Anyone else get sick of being told to "be yourself"

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Maybe it works for NTs, but c'mon. Being myself hasn't worked a single time. Myself is a person who doesn't talk to people. How does that improve the odds of meeting people? Grrr, I get so sick of hearing that line of crap.

I am starting to agree here.

Every time I go to a social event that doesn't center around my interests, I'm 100% myself. I stand off to the side and observe, wishing I was somewhere else not so boring. I overhear various conversations and typically don't find it interesting so I have no desire to join in. And I think it would be very rude to interrupt a group of people talking about the stock market (seriously, is there anything more boring that people talk about?) and try to change the subject to something that interests me like fishing. I've never tried to not be myself and it hasn't worked yet.

IMO being myself=bad behavior there's no sugar coting that or nicey nicey with that. I had a therapist who said to he wanted me to talk about my issues not that They (AKA others) had an issue with me Well am I the ONLY ONE THAT SEES AN ISSUE WITH UPSETTING EVERYONE IN MY ENVIRONMENT INCLUDING MY PSYCHOLOGY TEACHER SHEESH!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !!

I understand where you are coming from. This is one of those things where you are damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

For most Aspie guys, being yourself means: being shy, backwards, clumsy physically, and with words, lack of proper social skills and expectations, low self-esteem, depressed, very few hobbies/interests, ect. This usually doesn't get you anywhere with women, unless you find that rare one that can look beyond these issues.

People tell you to be yourself, but what they don't say is work on fixing some of the issues mentioned above...mostly social skills, and self-esteem issues. Everyone has room for improvement, but that doesn't mean they have to completely change their whole identity.

Even online, people reject me because they don't like something about me.

I've heard it all of my life, and I too, am sick of it. Being myself means being rejected by everyone. I hate it, but I have to be a professional actor to be accepted by society.

I am sick of it as well. I also get told that "I should work on myself". Well if I work on myself anymore, I won't feel like myself, then I will have trouble being myself.

That make sense?

You can improve yourself, without completely changing yourself. Sometimes it takes awhile to get used to certain changes (like being more talkative, and getting more attention). I know it made me uncomfortable getting a lot of attention at work, and took me a long while to get used to it.

Things to work on:
Social skills
Self-esteem issues
Anxiety
Depression
Finding new hobbies/interests (you can keep your current ones, but I'm sure there are more things out there that you would like, if you tried them at least once)

Some things that should stay the same:
Core values
Personal beliefs
Way of living/lifestyle
Sense of humor (unless you have a poor sense of humor)
Odd quirks/traits

I'm one of those people who tell people to be yourself. So you can all direct your hate at me if you have to...

In the above situation, you're almost being yourself... to be truly yourself, you'd just not attend such a crap and boring event.

Being yourself means accepting who you are. Accepting the fact that maybe you really actually do annoy 90% of the people around you and knowing that if you go to the right sorts of places, you might (maybe) meet someone from the other 10%. Possibly even someone who is attracted to you.

Nobody ever said that being yourself will get you more girls/boys whatever. It won't. In fact, if you're an obnoxious person, it will get you considerably less.

If you just wanted to "get" someone, then you're better off pretending that you're a millionaire with a porsche.

Being yourself means that if you do manage to attract someone, you'll be attracting them for the right reasons, not for some shallow reason (which they'll run away from as soon as they discover the truth).

I've been telling people that I'm aspie, and explaining what that means in my particular case, and giving them guidelines about how they can better interact with me. Then I loosen up and let more of my aspieness show.

For example, I don't suppress my enthusiasm for my Special Interests, but I stop myself from going on too long, and my friends can tease me a little about it and it's a good thing. When I'm in a social setting and don't talk, or am with friends but I go off by myself, I just explain that "it's an aspie thing", and they understand. Well, they don't actually understand, but they don't think it's weird.

I used to say "I'm allergic to small talk", or "I just need to be alone right now", or "I'm weird that way". Those worked pretty well, but it's a lot easier being able to wrap it up with tidy aspie bow. With puzzle pieces on it <grin>.

Eeeooouuuuwwww>>>

I hate pretending to be normal but I also hate telling people that I have AS. Both are as bad as each other. If I don't tell people they tend to make assumptions about me but then if I do tell people, most people in the UK don't know what AS is so then I have to explain and I hate talking about stuff like that. I would prefer to listen to an someone talk about their interpersonal relationships and soap operas etc for 3 hours rather than have to explain about AS. And hey, at least then I don't have to speak, just pretend to look interested...

And yeah, often to be truly myself I don't attend events that would put me in the situation of having to pretend...

I can act pretty well, but I find it tiring and boring and prefer to wallow at home

I feel better with another Aspie with the same interests, religious, and political beliefs, but no such person exists.

I do agree about "be yourself." people need to be very careful who they say that too. Would you tell an as*hole to be themselves or a violent person to be themselves?


I know being yourself means don't put on an act to impress someone and I do agree there. I wish my ex didn't put on an act by acting all motivated to work and being all neat and then after being together he got lazy and complained a lot and was a slob. My mom told me that was the real Jeff. The Jeff I had was the fake him who was playing me a fiddle. But that's in the past so it doesn't matter if I was with him because I dumped him and learned from it.

Women complain that men are slobs all the time. Let's face it, most men aren't as clean, tidy, and organized as women are, and never will be. Women need to realize that it's a gender difference. Do you ever hear of guys complaining that women leave the toilet seat down?...no. Why?...because it doesn't bother us that much. I think a lot of women have OCD, or something.

Yes being yourself doesn't get you more dates. I dont like that advice. People tell people to be themselves to get someone to like them, but then they say stop acting that way. People are screwed up.