Extremely resistant to social conditioning?

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By "social conditioning", I mean people you know and society at large telling you to think/feel/act in certain ways matching those of the majority, then getting you to either think/feel/act in those ways or want to/try to think/feel/act in those ways.

e.g. You should have or want to have friends, because everyone has or wants to have friends.

By "extremely resistant", I mean naturally immune or inadvertently unreceptive, not purposefully oppositional.

e.g. Wanting to have friends is not one of my intense natural wants, so I cannot remember to want to have friends.

I am extremely resistant to social conditioning due to my utter cluelessness of how the conditioners actually want me to think/feel/act or my inability to remember such. If you cannot pick up on what is expected of you by others or cannot remember such expectations, then you are not going to be able to follow through on them.

Is anyone else like this? What are your reasons for being relatively unconditionable?

From the outside, I believe that I come across like "stubborn as a mule" or "pig-headed", except that I am not doing any of this on purpose.

I'm not quite sure with me, since I want friends. I only come across as shy or ''a little odd at times'', which is quite good in a way because it doesn't really chase people off. They can live with it, and easily adapt to my ways.

But I do slip up every now and again.

When my parents lecture me on how abnormal I am compared to my peers, all I can think is, "I don't need to hear this; I'm just fine the way I am!" It's not meant defiantly, mind you.
Resistant to whatever should make me want those things that are supposedly good for me? You bet. I admit to feeling lonely, but when the rare opportunity shows itself, it flies right over my head. I just... don't care enough to want to bother.

I have become less receptive to social conditioning over time. Mostly because I have come to realize it really doesn't matter what other people say. I could go out and make friends, I just don't want to. I could find a girlfriend, I just have no desire to do so. And one thing I have learned is that life is far too short to spend your time doing stuff to make other people happy. Especially when I am most content doing my own thing.

I wanted friends as a kid and hated being alone and wanted to play with others. Then in 6th grade I learned to play alone and keep myself entertained. In my teens I realized friends were over rated and lot of kids my age had nothing in common so I didn't need them. I still don't care for friends even though I am aware how important they are but I just don't know how to do it. It was easy as a kid but now that I am an adult, it's hard. Trying would just make it stressful and lead me to being frustrated and unhappy and maybe depressed. Plus I wouldn't know what to do with them except go to places with them or ask them to watch your kid when you have to work or when something happens or when you want to go somewhere without them. Friends are lot of work. I prefer online friends but one of them I wouldn't mind meeting in real life since he likes video games and we can talk about anything and watch movies together and share our obsessions or special interests. He is also on the spectrum.

Finding guys, I did online and then met in real life. It was easier that way.


Only people who have lectured me about finding friends is my mother and when I asked her why is that so important, that is when she told me. So I know why they are important because she told me.

These "rules" of society are a big steaming load of male-bovine droppings. I hate how loners such as myself are stereotyped as being creepy, evil, nasty, scary, even dangerous. This whole "need to have lots and lots of friends or you're a loser" is highly overrated. I don't want to be alone ALL the time, but usually I don't have much of a choice since I live alone and know very few people well enough to think of as "friends". And I'm not shy, either. I am the opposite of shy. I have no desire whatsoever to fall in love, get married, have the two-point-something-or-other kids or any of that stupid nonsense OTHER women are obsessed with because society has brainwashed them to be.
People need to know when to be there for me, and when to leave me alone.

Totally me. I could make friends but 1)I don't care to and 2)It's exhausting. I think the more and more I get pushed to socialise the more oppositional I'll become. In my teens I went through that period.

I do have a few friends I see maybe once a month if even that but, God, they get on my nerves and I'm taken away from my special interests and it takes me ages to comfortably get back into my routine.
I don't respect social rules even when I know about them. Usually I'm not aware at that moment of them but then I don't care if I come across as rude. I don't want to change because people don't realise it's a lot of hard work and it takes a lot of energy to just worry about them constantly. So, I don't care. I make a mistake and I'll apologize for it but if people tell me to straighten up then I'll just ignore them or get them out out of my life. Most people I know purposely say inappropriate things so what's wrong with me saying similar things and having no idea they're bad?

My psyche and mother keep pushing me to socialise but what they don't realise is I have more social apathy, even opposition than awkwardness. Now I'm a nice person to people but if I have to forcibly be around irritating people I'm not going to keep up a tolerant facade.

Some things I am so oblivious to I do not know they exist, and yet "everybody knows" etc. Like my "uncanny valley" thread.

I get into discussions about these things because someone else brought them up or I want to understand them and ask and things get pretty heated because I can come across as stubborn or oppositional even though I am mostly confused by the whole thing.

I am kind of amused that I spent my teenage years and 20s involved in fringe hobbies that have inexorably moved into the mainstream, though. Seeing my childhood get made into blockbuster movies and video games is weird.

Hey. I can really relate to this. It's funny (but also verging on 'terrifying') how collectively 'society' acts in unison when it comes to trying to make someone like me 'fall in line' with 'norms'. When I was younger, I wasn't so much aware of how much 'push' those around me would routinely apply. I'm quite a bit more aware of it now...having lived, worked, interacted in many, many locations/situations through the U.S. (and nearly a year spent in Mexico). I wouldn't have considered myself actively resistant to such conditioning previously, but I do now (to a certain extent). I think my primary motivation for 'resisting' neurotypical (?) conditioning is based along the lines of 'tried-that-didn't-work'. And, it's true. For years (decades, really), I pretty much followed what others said, what they showed expectations for, and/or outright demanded of me. It gave me a real bad case of repression/depression/and 'who-the-hell-am-I?'. A secondary reasoning for 'resisting' their claims over/on my processes is more basic (but as important, maybe). I've learned -somewhere, somehow - to 'love' and 'accept' myself. That means, among other things, that I (less and less frequently/less intensely) collude with others who'd have me deny/change how/who/what I am. Being 'me' isn't so much about resisting 'them' as much as it is me actively making the space/circumstances crucial to me...to make it possible to LIVE LIFE as the Aspie I am. Whoo-hoo! -And, if that gets interpreted as me resisting 'them', so be it. It'll just have to be chalked up to a different 'take' regarding the "pursuit of happiness".

I wouldn't say that I'm totally resistant, but definitely much more so than the average person.

I live my own life the way I see fit, and I don't wish to follow society's little rules.

Well I would like to think I am resistant to conditioning...but after thinking about some of what I have learned in sociology, I in fact did more or less give into some conditioning. I mean is being treated as an outcast who is suspected of wanting to do something wrong a type of conditioning in any sense? But usually conditioning would probably be more organized...and I am fairly resistant to people trying to make me think a certain way and such.

I'm not receptive to social conditioning at all. I've never followed on, just because everyone else was doing it. My daughter's the same, which makes her stand out quite a bit, but I'm proud of her for following her own mind.

One thing that's really getting me just now is people asking me when I'm going back to work, now that my daugher has started her second year at school. When I respond, 'I'm looking, but I'm not desperate, we've coped for almost 6 years.', I think people are really curious and maybe even think I'm being boastful about my husband's earnings and there's an obvious touch of jealousy. We aren't wealthy, but we are comfortable and my husband's income alone is adequate to maintain our standard of living. If we need something big, we have savings, from when I did work, to fall back on. But, on the whole, we have simple needs and aren't wasteful. Our daughter wants for nothing, but isn't spoiled and never asks for the latest toys or expensive clothes. He's happy with me being at home and has told me to take my time. One person was shocked that I don't work and said that I should get a job in the local supermarket. And I thought, Why?, So that I can earn money to buy stuff that I neither want nor need? That would be the only reason I could think of, as I doubt job satisfaction would be a factor. When I said I didn't need a job just yet, he started to poke fun at me. I'm sure he thinks either I'm claiming benefits or I'm a show off.

This is by far my most prominent trait, and the reason that I eventually got diagnosed. I have always been rebellious and stubborn and resisted authority, but have also been very unaware of how society wants me to act. This combination of not knowing and not caring have caused me to appear to everyone to have a real attitude problem.

But I have met many aspies who are very nervous and unsure about themselves because of their awareness that they don't fit in, and was shocked at first to see how much more confident I was than them.

So I am glad really for my unwillingness to fit in, because I think that alot of problems stem from people on the spectrum not accepting themselves for who they are, and trying to submit to the whims of society. And I think that this is equivalent to trying to force square pegs through round holes, which causes alot of stress and is futile.

Dae wrote