How to be anti-social – a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences

ok, that's helpful, thank you. but i think some background matters here: i was always (yes, since i can remember, at least starting from first grade) treated like an outsider. i was always treated like i was different despite growing up in a white homogeneous community simply because i was not a local and had difficulty making friends. my only defense was to run with it. it went as far as me wearing a different clothing style just to separate myself from everyone else. i toned that down when i realized that i would change my style if other started copying me. i decided to not let my behavior and actions be influenced by anyone else ever.

that has been the mantra for my whole life. (that doesn't mean i don't learn or wouldn't listen to reason, but it means that the changing something had to have a good reason. (and in the context of writing, for example, readability is a good reason, being perceived as different is not))

social conventions is something i have always struggled with. they often make no sense to me. why do i have to shake hands, for example? yes, there is a social and historical explanation, but the rituals are often so detailed, and so variable that i never know what is the right form in which situation.

so yeah, i am cool, even if i don't want to, and nonchalant describes to to a T.

i don't really want to change my behavior (i don't mean writing specifically) for the sake of becoming more accepted, because it also works as a filter. someone who can accept me despite my quirkiness is likely to be more open minded. it's a form of protection.

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This is one of my pet peeves. Not the "anti-social" character described in the post, but rather the poster's attitude. I've tried a few times to formulate to myself what it is that irks me, let's see if I manage to do it today:

1. Not every social interaction can (or should) be an objective weighing of ideas. It's not the other person's responsibility to enter into a formal debate with you at your local dive bar or whatever.

2. For their opinions to be valid, the other person doesn't need to conform to your idea of an acceptable conversation style (see 1). Also, in my experience, "anti-social" responses are detected more readily in the other person than in yourself, you're not as cool and collected as you think you are.

3. Feelings aren't forbidden. You may be a bit repressed yourself, meaning you feel shame or disgust when confronted with other people's feelings. Guess what... that's also a feeling!

4. If you repeatedly encounter these "anti-social" people in your life (which I guess OP does since he wrote a post about it) there's one common denominator: you. Can you honestly measure up to your own rules, OP? It takes two to tango.

5. There's a good chance you're sandbagging your conversation, meaning you're talking about some topic that you've thought about a lot, to a completely unprepared party. In my experience with people making complaints like OP, this is often combined with a controversial opinion about said topic. Instead of truly testing your idea against someone, you provoke an emotional reaction and celebrate your superiority because you staid calm and the other person exploded. Charlie Kirk was good at this unless he encountered actual experts.

6. Related to the above: come on, it's perfectly normal to get defensive and upset when you find you're losing an argument, don't act like you don't do it.

I got easier tip: bring large dog, that barks at everything and attack everyone 2 meters away. Bonus point if it has explosive diarrhoea in middle of grocery store or cafe!

The point is that a fully grown person (i.e. adult) should be able to regulate their emotions to the point of being able to have a conversation with 3 strangers.

You might not like it, it might stress you out a bunch, you can cry afterwards, or have a stiff drink after, but you should be able to set those emotions aside for 30 minutes, especially for something important like a job interview.

If someone cannot do that, they should definitely go into therapy for that. No matter if it was 'done to them', it's still a problem that person carries around, and the only way around that is fixing it.