oh hey look, its my childhood trauma that led to me being unbearably boring in conversations
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.
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.
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.
Unfortunately, that fear is not based on instincts, but on prior experience
After “fear of getting ridiculed or mocked” I’d also add “or told you’re going to go to hell.”
Ugh.
What hobby/intrest got them to say that?
Anne Rice novels and heavy metal. My step dad quite literally thought I was in a cult.
Ha, I was expecting heavy metal
Honestly it was more the Anne Rice novels and witchy shit. Aesthetics.
I was expecting the Spanish Inquisition.
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition
OP be like, “You have to start slow and work your way up to the girthier toys.”
I remember saying “I don’t listen to music” in high school and half of college because I didn’t feel I could listen to the music I enjoyed without being made fun of. I basically didn’t listen to music until I was in college and I had space to explore what I liked and didn’t like without peer pressure.
To this day I don’t listen to music in front of anyone other than my wife and kids. I still remember the exact derogatory quote that a person I thought was my friend said in regards to me showing them some music I liked… from about 40 years ago.
That’s one thing I instill in my kids, everyone is allowed to like and not like what they want and they should not be made fun of for any of their preferences.
What kind of music?
Yeah, music is a weird one. I also always said I didn’t listen to music. I did listen to a lot of songs from video games though. When I was annoyed enough I told them something like Rock, but that always led to the question if I can name some artists or songs. Didn’t knew many. I hate these kinds of conversations.
You’re taking the one bad experience with a so called friend too far.
"Hey, I know barely anything about you but I can tell your feelings are not valid’.
Trauma doesn’t work like that, you don’t just get over it on command.
And hes proactively ending it with him by helping his kids learn healthy views about individual tastes and respecting others.
Even if he can’t “fix” it for himself, he has already protected others.
Yep I get it now.
I still wish his friends get shafted tho
It wasn’t just one experience, that’s just the one that sticks in my mind the most.
I was also a shy dorky kid and I avoided social conflict and I didn’t care enough to dive into music and find what I liked back then.
Sorry to hear that
F your so called friend. And I hope you get to enjoy music without shame for the rest of your life
It hurts the most when it’s your family :/ I’m 30 years old and I still have trouble saying “I want to watch this movie” when it’s just me and my husband having a movie night. Literally anything I wanted to watch or do in that house was somehow the weirdest thing anyone had ever heard of. That’s growing up in an Arkansas white-flight suburb for you.
I just plain don’t tell my mother anything. Every hobby is an opportunity to criticize and belittle, so why bother?
And then they get mad that you don’t tell them what you’re up to. Either listen and don’t belittle, or be a belittler and don’t expect to hear anything.
Pick one, you can’t have both.
Exactly, think: How does my mother treat me? How should I treat her?
I genuinely wish there was a license, or barring that, at least mandatory psych evaluations and training, to be a parent.
because jesus christ so many people seem to actively hate their children. You should encourage your children and hope they flourish. Not stamp them down and grind them into the concrete like an finished cigarette.
the real solution is that individuals shouldn’t be solely responsible for raising children, children should be raised collectively by at least like 5 people and ideally more like 50…
think about how kids would grow up in the past, they might not even be with their parents most of the time! Running around the village or local neighbourhood, staying at their friends’ house, buying groceries for old lady Stephens (who is effectively everyone’s grandmother) since she’s too old to walk to the store and then being treated to her homemade pastries, etc etc
humans just aren’t made to raise kids on their own, we’re made to share the responsibility so the kids can actually get all the attention they need, and they can get varied perspectives and knowledge.
There are plenty of people who have support networks and still treat their kids like shit, and/or abuse them.
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.
I’d rather not give my family anything on me. I don’t like being judged or tasked to do things for them because I’m the techy one.
Also hate the spotlight
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
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.
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.
So what’s it called when you get picked on for being outside the norm so you decide to try get the interests of everyone else but go too far in that study and end up with so much knowledge, hobbies and interests that you go right out the other side of not being relatable anymore. And while people no longer directly mock you for not having their interest they find you weird and untrustworthy to be in their social circle because they don’t think you actually belong there?
autism
I’m in this comment and I don’t like it.
Several times I would end up in a situation where I’m talking to someone and they mention something that peaks my interest. After that encounter, I would go home and furiously research the topic of interest becoming, essentially, a “prosumer” overnight in the subject.
The next time I see that person, I’d talk about that subject and I would have so much more knowledge than they do that I’d talk over their head.
Oh well.
People just want to enjoy their thing, not be infodumped at by an encyclopedia. It’s fine to read everything about the hobby but try using that to understand what interests them about the subject and relate that way.
I’ve gotten a lot better about it over the years, but this is good advice for anyone still in the situation.
Yeah I think it’s something a lot of us do.
Masking is definitely a skill that can be developed. I don’t even think of it as a negative thing really, it’s just knowing your audience and trying to relate on a similar level.
Until your entire personality is just masking.
Took me a while to unlearn that one.
I guess I find it interesting that if people truly enjoy their thing, wouldn’t they want to know/hear more and not be turned off by a person who might know more?
I don’t know about anyone else, I’d call you a goddamn king
Hey ! It’s me !
Thanks op, I really needed that psychic damage out of the blue.
But one thing that I have noticed is that the people that are mocked for their hobbies are also the one’s that are the most accepting of others.
My guess is they know the pain of being the butt of other people’s jokes and empathize with others more.
My proudest moment as a teacher in my career so far was when one of my grade 9 girls quietly confessed to me that she liked K-pop, and that people had made fun of her for it.
Coincidentally, I had done some teaching in Korea, and loved it. So, I excitedly said (at a nerdily loud volume) “I LOVE K-POP!!”
She didn’t believe me at first, but eventually did when I named my favourite bands/songs.
She looked so happy! I told her that even if no one else thought so, we both knew each other were cool 😎
Don’t ever let anyone shit on your enthusiasm, kids. Your interests are part of who you are, and it’s not ok to make fun of that.
Let your freak flag fly, and you’ll be a much happier person.
And to anyone who has ever been discouraged from their interests: I’m sorry you went through that, it’s not OK. It’s never too late to get back into it, whatever it is. And I will know you’re cool 😎
