Wouldn't it be great if you could act how you want in public

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Wouldn't life be so much easier if you could just walk out in public acting how you want, without getting looks or considered different or weird?
I don't mean breaking the law, like murdering or shop-lifting or driving a car how you want, or anything like that. I just meant all this ''all people must act in a certain way when out in public, and if you don't then we will all look at you and laugh at you'' stuff. Sometimes I feel it's a strain to keep all this up, because these days you don't have to do much to humiliate yourself. You only have to have a limp and you get the whole street looking at you. Won't it just be so nice if everybody acted how they want, therefore nobody would be humiliated, then people wouldn't embarrassed so easily, in that way.
When I was about 13 or 14, I used to stamp my feet and even try pulling my hair out when a toddler was screaming near me, especially in restaurants, and my mum used to get so embarrassed because everyone used to look and snigger (because they could tell I wasn't mental in that way - they knew I was getting distressed because of the baby, and just thought I was stupid and thought they'd laugh at me). I don't do this now, but if people didn't emotionally leap onto you like they do whenever you do something out of the ordinary, I would still do it.
Tsk, why do NTs have to interfere and look and laugh at what someone else is doing in the street?!

Does anyone agree?

Yeah, life'd be a lot less stressful. In high school, I wish my teachers would have just accepted my hyperactivity (the rocking, fidgeting, finger-tapping, etc.). But no, instead there was Ritalin, and if that didn't calm me down, Adderall. I've since been more subtle displaying my hyperactivity.

Yes, but if everyone was free to act however they wanted without societal pressure to behave a certain way, many would take it as free reign to be terribly inconsiderate.

You can act the way you want in public; being looked at by others is merely the price you pay for doing so. When you realize they can't hurt you by looking at you, that's the moment when you can begin to experience your freedom.

Define "inconsiderate". Does it actually affect others in a negative way, or is it only going contrary to some "cultural code"?

If people could act however they wanted without getting reactions from others in public, does that mean you wouldn't stamp your feet and pull your hair when a toddler screamed? People reacting negatively to you doing that is no different from you reacting negatively to the screaming toddler.

There is individual behavior and there is group behavior and they don't coincide too comfortably. I get along with people surprisingly well on a one on one basis, but I never really got group dynamics. Sometimes I would be the outcast and sometimes I would lead, but I never could follow properly. I got screamed at a lot as a kid which often felt arbitrary to me, but the thing I hated was when someone apologized for me for the way I was acting. Adults rarely tell you what you're doing wrong or ask for your reasoning for what you're doing. I would collect "laws" of not doing this or not doing that, but often the "laws" were transient or weren't universally applicable. It wasn't until later that I understood that most of what is acceptable is more about controlling and habit than some truth of nature.

Yeh but making a scene and drawing attention to myself is scary. All those eyes glaring at you, and what's worse is the person with you being so embarrassed. If everyone could act how they want, then nobody would be glaring at me and the person with me wouldn't get embarrassed.

Oh yeah. Then no one would be embarrassed by me. I wouldn't even look stupid either.

If everybody could act how they wanted to in public, all hell would eventually break loose. Imagine what the ignorant people would do to people with disabilities, if people could act however they wanted in public. Imagine what the young generation would be doing to seniour citizens, if people could act however they wanted. I wouldn't want to walk into a Chinese resturaunt, to see a couple having sex on one of the tables.

Well said

In my opinion, people already act how they want in pulic, NTs at least. They peacefuly go about their daily business but if they spot somebody behaving in a strange manner, they glare at them. It's inconsiderate but as you say, OP, they are acting how they want to in public

I don't mean going as far as having sex out in public. I just mean being able to do certain things without looking odd. Say something like bickering with someone. I've seen people bicker before in the street, and people were looking at them, but if things like that weren't considered odd, then nobody would be looking at them weirdly or anything.

There's a difference between breaking the law, and just coming across as a bit strange. I tripped and fell over last week, and these two people behind laughed at me, then some people who passed me were looking at me and trying to hide a grin. That makes you feel more embarrassed then the tripping over. If nobody else reacted to something out of the ordinary what you do, things wouldn't be so embarrassing.

But bullying, fighting, having sex in public, ect, is understandably inappropriate, and offends a lot of people.
But things like looking a bit odd, walking with a funny gait, flapping hands (like some Aspies do), biting the nails, talking to yourself, acting silly, falling down, giving off weird vibes, young people pushing old people's trolleys, wearing things what don't match or don't look right.....people react to these silly things as though they are inappropriate too, even though doing these silly things aren't really offending or harming anyone, or even affecting anyone. It would be nice if people didn't look at others who look a bit different. Then I wouldn't feel so anxious of being out alone in the street.

Do you see what I'm getting at?

i do as i please. if it displeases anyone then that's life in the big smoke.

i do not do things that are illegal, but i do not want to do things that are illegal anyway. i do what i like and if the world does not like it they can step aside and let me pass through.

who cares what miniscule neural electrical aberrations are caused by my unthinking passage through a social gaggle of geese? after their eyebrows return to their regular positions, i am gone and long forgotten. feathers, for a short while, may blow around aimlessly detached from their previous owners, but they are not seen by me and it is only a problem for whoever else sees them and cares.

i do exactly what i want, and even though i may trudge through the mud of disapproval, i still get to where i want to be.

I don't think I would like to live in that world. I'm interested in unusual and out-of-the-ordinary people and things, and being forbidden from visually investigating people who are different would be a drag for me.

Yeh, but I live in a village, where I see the same people every day, and I also get on the same bus regularly, where I sometimes meet other regular passengers who know of me, and I don't really want to walk about with people staring at me and thinking, ''there's that very strange girl''. I don't really want my friends to wind up being embarrassed to spend time with me. I get men smiling at me - if I acted like a fool all the time I would never get that sort of attention. Instead, I would get the negative attention instead.
And where I work is one of those places where you get a lot of teenagers hanging about in gangs in the town, especially on Saturdays, and a lot of other people there are very judgemental and seem to get really ''afraid'' of people who behave strangely of differently around them. So if I went out without putting on the ''cool front'', the teenagers would probably beat me up or something, because I know that is what they do to people who are acting different, especially if they are young. But by acting cool, I have fooled them because they don't seem to notice anything in me.

It would just be so nice if nobody took any notice of other people's differences in public.

I do act how I want in public, I ignore anyone who looks at me. They're only doing it because they wish they had the guts to act how they actually want as well.