Anyone not really *try* to fit in during adolescence

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01 May 2012, 7:08 pm

I thought everyone hated school and was as bad at it as me.


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01 May 2012, 7:39 pm

Before high school I tried fitting in in certain situations, but not as a way of being. If I was with people I wanted to impress, I'd act just like them. Let's say we were in the lunchroom and I was standing in line with them, for that time period I would be trying to fit in, and after lunch I wouldn't care again. When I got to high school in ninth grade I was still somewhat inclined to do as others wished or be silly to get people to laugh, but this was also situational. I didn't belong to a group, I was neither popular nor unpopular, I was nothing much and that suited me. Tenth grade found me withdrawing from everyone and ignoring people as much as possible. I had no wish to be anything other than what I was, and I preferred my own company to anyone else's. In my senior year I made some friends but they weren't popular and I couldn't have cared less. We were all interesting and I only tried to fit in with them.
Altogether I'd say I have only wanted to belong to the group that I'm currently with. If I modify myself it is to gain the approval of a select few, not popularity or culture or norms.
It's different now, as I went through a time when I wanted to belong to society as a whole (between the ages of 23 and now-29) which I am trying to move past as I would rather be accepted as myself and stop worrying what other people think of me.



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01 May 2012, 8:03 pm

I tried to fit a little at first. In middle school, I joined the National Junior Honor Society and cheerleading. It didn't really work out. All the other kids made fun of me, talked about me behind my back and made things uncomfortable for me. Plus, I never did fit in. Once I got to high school, I stopped trying to fit in and focused on my schoolwork and the two or three friends I had. I fell in love senior year, but that was a complete mess too.



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01 May 2012, 8:10 pm

No, it seemed wrong to be false. My parents were big on honesty and self-deference. I did go to a pep rally once and sat near the school spirited types and tried to clap and holler. My younger brother was on the other side of the gym watching me and mocked me mercilessly for it. I think that's the only time I ever tried to fit in. I did have some friends though and I was lucky that they accepted me as the silent lurker who rarely spoke.


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bruinsy33
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01 May 2012, 8:28 pm

I have never tried to fit in .I don't think I could even if I tried.



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01 May 2012, 11:00 pm

I never really tried to fit in, either. I didn't see the point in it when everyone would just see through my facade anyway. I always found my own little world to be much more interesting than whatever drama was buzzing around me at the time. Besides, with the tapping and the twitching and the gum-chewing and the staring and the writing that I'm doing constantly, the "normal" people just tiptoe away. I've always found that the people I'm most like find me on their own. My quirks are like a magnet or something...


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01 May 2012, 11:54 pm

I didn't have a concept of "fitting in" during school. I spent most of my time in my own world, and I didn't date. I thought about dating, but I didn't really do any.

It wasn't until I started trying to live with roommates that I started to experience pressure to fit in. For whatever reason, I was very good at antagonizing my roommates without realizing I was doing it, or wanting to do it, and they tended to apply a lot of pressure to me in terms of how I talked too loud, how I behaved, how I handled my hygiene, and so on. I got kicked out of two places I lived in fairly rapid succession. I moved in with some people on my 18th birthday, and was kicked out four months later. The next place I lived was for another 3-4 months, after which I moved in with my grandmother. I moved in with another housemate who didn't pressure me to be someone she thought I should be, but I ended up in a long-term relationship and moved out, which was a huge mistake.

Said relationship was abusive, and my ex was very much into trying to force me to be certain ways. She constantly criticized me for being socially clueless and inept, and would act as if my audio processing problems and zoning out was something I did to personally spite her. Anyway, that lasted for five years, before I moved back in with my grandmother, and then tried living with other roommates. They didn't have a problem with how I was so much as what I had difficulty doing, and ultimately kicked me out because I had trouble finding work and paying my share of the rent (although it was they who asked me to move in before I had a job and I told them I wanted a job first).

I think most of the pressure people applied to me to fit in ended when I left my ex, although the effects of it stayed with me for a few more years. I kept sloughing off behaviors or assumptions or beliefs or attitudes that I had adopted because I had been under constant pressure to adopt them, and I didn't really know why I had them in the first place.



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02 May 2012, 12:36 am

I never really tried to fit in, but I did try very hard to be polite. I was always painting some mural, keeping a journal of some wild animal population, or tying to write a novel before I turned 15. I always had a mission to work on, and left to my own devices I'd probably spend all day working on whatever it was. My good friends would often at least play along with these crazy schemes of mine. Meanwhile, people who would mock my interests or tell me that I needed to be more "normal" would get little more from me than a smile, a nod and the view of my back as I walked away to do something more important.

I was lucky to have found a bunch of really good friends as a girl, people who care about me even when I'm terribly odd or embarrassing. I learned a lot from those kids. Even going back and watching home movies of me growing up it's obvious how much I was taking in about how to treat others thanks to those friends of mine. They made the bullies and strict teachers and misunderstandings with grown-ups bearable for me.

I have some face-blindness issues, but so long as I live I feel like I'll never forget their faces.



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05 May 2012, 8:55 pm

Never tried to. I had no interest in most things kids my age wanted to do.


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05 May 2012, 11:12 pm

High school I was kind of lucky ... or not ... depending on how you look at it.

I found my place in the "hardcore" subculture of the 80s. It was like an entire mob of people not trying to fit in. Lot of people with mental health problems, lot of eccentrics, people with criminal tendencies, even a few physically disabled people. Actually there were never that many, but we were networked, such that there were was a community of 100s of people where I was, spread through all the high schools in the downtown area. Misfits gone tribal, I guess you could say. There were even intercity networks. People from other cities would come, groups would leave to go to other cities. Often bands, but not always. All linked together by music and these Xerox'd pamphlets that were popular at the time.

There were very few expectations within. You didn't have to do the usual teen stuff, in fact, it was actively discouraged. People didn't go on "dates" for instance, they just got wasted (or not, cause you didn't have to do that either), had sex (or not), and decided to be exclusive (or not). Everything was super-optional, except of course, being normal. Not allowed.

Made my teen years easier, for sure, on the downside though, there were bad people, lots of drugs, and it sure didn't do me any favours in terms of social integration.



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05 May 2012, 11:24 pm

Nope, teenagers were beyond me, could not and still do not understand them. That was when I gave up on people, had no desire to try and fit in.


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06 May 2012, 1:33 am

Probably did when I was younger (although not good at it...trying to ingratiate yourself with these people was an invitation for bullying), but by the time I got to high school I'd stopped caring and also had found a unit in the speech and debate squad, where you prop up the guy next to you no matter how much you might otherwise dislike him. This has served me well later in life...anyone up in the law journal suites (it's hard to believe I'm almost officially a 3L) will kill himself before he lets anything bad happen to a fellow editor. These days I'm just the guy who doesn't blink at doing a 22-hour edit on something, vanishes for days on end and comes out with the answer, and gets far too friendly with the faculty (this can't be helped), but it's a far cry from being the weirdo who gets picked on. But, no, since I was about twelve I've not tried to fit in with anyone.



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06 May 2012, 1:50 am

I tried to fit in a little bit in high school, but people still thought I was odd--which I am.



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06 May 2012, 3:20 am

I stopped trying in my teens years and then would try again sometimes by talking to other kids in my school.