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- cross-posted to:
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That is supposed to change?
I still feel I need to hide when I am interested in something. Am I not the only one?
Just yesterday, my teenage daughter (not trying to say anything about your maturity level here) said to me that she didn’t like it when I talked about anime because she thought the word was embarrassing. She really likes anime, but she is embarrassed about it because even though she knows anime is fairly mainstream now, she likes more obscure stuff.
I told her that apart from it being a perfectly acceptable word to describe the art form both in and outside Japan, if you spend time worrying about what people think of your interests, you’re wasting time you could spend on those interests- and actually stopping yourself from doing it. And then while you’re doing it, you’re wasting time feeling bad for enjoying yourself when you could just be enjoying yourself.
On top of that, if a friend is going to judge you for your interests, maybe they’re not really a friend. And everyone else? Fuck them. They have to share the Earth with you regardless and if they don’t like it, that’s their problem.
Definitely not, and the solution is to stop hanging out with people who ridicule or mock you for your interests and hobbies, and find those who admire and/or encourage you instead.
You can’t just find different friends. You just meet people by chance, so you have to be loyal to people no matter how much of an asshole they are.
You should be loyal to people, they might also be afraid to show their interest in the stuff you like. But don’t stick to them “no matter what”. That can bring you into dark places.
Enforcing boundaries helps, talking about things helps, but sucking it up and abandoning people seemingly willy-nilly will leave you alone and angsty pretty fast. So will just taking everything from an asshole.
I don’t have an answer to finding friends yet. Try going to social stuff about the things you like. If you have stuff you deliberately hide then try not to go to those things first, as the shame might make you lash out at potential friends. Wait till you can come to terms with yourself.
This is actually inspirational, but the point of the post is, that you are on terms with yourself, but you know they won’t respect you.
What if I told you you do not have to be loyal to people who don’t respect you?
A very small part of people who I call friends are people, who I actually care about. I’m just forced to communicate with others to get important info I need for school.
Well, people you HAVE to see for professional reasons aren’t your friends, and you shouldn’t really care what they think about your hobbies or interests.
At school, it’s different, than at work, as children/teens (including me) are generally less mature, which means most of them don’t help you or inform you unless they benefit from it. TLDR: I make people think they are my friends because I’m forced to.
Okay, I understand that, and that’s fine, everyone has people like that in their lives at some point.
But if you KNOW they aren’t really your friends, why would you complain that they don’t act like they are?
You can just ignore the first part of my advice (about not spending time with them) because it doesn’t apply to this situation, but you should probably still try and find people who you can actually be friends with based on your hobbies and interests.
Nah this is completely wrong, move your body to somewhere else where there are different people. Interact with them. That’s it, you have a different social circle now. Find a new hobby or pick up an old one in a different place, decline to hang out with people who ridicule you and invite people who do not.
Tried it. It didn’t go well.
Apart from what other people have pointed out- what if one of your friends does great harm to another of your friends? How do you stay loyal to both of them?
You pretend to be on the side of both of them, but it could fall apart very quickly. So I don’t do it anymore. I just make my own arguments and side with the victim.
So you were lying to your friends about having their back? That makes you the bad friend.
Yes, that’s kind off true. I don’t lie to them about having their back, I lie to them about my opinion as I try to avoid conflict. I don’t do it against my actual friends, just to people I’m forced to communicate with to function in society.
What is the difference between your friends and your actual friends? Because I thought we were talking about your friends and I also thought that friends are actual friends.
It’s not that easy when those people are your parents
Once you’re an adult, you have no obligation to spend any time with your parents if they do not appreciate you for who you are.
Unless you still live at home, that is, in which case, you should probably fix that first.
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Is this not normal?
OP is full of shit.
Everyone was mocked and belittled for anything and everything they ever say or do, right?
Thenwhen what they say and do is nothing, they get physically assaulted and punished for it, right?
I mean, that was my experience. Niche interests? Lol. Fucking queer.
Man. Texas sure was a great place to accumulate all this trauma!
Oh, hey, stop that.
Fuck Texas
Are you offering? Because I’m drunk enough to try some shit tonight!
Seriously though, I like Texas. I like the scenery, the people I currently surround myself with, the food, the night life, the local music, and about a million other things about it. A lot of Texas is genuinely really cool.
I fucking hate the small towns like the one I grew up in and the fucking politicians. I hate the voter suppression and apathy. I hate the people who traumatize others for not being “normal”, whatever the fuck that is. A lot of Texas is genuinely really fucking shitty.
All that being said, I totally get the sentiment because y’all don’t get to see the cool shit. The people stuck in the shitty little towns don’t generally get to see the cool shit. And the politicians are trying to do away with a lot of the cool shit.
I’d prolly move back if it weren’t for the generations of assholes. I grew up in a suburb of 150k+, and I do miss the weather. But fuck, it’s so backwards!
I don’t blame you. It’s definitely not for everyone and not everyone can find their tribe here without a lot of work that not everyone can put into it for various reasons. On top of that, did I mention the shitty politicians?
It’s just not the same since you went away. And the Mexican food sucks north of here anyway </bowling for soup>
I did go to LA, so I’ve got that going for me (despite my renewed homelessness). Taco trucks galore!
I love plushies. I grew up AMAB which meant that after a certain age (typically before 10yrs old, somewhere around 7~8yrs old), it became unacceptable to have plushies. I held onto them long past that age and didn’t “put them away” until I was well into my teens, but I was still very aware of the fact that I couldn’t let anyone outside my family know that I still had my plushies because I might get bullied if I did.
Afaik, no one outside the family ever found out, but it took a long time for adult me to accept that it’s okay to like plushies and start pulling my og plushie crew out of the closet. Now I’m starting to expand my plushie portfolio again and I have a small army of protobeans, several high-quality dragon plushies, a medium-ish roadkill opossum, a few makeship/misc plushies like a Gardener from Gemini Home Entertainment or Acrid from Risk of Rain, a big moth, backstories and names for almost everyone, and I still have my OG beanie-baby crew (some of whom I’ve discovered would be fairly valuable if they hadn’t been well-loved).
I regret letting my fear stop me from covering my bedroom in plushies.
No one will ever stop me loving my Indi-Bear. I’ll fight em.
It’s never too late for the plushie army to rise.
What is AMAB?
assigned male at birth, it and AFAB are often used with the intention of being inclusive of NB and trans people that you may not know the gender of or in OPs case implying that’s not the way they identify now(although that’s just an assumption, could be inclusive terminology for inclusivity’s sake)
I’m not at all into plushies anymore, though I do like to cuddle a plsuhie some times. Anyways… my mom saved the dragon plushie I had when I was a kid. It was obviously a bit roughed up, but I send it to a “doll doctor” and now my son has that same plushie I used to have. I’m not the sentimental type, but I’m super happy how that I got to share this with my son even though he just threw it in the corner and never uses it 😄
From one Texan to another, I’m sorry you went through that. I hope you have or are able to work through it. And I hope you’re enjoying your niche interests these days!
I think you and I are the only Texans on here… I swear any time I mention it, bam! There you are! Still think you’re a better option than MIA governor Abbott. Lolol.
I’m also from Texas. I wish our politicians didn’t suck so hard.
The Fartographer is also one of our kin. They’re (she, I think, but I won’t swear to it) pretty fucking cool. You are, too.
I like to sit at the bar and people watch while I’m chatting on Lemmy so I’m always around.
Fair enough! And I appreciate that! And I think I’ve seen their name around here before too. I do enjoy your perspective on our shared plight in this… place.
And that must be pretty entertaining considering what our drunks can get up to.
I’ve been all around the world and there ain’t no drunks like the ones in Houston. I’m sitting in a bar in a strip mall next to a children’s learning center. They’re kind of extra tonight, probably because they’ve been down due to Beryl.
Oh, I forgot to ask, did you get power back?
Nope! CenterPoint is still pissing away all our time and I can see the fuse blown on the damn pole that’s keeping my power off.
Thankfully, I have some mitigation for the heat, but it’s been rough! Today was the first day any of the gas stations near me had any power to even pump gas.
Thanks for asking!
Ok, that’s pretty fucked up. Which side are you on? I’m a hair out of Katy in a suburb up from the energy corridor and my power was back on in like 24 hours.
I’m so sorry that shit is happening to you. You need anything? A care package?
That seems to have changed recently.
I’m being punched right now.
Unfortunately, that fear is not based on instincts, but on prior experience
Kids in my sons junior high school are unapologetic weirdos now and are embraced for it. Normies watch anime.
Contrast when I was in high school and you were called homophobic slurs for liking Star Wars or reading manga. Bizarre times indeed.
I don’t know about y’all but when I was in school there were only three kinds of kids; bullies, victims, and the ones who weren’t noteworthy enough to be victims most of the time. Nobody was immune to mockery, but at least occasionally people would have friends to stick up for them.
After years of the school doing nothing, I punched my bully. That got me in trouble and I had to switch schools.
Honestly wonder if I was just too oblivious to be bullied? Like, if you tried, I might just be too confused by what they were trying to accomplish that they just feel like they’re the one being made fun of? Like, I thought being gay was cool, so its not like you could use that as an insult for me. It would just be stolen valor. Guess it could fall into the group of “weren’t noteworthy enough to be victims.”
There’s the stereotype of the quiet kid who eventually does a mass school shooting. That might also discourage would-be bullies, but doubt it.
I had people try to bully me. I was tall enough that most kids thought I was strong (I wasn’t, I struggled to build muscle even when I was a gymnast, but they didn’t know that), so they almost never tried anything physical. Furthermore, I was kinda too ADHD (or possibly autistic) for insults to work. They just didn’t register as something I was supposed to be offended by. In my head, that was just someone’s opinion or someone teasing (in hindsight they weren’t, but at the time I thought they were); for the former, “opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and most of them are full of shit” while I interpreted the latter as someone just trying to play around.
People tended to just give up when they realized that they couldn’t find my buttons but I could find theirs very quickly.
I was tall enough that most kids thought I was strong (I wasn’t, I struggled to build muscle even when I was a gymnast, but they didn’t know that), so they almost never tried anything physical.
As a small child, I was probably decently capable of holding my own enough to deter physical bulling. Starting in 8th grade, I was a good size to deter bulling and not big enough people took it as a challenge. So, never had anyone pull anything physical with me as far as I know.
Also, was weirdly on good terms with a diverse crowd for reasons unknown to me. /shrug
Just painstakingly craft different personas based on the people you’re around, including a bland generic person for mass appeal, because you simply can’t handle the unending stream of ridicule.
Baby
Take off
Your coooool
I want to
Get to
Know yoooooooou
If that’s what they were singing about, I’d guess this isn’t all that weird.
The most important part is to not let different groups of people mix until you can safely merge the corresponding personas
Is this a thing? I thought I’m the only one who did it
A lot of people wear masks. Life’s a stage and we are just performing for the masses.
I actually forgot how to be interested in thingd
Same, brother. Same.
Friends!
Let’s not be presumptuous. Like. I don’t even know if he likes Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
I think I remember the film.
Well if you even barely liked it, so did I so that’s enough of an excuse to keep our bad, unhappy relationship going just a little bit longer. At least until it absolutely crumbles apart beyond recognition.
That song is so sad.
Yep. Took about half dozen attempts before i learned to keep myself to myself.
Worst is when you realise so many others have the same passion, but they are misogynistic assholes about it so I can’t really enjoy it anymore…
Normal means healthy. The first example isn’t healthy, because the environment wasn’t healthy. You can be healthy. It just takes time and a lot of dirty work (looking and working with painful things, and finding tools to deal with them, them doing so).
No, normal is what happens in most cases.
They’re still wrong though, at least for an old enough demographic
I too grew up in a southern military family. Interests other than football or otherwise hurting other people? That’s a paddlin
Did you know you can do both at the same time? Bonus
It took awhile but Ive learned to share it with most, and cut out the rest.
If “normal” means “needs to attack anything slightly strange to receive validation from the in-group”, I do very much like being weird as fuck, thank you very much.
