Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: group mentality

Why I don’t do groups

I have written often how one of my traits is that I reach the end of things. This is both because of my neurospiciness (hyperfocusing on one object/thing until I am suddenly done with it) and because of how I was raised (give until you can’t give any more). I was well-aware of the latter, and I knew it wasn’t a good thing. I talked about it with my therapist several times. She plainly told me it wasn’t a good thing, and I retorted that I knew that already. Oh, here’s the post from yesterday when I started down this path.

Side note: One of the most frustrating things about being pretty self-aware is that I can know what my flaws are, but I can’t always change them quickly if at all. My therapist said that thinking too much was what got me into trouble, and it wasn’t what got me out of it. But thinking was the only tool in my toolkit for so long–I felt lost without it.

I understood what she was trying to say, but every fiber of my being fought against it. I could think my way out of a problem, couldn’t I? I was nothing without my brain! I rebelled against her statement for much longer than I care to admit.

I felt vaguely ashamed for how into things I got before completely abandoning them because I thought it meant something was wrong with me. Also, I felt bad for wasting money on a hobby for months only to let it fall to the wayside completely without ever using/doing all of the hobbies. I remember a time when I was really into jigsaw puzzles. I bought so many of them, and I think I managed to do three or four of them. Granted, I got cats soon after, which made it nigh impossible to do jigsaw puzzles without keeping them out of the room.

I have gotten better to some extent. I haven’t given tons of money to a hobby that I quit in quite some time. One of my latest obsessions, weapons, has lasted for ten years and is an investment. Also, I practice my weapons every day, so it’s not as if I have stuffed all the weapons in my closet and tried to shove them out of my mind, too.

I have to be careful, though, because I want all the weapons. Right now! Some of them are defensible (nice double sabers) and others are not (double butterfly swords). I can’t learn all the weapon forms at one time so it doesn’t make sense to buy them now. And yet.

My inner toddler is pretty demanding. Also, I have the money to buy both items whether I’m going to use them or not. To be clear–I already have a pair of practice double sabers, and I do know the form. I just want the nice pair because they’re gorgeous. Also, because I prefer practicing with real weapons than with practice ones. The real ones feel weighty in my hands and have real heft. The practice ones are lighter and flimsy.


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A Voice in the Wilderness

all by myyyyself
Party of one.

I’ve never been a joiner, and I don’t particularly care for groups. I find that no matter how liberal the group, there is a core mentality to which you have to adhere in order to be embraced. Otherwise, you’re tolerated at best, coldly snubbed at worst. As anyone who has interacted with me knows, I’m not a follower. I have a hard time with authority for various reasons, but mostly because I’m wary of a concentrated amount of power, no matter how just it might seem. In addition, we are all tribal at heart, whether we want to admit it or not, so the temptation to skew to the group norm is great. It’s not always a conscious thing, which makes it harder to recognize in yourself.

I’ve talked before about being a contrarian in part as a defense against falling into herd mentality. It’s partly because I tend to see things as multifaceted rather than as one thing or the other, which makes arguing on social media an exercise in frustration and futility. What I haven’t talked much about is how lonely it makes me feel a lot of the time. Despite my rather brash persona online and my prolific use of cuss words, I have a rather pathological need to please people. Or rather, not to offend people I care about and/or respect. Even when I disagree, I strive to find a way not to make it obvious that I’m doing so. It goes past trying to find common ground; I simply cannot tell someone I think they’re wrong without feeling overwhelmingly guilty. I’ll point out discrepancies or edge around the issue, but very rarely can I say, “I don’t agree.” I think there’s value in being polite or trying to see the other person’s point of view, but there is a limit. My way of dealing with issues in which I have a firm opinion is to not talk about it. For example, I am about as leftist as you can get on the topic of abortion. I think it should be legal all the time without question. Since I know I have no budge to give on the topic, I don’t discuss it with anti-choicers because there’s no point. I won’t change their mind, and they certainly will not change mine. Yes, I used to write about it ad nauseam, but that was just me preaching to the choir.

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