- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
You must log in or register to comment.
Liking things is so cringe.
Is this not normal?
OP is full of shit.
Everyone was mocked and belittled for anything and everything they ever say or do, right?
Thenwhen what they say and do is nothing, they get physically assaulted and punished for it, right?
I mean, that was my experience. Niche interests? Lol. Fucking queer.
Man. Texas sure was a great place to accumulate all this trauma!
Oh, hey, stop that.
Fuck Texas
Are you offering? Because I’m drunk enough to try some shit tonight!
Seriously though, I like Texas. I like the scenery, the people I currently surround myself with, the food, the night life, the local music, and about a million other things about it. A lot of Texas is genuinely really cool.
I fucking hate the small towns like the one I grew up in and the fucking politicians. I hate the voter suppression and apathy. I hate the people who traumatize others for not being “normal”, whatever the fuck that is. A lot of Texas is genuinely really fucking shitty.
All that being said, I totally get the sentiment because y’all don’t get to see the cool shit. The people stuck in the shitty little towns don’t generally get to see the cool shit. And the politicians are trying to do away with a lot of the cool shit.
I’d prolly move back if it weren’t for the generations of assholes. I grew up in a suburb of 150k+, and I do miss the weather. But fuck, it’s so backwards!
I don’t blame you. It’s definitely not for everyone and not everyone can find their tribe here without a lot of work that not everyone can put into it for various reasons. On top of that, did I mention the shitty politicians?
It’s just not the same since you went away. And the Mexican food sucks north of here anyway </bowling for soup>
I did go to LA, so I’ve got that going for me (despite my renewed homelessness). Taco trucks galore!
From one Texan to another, I’m sorry you went through that. I hope you have or are able to work through it. And I hope you’re enjoying your niche interests these days!
I think you and I are the only Texans on here… I swear any time I mention it, bam! There you are! Still think you’re a better option than MIA governor Abbott. Lolol.
Oh, I forgot to ask, did you get power back?
Nope! CenterPoint is still pissing away all our time and I can see the fuse blown on the damn pole that’s keeping my power off.
Thankfully, I have some mitigation for the heat, but it’s been rough! Today was the first day any of the gas stations near me had any power to even pump gas.
Thanks for asking!
Ok, that’s pretty fucked up. Which side are you on? I’m a hair out of Katy in a suburb up from the energy corridor and my power was back on in like 24 hours.
I’m so sorry that shit is happening to you. You need anything? A care package?
The Fartographer is also one of our kin. They’re (she, I think, but I won’t swear to it) pretty fucking cool. You are, too.
I like to sit at the bar and people watch while I’m chatting on Lemmy so I’m always around.
Fair enough! And I appreciate that! And I think I’ve seen their name around here before too. I do enjoy your perspective on our shared plight in this… place.
And that must be pretty entertaining considering what our drunks can get up to.
I’ve been all around the world and there ain’t no drunks like the ones in Houston. I’m sitting in a bar in a strip mall next to a children’s learning center. They’re kind of extra tonight, probably because they’ve been down due to Beryl.
I’m also from Texas. I wish our politicians didn’t suck so hard.
I love plushies. I grew up AMAB which meant that after a certain age (typically before 10yrs old, somewhere around 7~8yrs old), it became unacceptable to have plushies. I held onto them long past that age and didn’t “put them away” until I was well into my teens, but I was still very aware of the fact that I couldn’t let anyone outside my family know that I still had my plushies because I might get bullied if I did.
Afaik, no one outside the family ever found out, but it took a long time for adult me to accept that it’s okay to like plushies and start pulling my og plushie crew out of the closet. Now I’m starting to expand my plushie portfolio again and I have a small army of protobeans, several high-quality dragon plushies, a medium-ish roadkill opossum, a few makeship/misc plushies like a Gardener from Gemini Home Entertainment or Acrid from Risk of Rain, a big moth, backstories and names for almost everyone, and I still have my OG beanie-baby crew (some of whom I’ve discovered would be fairly valuable if they hadn’t been well-loved).
I regret letting my fear stop me from covering my bedroom in plushies.
It’s never too late for the plushie army to rise.
No one will ever stop me loving my Indi-Bear. I’ll fight em.
I’m not at all into plushies anymore, though I do like to cuddle a plsuhie some times. Anyways… my mom saved the dragon plushie I had when I was a kid. It was obviously a bit roughed up, but I send it to a “doll doctor” and now my son has that same plushie I used to have. I’m not the sentimental type, but I’m super happy how that I got to share this with my son even though he just threw it in the corner and never uses it 😄
What is AMAB?
assigned male at birth, it and AFAB are often used with the intention of being inclusive of NB and trans people that you may not know the gender of or in OPs case implying that’s not the way they identify now(although that’s just an assumption, could be inclusive terminology for inclusivity’s sake)
I’m being punched right now.
Unfortunately, that fear is not based on instincts, but on prior experience
Nobody knew that I played World of Warcraft for 6 years, because I didn’t want to get labeled as a nerd. For perspective, I was an athlete, who rode dual-sport motorcycles, did martial arts, and spent many evenings out partying, so the type of people I associated with weren’t into computer stuff at all. I’ve always had that duality though.
Thank you for understanding me.
That is supposed to change?
I loooove having hobbies. Unfortunately I can’t make a lot of them part of my identity or try and perform them publicly cause if my family catches wind of it it’ll suddenly become my least favorite thing to do.
Just gatta find people to vibe with. With the internet being so prevalent now it should be fairly easy. When I was in highschool and the internet was basically just instant messenger and rotten.com it was hard to find people that were into bugs and insects and other invertebrates.
Come to mander.
I still feel I need to hide when I am interested in something. Am I not the only one?
Definitely not, and the solution is to stop hanging out with people who ridicule or mock you for your interests and hobbies, and find those who admire and/or encourage you instead.
You can’t just find different friends. You just meet people by chance, so you have to be loyal to people no matter how much of an asshole they are.
Apart from what other people have pointed out- what if one of your friends does great harm to another of your friends? How do you stay loyal to both of them?
You pretend to be on the side of both of them, but it could fall apart very quickly. So I don’t do it anymore. I just make my own arguments and side with the victim.
So you were lying to your friends about having their back? That makes you the bad friend.
I don’t lie to them about having their back, I lie to them about my opinion as I try to avoid conflict. I don’t do it against my actual friends.
What is the difference between your friends and your actual friends? Because I thought we were talking about your friends and I also thought that friends are actual friends.
What if I told you you do not have to be loyal to people who don’t respect you?
A very small part of people who I call friends are people, who I actually care about. I’m just forced to communicate with others to get important info I need for school.
Well, people you HAVE to see for professional reasons aren’t your friends, and you shouldn’t really care what they think about your hobbies or interests.
At school, it’s different, than at work, as children/teens (including me) are generally less mature, which means most of them don’t help you or inform you unless they benefit from it. TLDR: I make people think they are my friends because I’m forced to.
Okay, I understand that, and that’s fine, everyone has people like that in their lives at some point.
But if you KNOW they aren’t really your friends, why would you complain that they don’t act like they are?
You can just ignore the first part of my advice (about not spending time with them) because it doesn’t apply to this situation, but you should probably still try and find people who you can actually be friends with based on your hobbies and interests.
You should be loyal to people, they might also be afraid to show their interest in the stuff you like. But don’t stick to them “no matter what”. That can bring you into dark places.
Enforcing boundaries helps, talking about things helps, but sucking it up and abandoning people seemingly willy-nilly will leave you alone and angsty pretty fast. So will just taking everything from an asshole.
I don’t have an answer to finding friends yet. Try going to social stuff about the things you like. If you have stuff you deliberately hide then try not to go to those things first, as the shame might make you lash out at potential friends. Wait till you can come to terms with yourself.
That’s the point of the post. You are on terms with yourself, but you know they won’t respect you.
Nah this is completely wrong, move your body to somewhere else where there are different people. Interact with them. That’s it, you have a different social circle now. Find a new hobby or pick up an old one in a different place, decline to hang out with people who ridicule you and invite people who do not.
Tried it. It didn’t go well.
It’s not that easy when those people are your parents
Once you’re an adult, you have no obligation to spend any time with your parents if they do not appreciate you for who you are.
Unless you still live at home, that is, in which case, you should probably fix that first.
Just yesterday, my teenage daughter (not trying to say anything about your maturity level here) said to me that she didn’t like it when I talked about anime because she thought the word was embarrassing. She really likes anime, but she is embarrassed about it because even though she knows anime is fairly mainstream now, she likes more obscure stuff.
I told her that apart from it being a perfectly acceptable word to describe the art form both in and outside Japan, if you spend time worrying about what people think of your interests, you’re wasting time you could spend on those interests- and actually stopping yourself from doing it. And then while you’re doing it, you’re wasting time feeling bad for enjoying yourself when you could just be enjoying yourself.
On top of that, if a friend is going to judge you for your interests, maybe they’re not really a friend. And everyone else? Fuck them. They have to share the Earth with you regardless and if they don’t like it, that’s their problem.
I remember playing an anime game on my phone in high school, and this one classmate made fun of me for it. Not because of anime, he already knew I watch them and didn’t (seemingly, at least), care one way or the other. But because the game has a hub-like area where the characters are shown in a chibi design. He kept pestering me after that to try out Barbie games.
The “best” part? Dude literally said the game looked fun when he saw me playing the actual gameplay, and even asked me to let him play a round. Then the round ended, saw the hub, and he did a 180 on me and on the game.
To this day I don’t feel comfortable watching certain anime in public. I’m not even talking about ecchi here. Just basically any stuff that is “girly”.
You know, about that guy:
Normal is defined, in this case, as what the majority of people experience. As opposed to what the majority of people think everyone else is experiencing. Meaning it’s normal to be ridculed by your family for trying to be yourself.
Kids in my sons junior high school are unapologetic weirdos now and are embraced for it. Normies watch anime.
Contrast when I was in high school and you were called homophobic slurs for liking Star Wars or reading manga. Bizarre times indeed.
I’d rather not give my family anything on me. I don’t like being judged or tasked to do things for them because I’m the techy one.
Also hate the spotlight
I don’t even have weird interests. I don’t want people to talk to me. Reduce the attack surface, you know.
I remember saying “I don’t listen to music” in high school and half of college because I didn’t feel I could listen to the music I enjoyed without being made fun of. I basically didn’t listen to music until I was in college and I had space to explore what I liked and didn’t like without peer pressure.
To this day I don’t listen to music in front of anyone other than my wife and kids. I still remember the exact derogatory quote that a person I thought was my friend said in regards to me showing them some music I liked… from about 40 years ago.
That’s one thing I instill in my kids, everyone is allowed to like and not like what they want and they should not be made fun of for any of their preferences.
Yeah, music is a weird one. I also always said I didn’t listen to music. I did listen to a lot of songs from video games though. When I was annoyed enough I told them something like Rock, but that always led to the question if I can name some artists or songs. Didn’t knew many. I hate these kinds of conversations.
What kind of music?
You’re taking the one bad experience with a so called friend too far.
"Hey, I know barely anything about you but I can tell your feelings are not valid’.
Trauma doesn’t work like that, you don’t just get over it on command.
And hes proactively ending it with him by helping his kids learn healthy views about individual tastes and respecting others.
Even if he can’t “fix” it for himself, he has already protected others.
It wasn’t just one experience, that’s just the one that sticks in my mind the most.
I was also a shy dorky kid and I avoided social conflict and I didn’t care enough to dive into music and find what I liked back then.
