Redefining the phrase "be yourself"

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I have always heard the phrase "be yourself", especially in the context of dating. Being a 30 year old single virgin has made me wonder what exactly this means, because it seems like my real self is quite off-putting. In the past, I have noticed that I have tried to be agreeable and pretend that my opinions were more "mainstream".

Lately, I have tried to regain my self-esteem and boost my confidence by a lot. However, now I get accused of being overly outspoken, abrasive, rude, abrupt, etc. due to my natural self being brutally honest. I do not mince words when it comes to my opinions, and often my opinions are allegedly very controversial and out of the mainstream. Being myself, I usually just blurt them out regardless of whether people like them or not.

A few examples:

-I am amongst people who make six figures or are millionaires or even richer during a meetup. I state that privatisation and private enterprise should be abolished. People call me a poor lower-class bum and/or a peasant. I tell them that they are full of sh*t and are greedy b*stards. People brand me as "rude".

-Despite being American, I lived in the UK during my time at university. I support Lexit, which is supporting Brexit, but due to a left-wing argument rather than a right-wing one. I support Tony Benn and Jeremy Corbyn instead of right-wing/centrist Labour leaders like Blair, Brown and Miliband. People berate me for being poor and/or call me stupid. I tell them that capitalism has failed people like me. Verbal argument ensues.

-I plan to join Bernie Sanders' campaign. People in meetups make fun of me for being poor and not having enough money. Some tell me that they would rather pay 0% taxes and see me suffer, rather than paying more in taxes like most civilised Western countries do. I tell them that they are vile, greedy excuses for human beings. Verbal argument ensues.

-Woman asks me why I have had no relationship nor sexual history, no girlfriends, etc. I say that it just has not happened, not my fault. She makes fun of me and calls me a virgin loser. I tell her that she is scum who has no empathy nor understanding.

-My mother is a socialist, and one of my grandfathers was a Maoist from China. No explanation required as to why people here hate when I reveal this.

-I believe that religion should be abolished. No explanation required for this one either.

As you can see, I am very brutally honest and frank, especially when people insult me. This is "being myself". Yet somehow, people like me even less, the more I act "myself". So what exactly is this advice about "be yourself"? I refuse to be a carbon copy of what society asks me to be, so I am acting exactly how I feel that my true character is. But it just seems to fail as well.

What is "be true to yourself"?

Manipulative arrogant judgmental entitled homophobic impatient precious lil "people", please do not "be true to yourself"

I think this is the problem with individualism as an extreme. None of us can have everything we want by being everything we are. We all need to alter our behaviour in order to get on with other people. That's just a basic reality. Otherwise you cannot complain that others object to your "true self" because they're just being theirs.

My husband is into death metal, but I find it overwhelming so he doesn't play it around me. I'm hopeless at certain aspects of normal romantic relationships and don't really see the point... but I make an effort because he cares, so I try to care.

It's just being an adult. You can't always get what you want. There's give and take.

In the past I tried to make myself more wishy-washy and agreeable with people. The problem, apart from not only not being myself, that type of mindset was superficial and weak. It might have made me seem nicer on the surface, but it was an act that I was putting on.

When I am myself, I am brash, opinionated and brutally honest. That is me in my natural, unadulterated state. The genuine me. It seems like the genuine me puts off a lot of people than the wishy-washy, superficial me of the past.

Well, I guess you'll need to find yourself a group of opinionated, blunt individuals who like that?
It sounds like that's what you value.

It is hard to find any where close to 100% of the people here are superficial, passive-aggressive and full of sh*t. Not to mention mostly neurotypical.

When I tried to be more "polite" and agreeable, people thought of me as passive and a pushover.

So it is either passive/pushover/weak or blunt/abrasive/brutally honest. It is basically pick one or the other.

Can you move easily? If you expand your dating pool to a very wide area you are much more likely to find people that match a very narrow set of criteria. Not much in my area, but if I expand my search area to include two major cities, things are much different.

It is expected of you to sugarcoat things, put things to people indirectly. It is hard for me too, but I understand it.

It is kind of hard. I am in a place that is notoriously bad for dating, especially for males: San Francisco. To get away from this mentality, I would have to drive minimum two hours. Even so, the entire state (California) are known for being much more superficial than other places, probably one of if not the most superficial place in the Western world.

I plan to move to Europe when I can, probably late next year or the year after. Very complicated, lots of work to get that settled. For now, I have to make do with this place. I know for a fact that many Europeans are brutally honest, especially Slavic European countries. That is quite far from where I am.

Do you mean use dating apps to expand my search? My OKCupid is set manually to random cities in Europe. I have a feeling that no one really takes those types of apps seriously. I never met any women from those apps in person.

If you are lucky, sometimes you can find people who did not grow up where you live that have the qualities you are looking for. But, it sounds like you are better off moving if you have difficulty with the culture of where you live. Even if it will take a while to do that.

I used to try to soften what I tried to say in the past. People usually regarded me as indecisive, weak and for this reason often tried to take advantage of my apparent weakness.

Now I say things honestly and frankly, and now people say that I am abrasive and abrupt. Seems like you cannot win in this situation.

Be yourself is useless for people with Aspergers. Aspergers is the reason I have no friends, no job and no hope for the future. Being myself a sad, depressed, social anxious, extreme introvert has got me nothing but 10 years unemployment since graduating with College.

Having Aspergers puts me at a huge social disadvantage against people that do not have Aspergers. With Aspergers, you are usually an introvert, have social anxiety and fear social interactions. Even if you learn social skills you still have Aspergers and people reject people with Aspergers. Having Aspergers makes it hard to form friendships and most people with Aspergers have reported being picked on by normal kids at school.

People with Aspergers should try to meet other people that have Aspergers or another learning disability that makes you compatible in social situations. It would be best to join support groups that support people with Aspergers/Autism and learning disabilities. The social difficulties with Aspergers and how it has made life difficult and the loneliness of never being accepted by others. Aspergers not only makes it hard to make friends, form relationships it also makes it very hard to find and maintain employment. Aspergers is a nightmare and having a diagnosis of Aspergers only confirms that you are a social failure and have a condition that explains how life has been difficult and people will continue to reject you.

I finally got it, I am being rejected by everyone because I got Aspergers. If I did not have Aspergers I would lead a happy life just like everyone else and I would not be socially rejected or bullied by other people and I would be able to find employment and contribute towards society.

Last edited by Rainbow_Belle on 14 Dec 2019, 12:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well, if you don't be yourself, you get trapped into playing a character. My ex even took hers to counselling, which didn't percolate back to her true self. You don't seem at all inclined to live a lie, so you may as well be a beacon for the woman with odd, strong, preference.
Your situation is in a very tough season, because heterosexuality and masculinity are both demonized by most progressives, partly in reaction to overpopulation.
Diplomacy is the art of telling someone to go to Hell and making it sound like a tropical vacation they want. When people tell you that you are full of s**t, do you carefully consider their reasons? They have the same reaction emotionally, and never get to understand your superior reasoning. You are operating on different data sets as well as value systems. Since a frontal assault is futile, subtler tactics are needed. You might disagree, but be reluctant to explain why until you get a good opening. Sometimes, humour can blast open a window, or at least a crack of light.
Regarding poverty, the high road is to just embrace Voluntary Simplicity, and mention those precepts from time to time. "Live Simply, so others can Simply Live." Ask people about their carbon footprint, and how many Earths it would take to support 8 billion people living like themselves, along with stable wildlife. A quiet presentation of the facts may get through.
Overall, people will be attracted to your thinking in proportion to how much it makes you smile. If you are beaming, they will pester you for your opinions, but if you are grumpy, they've had enough.

The advice isn't about how you can make friends if you follow it. If you follow the advice "be yourself", you won't be putting up a role, which means that people who don't like people like you (personality and opinions) won't bother to spend time with you unless they have to due to work or something similiar. If you put up a role they might like you, but it would be tiring and most likely uncomfortable for you, so at some point you'd either choose to drop it or mess up and drop it, which would destroy whatever you have with those people since you'll no longer be what they thought you were. In other words, it'll keep you from making wrong type of people waste their time on you.

That said, you seem to have a rather black and white way of thinking. Just because someone disagrees with you, it doesn't automatically make them a bad person. I can somewhat understand telling people off and calling them greedy Bs if they call you a bum, but isn't peasant simply a word for someone who is lower in the financial hierarchy? As in, same as working class? Then it's not an insult but a fact, so telling someone they're full of it when they call you a peasant is overkill.

Do you have to talk with people about politics if you know they all have opposite views of yours? Of course, if someone asks you about your views then it's fine to answer or if that's the topic of discussion then you can bring it up, but if you know everyone around you are supporters of capitalism and you bring up that you're a communist without politics even being the topic then that's like asking for a fight.

Religion is a huge deal for many, many people, especially over there in America if I've understood right. For really religious people it can be a serious attack against their identity. I would say you shouldn't bring up that at all unless someone specifically asks you about religion's position in society.

All in all, while I don't support lying, I know that in some situations it's better to not say anything at all.

I'll second that. Even with my best friends, I stay out of vast areas of my own opinions. If you want to have friends, focus on the things you do agree on, even if they are very few. Once people interact pleasantly with you on some levels, they are more likely to think you just might be sane on others.

At work I have to deal with abusive non-customers on the phone. Being brutally honest usually gets rid of them in short order. They don't want technical assistance that I provide. Rather, they just need to rant.