Why doesn't my individuality pay off?

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In the culture I live in, individuality is treated with fear and scorn to the point you will be punished for trying to be different until you start enjoying the mental abuse. I was never encouraged to follow my passions and expand my knowledge but to be a "good Christian man" like all "real men". This killed my potential dating life since I didn't fit the mold.

I sometimes attend an Unitarian Church since it's the only place where I can go where I won't be judged. One of the musicians there happens to not only be a metal head but is also a husband to a beautiful woman there. He goes against everything that was shoved down my throat but somehow his individuality payed off for him. Why didn't the same happen for me?

I don't think individuality has ever been encouraged, it's just another credo people in this country have never lived up to.

It just feels like everyone else succeeds at life just being themselves while I am met with scorn for being myself.

There is nothing wrong with not fitting a stereo typical viewpoint of what modern society sees today. If you dont have a fb account so what, maybe some people need to suck on something. I just give people the fingers when they dont like who i am because im me.

I want to be myself. I just hate how it hasn't lead to more friends and a special partner. Girls seem to only want conformists.

I have a hard time expressing this in non-musical analogies, so bear with me...

People who know me understand I'm a bit "off," and trying to cover that up only makes things more awkward and weird. Part of my individuality are my religious views together with my passion for more "artsy" modernist and postmodern music.

My preferences are at odds with anything that might be commercially profitable. Anything you spend much time and money on without any return is called a "hobby," whereas gainful employment is a "profession." I need more financial independence, so I need to turn my special interest into something that will make money.

In order to do that, I have to meet the needs of other people. In my case, I need to know what music libraries, filmmakers, and TV producers are looking for in music and just do THAT for a while. I feel my personal music preferences are far superior to anything you hear in theaters or on TV. But that's not what people are looking for. I need to switch my mindset from being better than TV to being the best ON TV.

In other words, it's more about the needs of the Hollywood community than it is my own needs. I can make all the creepy, weird, ear-bleed music I want on my own time for my own personal enjoyment. I'm still an individual doing my own thing, an artist doing art for its own sake. I'm just doing it while also having the support (hopefully eventually) of filmmakers, etc.

Point? PLEASE be an individual. PLEASE be yourself. Only change if you really feel something is wrong in your life and you need to change. Never let that part of yourself go.

What you're lacking is an understanding of the individuality of others, which happens to also mean people will choose to conform with groups of like-minded people. Strength in numbers. Once you learn to meet the needs of others where they are, you'll find it easier to fit in and even get people to help you reach your own goals. And no, I don't mean "fit in" as in sacrificing your identity. I mean finding where you fit and best benefit your local culture, including women you want to date.

Being the weird guy who actually LIVES OUT his faith, I tend to rub many of my Christian friends the wrong way. This is because many Christians are what we call "nominal" Christians. We've forgotten that miracles are real, that God actually CAN still instruct us. So my family and I have been subject to a lot of abuse within our church. The difference between us and a lot of Christians is our staying power. Over time, people have begun to see another side of us. We're more accepted now than we had been. It takes time, a willingness to tough it out, and willingness to meet people halfway.

Really, the more you give them a chance, the more people will give you a chance.

And Unitarian/Universalist people really are straaaaaaaaange. Like, no kidding. I'm a hardcore Southern Baptist. Believe it or not, I once fell HARD for a U/U girl. Yes, it was weeeeeeiiiiird. But I didn't care, she was an amazing woman. We had a great relationship, and had circumstances been better I might have married her. Religion wasn't an issue, it was just our lives were going in different directions and it wasn't going to work out. It sucks to be in a great relationship that simply has no future. The main thing to take from this is just be open to anything.

That metalhead at your UU church just didn't knuckle under to the social pressure to conform. If you are not afraid of what others think of you, then you are truly free.

Unfortunately, this analogy seems to be true, yet on the other hand I look to romantic relationships to be the "way out" to this. In other words, in order to make a living, get some sort of place in the general society, etc., there are places where I unfortunately have to compromise. Therefore, the purpose of a romantic relationship (aside from the physical sexual aspect) is PRECISELY to find someone who will engage with all the outlandish ideas I have, with absolutely no regard to whether they will be commercially profitable or help anyone else in any concrete way (I'm too young--at heart at least--to want someone to take care of me or build a household with). That's the whole thing that makes a girl romantic in the first place. It's sort of like "mental masturbation", but for two (mental sex maybe?).

Speaking using the language of your case, I would want a girlfriend who wants to listen to all that "creepy, weird, ear-bleed music" that nobody else gives the slightest damn about, that I can laugh with about the narrow minded preferences of the TV-watching public. Meanwhile, the girl will be in the same boat--her true passion will be something that has little to no value in the greater world, but I will find it interesting.

Sometimes I wonder whether when a girl doesn't like me back, it's because it never would have worked out anyway, that she isn't weird enough in this respect and values having something more to give to the group over living in a solitary world with me.

Well...the point is really about meeting the needs of a girl over and beyond your own needs. The idea is that if you can care for someone in a tangible way as opposed to "feeling love in your heart," she in turn will meet your needs where you are in a likewise tangible way.

The mindset I see a lot is "I'm a nice guy. I'm better than that jerk you're with." That's great and all, but it doesn't change the fact that the she's still dating scum and you're spending the weekend alone. Forget about being the "nice guy," because you already ARE the nice guy, and translate that into being the best bf for someone. You don't stop being who you are. You just start thinking more in terms of how you can best provide for her needs instead of thinking of yourself first.

Dittos on compatibility. Filmmakers LOVE modernist music for the horror genre. It's entirely possible you could find a (neo-)mod girl, goth girl or emo girl. I couldn't possibly advise you on how to date someone like that, but the principle is the same no matter what: HER needs before your own.

My boyfriend is also a metal-head, and I have a friend that has a boyfriend that's in a band within that genre. She doesn't share the same interest in metal, but she likes that he has something he's passionate about, which makes her happy for him.

I don't think a person needs to force themselves to be different or try to conform to society, if they think that's how they'll draw people into them. People can usually detect if someone is trying too hard to appeal to someone.

Also, I have little to no interest or knowledge in certain topics, but now and then a person comes along and somehow makes a (weird to me) subject fun and interesting to learn about.

http://elitedaily.com/women/ladies-attr ... ns/590694/

This doesn't apply to the Bible Belt at large. Most of the women here think a man who plays an instrument is a "fa***t" and are more impressed by guys who tell them they smell like a horse and punch them.

Quick correction to my last post... I didn't mean to imply anyone is looking for those girls specifically, I was just continuing with my music analogy. I probably would have fit in better with goths had I been born in a different time/place, and any crowd into NIN or Manson. I have a knack for making the symphonic answer to "devil worshiper" music, what can I say? lol But the fashion and lifestyle trends of goth/emo were late coming to my hometown and school, and that kind of culture simply did not exist. So I was relegated to polo shirts and Levi jeans for all of my formative years. If I had it to do all over again, I'd have only worn BLACK polo shirts and jeans. But that wouldn't have made me any less of an outcast.

I accepted it as a way of life, and later discovered casual mod fashion was compatible with my musical tastes, albeit at odds with my faith (humanism, atheism, agnosticism, hard empiricism have strong influences on modern music and art). I accepted Christ early in life. But, honestly, that would have eventually happened anyway even if I hadn't grown up the way I did. So here I am, an expert on high modernist music, wearing chinos, ties and jackets to class in grad school, going to a Baptist church on Sunday, and dating a U/U girl. Some of my closest friends were gay, and we'd have lively discussions on gay marriage and Jesus vs. Wicca.

And you know what? Nobody ever gave me a hard time about it. I'm a mish-mash of contradictions--too oddball for the conservative crowd, too far right for libs, too self-assured to be a wishy-washy centrist, but at ALL times I make up my own mind and draw my own conclusions. People don't really know what to do with me. So I just live out my core values and let the way I live speak for itself. Ultimately the way I've met women and made friends just came from those habits.

???

Ummm... I've met very few women who were unimpressed by a man's ability to strum a guitar and sing. VERY few.

I'm a clarinetist with SOME ability to play piano. Before my wife and I dated, I played her one of my favorite New Age piano tunes. She told me I was playing that at her wedding as the bridal entrance.

I couldn't make good on that... But I did hire a pianist and a string quartet to do it for me, AND I wrote the arrangement.

I also wow people with my mad alto recorder prowess, and occasionally will whip out the old flute just for fun. If I'm REALLY in the mood, I'll even do solos on handbells (you know any handbell soloists?).

Sure, there might be some who question my sexuality or "manliness." But I keep my hair cut short, only shave once a week, run 5k's, and about to start training for 10k and might even start lifting weights over the summer. Also hoping to improve my archery skills over the next year, start a gun collection, get my hunting license, and hopefully start teaching my oldest kid to hunt. I'd love for us to put some deer or turkey or squirrel on the table, but if all I find are wild pigs I'm takin' 'em down! No bag limit on ferral pigs, btw, always in season. Even if we're turkey hunting, I'll make sure my son keeps a few broadheads in the quiver "just in case."

Main thing to remember is you don't have to prove anything to anyone.

Girls calling musicians gay? I doubt it. Maybe you've seen or heard SOME of that. Remind them of that next time they go to a bar and dance to live music. Or every time they applaud and sing along with the lone guitar player.

The most fun I ever had was this private dinner party I played once. They insisted I play their piano. My time was up and I was about to head back when I started getting Billy Joel requests. Turns out there was a songbook in the piano bench with "Piano Man." We all sang along and I had so many drunk girls pressed up against me I could barely breathe! It's obvious I'm unavailable, but we were all just living in the moment, brief as it was. Nobody confused me for a gay man THAT night!

Give people, especially women, a little more credit, man. Even in the Bible belt it's not as bad as you might think.

''We all sang along and I had so many drunk girls pressed up against me I could barely breathe! It's obvious I'm unavailable, but we were all just living in the moment, brief as it was. Nobody confused me for a gay man THAT night!''
Is that why that dinner party was the most fun you've had? Hmm. It should have been made more obvious that you weren't available if you were with your wife at the time. Tsk

lol...I always wear my wedding ring. It's a dead giveaway. The party was an engagement party. They only book me, not my family. I'm working to change that. But normally when I'm booked for an event, they aren't looking for 4 extra people to crash the party.

Imagine if every member of the catering team wanted to bring a date. It just doesn't happen. The bartender might make off with the occasional bridesmaid. The entertainment might bag one every now and then. But as far as I'm concerned, I'm a no-go.

But having all the girls invade my personal space to sing some Billy Joel? Come to think of it, one of the guys there actually gave me a $100 tip just to stay another hour. I told my wife about all of it, too. There's only so much you can do for private functions.

Public events, bars, restaurants, etc... COMPLETELY different. I love it when they get to come to gigs.

Oh, speaking of bagging bridesmaids, I've mentioned elsewhere my wife was one of my former fiancée's bridesmaids. I do face that guilt.