Ridged With Rules

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Hello, is anybody else really ridges with rules. You know like if you see a yellow light and see other people speed through it but you slow down because yellow means slow/yield and those are the rules. Or maybe you see a speed limit sign for 35 mph and you won't go 34 nor 36. When you play games do you ever find yourself freaking out at people for being flexible with the rules? Like if the rest of the players decide to just play it and not keep score or use play money or maybe someone who has a hard time reading is playing and they want you to read your own trivia question but you refuse because those aren't the rules. Has anything like this or anything else happened? These are just a few example that happen to me. I tend to take all kinds of rules too literally and therefore am not flexible.

Yes I am this way too. When walking with others if they go in the out door or out the in door I can't go with them. I stop, then walk over to the proper door. When it comes to crossing the street I go when it says to walk and wont cross otherwise even if there are no cars (this seems to drive people crazy) and I have to walk on the crosswalk (no cutting corners). I get pretty upset when people break rules.

I used to be exactly like that when I was a kid and teen! I totally forgot until I read your post. I'm still fairly rigid to an extent, but think I got shamed out of it as I got older. When there are people to mimic, I mimic them instead of trying to follow the rules too closely so that they don't give me a hard time and tell me to "lighten up". I don't like it when people think I'm being difficult out of fear or other emotional reasons. Isn't it logical to follow the rules? Oh well.

I hate rules ad I break them every time I can.

Oh yeah, I do that too! I've been with people who will jaywalk in the middle of the busy city and it drove me NUTS! I'm much calmer if I can just wait at the crosswalk for the Walk signal.

When I do break rules, I have my own "rules" instead.

For instance, most speed limits are too low in my state. So, on most roads I will make sure to keep it less than 10 mph over the limit. The only road I've been stopped for <10 mph over the speed limit has a speed limit of 70, so I go <75 there.

Here's one case where I'm stricter than the rule "given": I don't drive if I estimate my blood alcohol level to be over 0.04%, which is half the legal limit in America. I do this to have a large safety margin because my actual BAC is probably not quite the estimate. A DUI is far, far, far worse than a speeding ticket.

I tend to follow rules that are just slightly unfair, but break rules that are VERY unfair when I can get away with it.

As a child (and a teen) I was much more strict about following rules in general than I am now - probably as I realized through my late teens and 20's that more and more rules were unfair.

I don't think I am that rigid. I do follow the rules to the games yeah and I know you don't have to go the speed limit (just as long as you don't go too slow and you are in the slow lane) and in bad weather, you can't go the speed limit or it's unsafe. I do know you have to go with the flow of traffic or you get pulled over even if you were going the speed limit. When the light turns yellow and I am right at the intersection, I am not slamming on my breaks so I can get rear ended. Plus my mind doesn't always act fast enough for me to do it even if there are no cars behind me. I do cross the street if there is no traffic and if there are hardly any cars on the road and I don't have the sign that says "walk" I am crossing. I am not going to stop traffic. I also go in the wrong way when it comes to using doors. Why does it even matter? I will also driving through parking spots in the parking lot.

Well, does cheating in video games count as breaking the rules? I used to do that a lot. I also used to make up my own rules in board games and if someone is learning to play the game, it's more like tutorial when they have someone helping them or when people are giving them hints. I guess I am not that rigid when it comes to games.

But I do tend to take cooking directions literal. My husband has had to come out and get his food after I would cook it for him and I was waiting for it to cool because the directions said to wait five minutes for it to cool. But my husband decided to break it anyway and just eat it. He just didn't want to wait and I didn't give it to him right after it was done so he got it himself.

I'm both rigid and rebellious at once. In many things, I see no gray area, only black and white. However, in others I tend to want to challenge convention if I see it as absurd. In and Out doors is one of them. The local Walmart has two doors side by side marked this way and I usually try to use the opposite one to the one I am supposed to. Why? Because I don't like being told what to do and because both doors serve the same function. Now, I won't park in a handicapped space or cut in line, or anything like that but when the rules are silly, I feel the need to challenge them.

I'm very rigid with rules and boundaries, I find it very very hard to understand that anything might have some degree of leniency. I find it partcularly hard to understand that rules my parents set as a small child aren't necessarily applicable now I am an adult. I find it very hard living with people because I get massively upset when they break rules and I turn into the 'moral police'. I also tend to take things people say as completely black and white, for instance if my parents say they will be here at 12, by 1 minute past I am panicking.
When in hospital for having an ED I found it very very hard to grasp that what I ate every day had to change, I find it very hard to grasp that if I need 1700 calories a day to maintain my weight that if I eat 1 calorie over that I won't gain weight. I used to get really frightened if the size of my two pieces of bread was a bit different in size because it might be over my allowance. It also used to work the other was though, I gained a few pounds over a weekend because I took their rules compleatly literally which apparently I wasn't supposed to.

I break rules sometimes. Like at High School they were very strict on how we wore our uniform; had to have our top buttons done up throughout the whole school day, had to tuck in our shirts. I always had my shirt tucked in because it didn't feel right with it hanging out, but I always had my top button undone , especially in the later years, so did the other kids as they get older.

With crossings, I wait for the ''green man'' at cross-junctions because you can't always tell what lights and green and what are red, so it is safer to just wait for my turn to cross rather than causing an embarrassing hazard. Same with crossing near roundabouts - you've got to be careful. But at small, straight forward crossings, I sometimes go before the ''green man'' lights up if there are no cars coming, or I cut the corner. Why not?

Not really....I guess maybe when I was younger I was that way about some things, but since I've gotten older, generally I am anything but rigid with rules.

I take things literally too like that. I learn something and think it's okay every time. Then my husband has to correct me and tell me it was only okay for that one time or only for that situation. I don't get upset anymore if someone is a minute late because no one is perfect and it's hard to arrive on the nose. So I give them ten minutes. if they are late than that, I wonder if something went wrong and if they forgot their phone. I am pretty forgiving if they had a good reason to be late since I know s**t happens. I also like it if they give me a call if they are going to be late or not make it. My mom used to tell me we were leaving at five and five would come and I would get very upset because we were not leaving at that time. So she learned to say "We are leaving around (insert time here)" so I know it's not black and white.

I am known to go overboard with things when I am told something is okay to do. I remember the day my school counselor told me I think I have to follow every rule and then I get upset when kids break it. Then he told me I don't need to follow every rule because that is being flexible. So I start breaking rules and getting into trouble and saying how flexible I am being. Kids complained about me. I got so obsessed with flexibility. I even got kicked out of class for saying a bad word and I said I got kicked out for being flexible, I said a bad word. Then I stopped doing it excessively when I stopped obsessing over it. My mom was not happy with what the school counselor told me and said he did not explain it well to me. Some things bosses and teachers and people who are in charge say are just guidelines, not actual rules. Maybe that is what he meant.

I used to tattle on the other kids at school. I even pointed out to people when they were eating something wrong. Like when they ate something using a spoon instead of a fork.

Knowing the "spirit" of the rules - that is, why each rule is there - can help determine just how "flexible" you can be with it. If in doubt, and it's at least semi-fair, I obey it strictly.

I tend to follow rules unless nobody else does like the speed limit.

Even there, I often think that the officials should either enforce the law or rewrite it, then enforce it.

I have had discussions with a few people concerning bicyclists ( I am one)... The complaint is often, "bicyclists should not be on the road unless they go at least the speed limit." My response is to remind them that technically the speed limit is the maximum speed, not the minimum... a car going 1 mph over the limit is less legal than a cyclist going 10 mph below the limit.

I also cross only where allowed when walking.

Yes, I follow rules best I can.

With traffic laws (one of my interests) I follow them to the letter.. Meaning I never speed knowingly. Always yield to pedestrians, complete stops at stop signs and so on.

At work I believe others should follow rules, but do not speak when they break them.. I just realize how different I am.

I used to live around military bases, I loved it as people were so much better at following rules. Now I live in a Northern city. It is hell to me, so very few people even try to follow rules and laws.

With traffic laws I know better than to break them, even a little. One night it was all the difference between my life being ruined and spending years in prison.
Also people who do not follow laws are bullies as law are to protect people. I do not like my life and rights being violated and I am not wanting to do that to others.