharing embarrassing stuff about personal problems etc., it's just saying what I think about stuff in a way that I thought was totally inoffensive. I have been told I "talk like a book" but I don't know how else to talk.

It's hard, and it's why I have shrunk into my shell unless I'm with people I know – but things people have written on this thread have made me want to try to be me a bit more, after all.

As I wrote earlier, I probably have asperger's though not an official diagnosis.

Madam, I started a thread before about possible aspergers and many posters came on whether diagnosed or suspected and it was amazing how similar we all were. We all seemed to understand each other too and when someone posted something it was like a light bulb and 'yes I totally get that' moment. Quite refreshing from everyday life!

I know what you mean. I am not trying to be offensive in any way and I always hope that those who know me should realise that. But I don't think they do and when they 'hurt' me I shrink away from them completely and end up alone again. Thankfully I have a friend and sometimes she thinks she has upset me by a particular way I may be behaving (withdrawn etc) and instead of trying to second guess, she actually asks me. She never had upset me. I am just different on different days. I also have a long term illness though and some days am struggling just to do with school run so can seem aloof and offhand if I haven't got the energy to talk to people. This is what friends should do. I like that she 'gets' me, I think I have about 3 of those friends who like the bluntness, they say they know where they stand. There are certainly no hidden sides to me. I wouldn't know how to tbh.

:) A friend once told me I was "simple" - sounds rude but they were not a native English speaker and didn't mean I was stupid, when I asked they explained that I just said what I meant and was straightforward and honest and it was so easy to deal with. It was years ago, I was in my 20s and I was less aware of the ASD thing etc. They meant it nicely, and I took it that way, but I thought "how the hell else are you meant to communicate? Doesn't everybody just say what they mean? Why on earth wouldn't you?"

Actually I sometimes wonder if Britishness as a thing, British conversational conventions etc are especially hard if you are like us. I've been in some other parts of the world where most people seemed more direct and blunt and I found it easier.

I completely identify with that. I don't understand why people do certain things that they have told me they don't want to. Or talk to people in a really really friendly way who they seriously dislike. I don't get it. I try really hard not to show when I don't like someone, apparently I'm not very good at it . I have a friend at school who seriously dislikes another mum (with very good reason, this mum is a nightmare), I give a polite hello to nightmare mum as I walk past and that is the extent of my involvement. My friend chats to her and is really friendly, even though she doesn't like her. I just don't get it! I can't do it.

I'm with Bertrand, I've not seen anything odd or unusual on this thread. You all sound perfectly normal to me, if that helps. The next bit is going to sound rude, but isn't meant to be, I just can't work out how to say it any other way.

It's rather like a convention of emos*, all desperately trying to be unique and unsheeplike, yet all actually being really rather similar. Just be yourself, without being rude to anyone.

*or any other identifying group - think back to punks, and how delighted they were with themselves and their jump away from 'mainstream', and straight into a punk version of conformity. Pins (tick) spiky hair (tick) coloured hair (tick).

That 'mundane' rudeness used to really boil my piss. So dismissive AND the poster wasn't even remotely unusual, just thought they were.

I think people sneering at those who feel different and saying they "want" to be unique and special are spectacularly missing the point. Though it kind of gives me an insight into how those who don't have any social difficulties, must see those that do. They think we are "putting it on" or thinking we're sooooo special and too interesting to talk to you boring smalltalk types.

all desperately trying to be unique and unsheeplike, yet all actually being really rather similar.

I totally do know what you mean, but what people are talking about on this thread isn't that, it really isn't.

As a teenager I saw those "alternative" groups, goths, punks, hippies etc and I thought "no no I'm not one of them either. I'm just me and I don't want to do something or adopt a "look" because it's supposed to be weird or different."

This is not about wanting to not be mundane. It's about trying to rub along with people in what you think is a normal way, and finding they react as if you're from Mars. And learning over a long time that if you don't want that reaction – which can kind of wear you down – you have to pull your horns in and not "be yourself". Even though it's really hard to understand what it is about yourself that makes people find you so awkward and misfiring.

OTOH there are people who will "get" you and you want them to know the real you, because you do actually want friends. So you kind of don't want to hide it, but then you also do.

We are in some cases, or in others may be, talking about Asperger's/ASD, probably in its mildest form. It's a recognised condition and if someone came on here saying their child was having these kinds of social difficulties and had suspected ASD, I don't think people would be sneering "Oh he's just desperately trying to be unique, yawn."

Also, there's a sense of anger among people who think others are trying to be special and different. Why is it so upsetting? I'm not trying to, but even if I was, why the vitriol? It's like if you are "normal" and find it easy to slot in and say the right things and put people at their ease, you think anyone who isn't doing that has some kind of unpleasant selfish agenda. It's no wonder those of us who do have these difficulties, can sometimes feel so rejected.

I agree Croquette. I don't see anyone in this thread who I would describe as "odd", but I don't see the 'oh I'm so wacky'/ 'I'm so alternative unlike the mainstream bourgeois' sort of thing either - perhaps more people who might have been called odd for perfectly normal behaviour in the past?

So perhaps the odd ones are the ones who have led the non-odd posters to believe that they are odd?