The Tricky Issue Of Making Changes To Yourself In Order To Fit In
This site has some practical information on it. Overall it has a pretty pragmatic perspective. Some people aren't crazy about it when some of the articles say things like, "Learning about x will help you relate to people more." To them the site is encouraging people to conform and not be true to themselves. I stand by that kind of advice because it personally helped me quite a bit. But really, changing yourself to fit in is a balancing act. Here are my views on it:
Points in favor of being yourself:
You're going to be happier and more comfortable with who you are
This one is a no brainer. Everyone has a different personality and certain things that they naturally gravitate to. Taking part in your true interests makes you feel happy and fulfilled. Trying to deny your innate passions makes you feel stiffled and kills your spirit after too long.
Everyone can find a niche they fit into
Just as you naturally drift towards certain interests, people who are similar find each other. Whatever you're like, and whatever you're into, you can find a group of like-minded people to fall in with if you look hard enough. And since these people enjoy the same things you do and more or less accept you for who you are, you're going to be happier and less constrained around them.
For me it was a question of what I wanted. Some people are perfectly content to stay in their custom fitted niche and have no need to get along with the rest of society. I had a need to be able to get along with all kinds of different people. I also found my default niche wasn't providing me with everything I needed to be socially satisfied. So I had to expand my horizons.
It's often your individual differences that make you stand out
When you're with people to a large extent it's your differences that set you apart from everyone else and make you desirable to be around. Your sense of humor is a little bit different (and funnier) than your other friends'. You know more about a certain topic than everyone else. You have a different perspective on life. Yeah, people also like to be around those who share commonalities with them, but we all appreciate someone who's different in a way we like. Don't get me wrong, fitting in has its place, but being totally generic and unoriginal isn't great.
You can often get by just fine by being yourself
There are hoards of people out there who differ from their friends or partners in some way, but they're still perfectly accepted. Maybe their friends all like hockey but they're upfront about not particularly caring about it. However, since they're solid people in lots of other ways, they're still welcomed into the group. As a general rule, the more you have to offer socially in other areas, the more you can get away with differing from the majority on key issues and still be accepted.
You can sometimes win people over by staying true to yourself
Sometimes everyone in a group will feel a certain way about something and the easy thing for you to do would be to pretend you feel the same way, maybe by omission. At times speaking up and saying you feel differently will earn respect from people. Even if they can't agree with you, they admire you for not deprecating your own beliefs.
Another example, sometimes if you're talking to someone new, you may not be sure whether you should mention certain things about yourself, perhaps that you like reading about history. But sometimes you'll mention it and the other person will say they like history too, or tell you about their own closet "dorky" interest. If you had never spoken up and tried to portray yourself as a typical guy, you never would have gotten the chance to connect with the other person on that point.
Some of the best things in the world have come from people going their own way
There are hundreds of examples; in art, in science, in academic thought, in fashion. Someone went against the grain of the time and came up with something new and better. Sometimes the majority of people in that field were in a rut and needed to be shaken out of it. Another example is someone chucking their office job or the promise of a 'safe', but soul sapping, career to create something ultimately more useful and meaningful in a field they actually care about.
Some points in favor of changing to fit in:
Changing real problems is obviously good
If you have true flaws in your personality then addressing them is obviously a good thing. You're not selling yourself out or being a follower to admit you could use some improvement and then working to acheive it. On the flip side, changing to add beneficial traits is obviously good as well.
Changing can just be socially practical
If certain social rewards motivate you then sometimes you have to make the call as to whether achieving them is worth going against your current nature somewhat. Changing somewhat to fit in may be the thing to do if it makes your life happier and more fun.
- You may find your current social circle doesn't give you access to all the things you want socially (e.g., Chances to meet romantic partners, getting to be around a variety of different types of people).
- There are certain things most people like to do (lots of people like dancing, for example). Like myself, you may decide that not being able to take part in them causes you to miss out on more opportunities than you'd like.
- People are always emphasizing or downplaying certain aspects of themselves depending on who they're around at that moment. It's just to help the interaction go more smoothly. There's no point in going on about something you know the other people isn't that interested in anyways, when you can just as easily draw attention to an area you both want to talk about.
A lot of the time you're not changing yourself so much as adding to yourself
Say you find yourself spending more time around some people who all enjoy Activity X. Say you conclude that you'd get genuinely get along with them better if you could participate in Activity X as well. So you learn how to do it. Now you know how to do one more thing. That doesn't erase any of the other stuff you knew how to do, or any of your old opinions or preferences. You've more augmented yourself than changed.
Your core self isn't affected by superficial changes in how you act
I've changed a fair amount over the last few years but I'm still very much the person I always was. I'm a more refined, matured, and developed version of that person, but my core traits and tendencies are as they always were. I didn't sell them out to be more socially successful and couldn't have if I tried. But I've learned a lot of skills and attitudes that make me more effective with people because that was important to me.
I still have the same values for the most part. I still enjoy all my old interests. My world view is the same. My sense of humor still has the same style to it. I'm still as nice as I always was. I'm still artsy and drawn to quirky movies and television shows. I still have all those indescribable qualities that make me me. If you asked anyone who's known me for a long time they'd say I was still the same old Chris, just that I seem happier and I'm easier to get along with now.
I've picked up quite a few new interests, life experiences, and ideas along the way, but these have been added onto my core identity, they haven't replaced any part of it.
It's important to have a flexible self-image
I think it's kind of weird when people turn down the opportunity to do something new and then use "That's just not who I am" as an explanation. Well, that's 'you' right now. But what if you tried it and found you liked it? Then 'who you are' changes. If you have an overly rigid concept of who you are you'll turn away plenty of chances to potentially grow into someone you like even better. Keep an open mind about new things.
You have to fit in and conform at least somewhat to do well socially
The ideal is that no matter what you're like, everyone will accept you for who you are. But in reality people have certain standards and preferences about how they want other people to act. The rules are relative and subjective, but you gotta base human interactions on something. I’m sure you can think of some extreme examples: You can’t walk around naked, you can’t randomly scream obscenities at people, you can’t take a swing at someone just because you feel like it, you can’t drop your pants and go to the bathroom wherever you want to.
Similarly, if you have a personality that makes you irritating and off-putting to 99% of the people out there, you really can't cry about it too much if they reject you. That's their right. Maybe you have real problems and you need to correct them before more people are willing to be around you. The world doesn't owe it to you for you to be accepted unconditionally.
Sometimes it's the right call to conform to society's values. If you conform to their views on bathing regularly or not murdering people you'll do better than if you ignored these guidelines. In a similar vein, I think people are better off conforming to the popular guidelines on grooming and social skills. You're going to do better in life if you get yours up to par.
Sometimes not wanting to change is rooted more in bitterness than anything
Some people get defensive about the idea of ever having to change because all their lives they've taken crap from people for being different. So now the suggestion that changing/adapting/augmenting may be helpful to them hits a nerve because they see it as equivalent to selling out to the jerks who rejected them their whole lives. There's no way they're going to join the enemy.
It's bad when this bitterness taints things that really aren't that bad. Like some people are bitter about sports. I was bitter about sports. But I think now that there's nothing inherently bad about sports themselves. Give them a chance and you'll find some sports you enjoy. Another thing that gets tainted is the idea of wanting to do better socially or be more well-liked by people. That's associated with memories of the evil social status obsessed 'cool kids'. Finally, the idea of being friends with people from certain groups (e.g., jocks, preps, popular girls) seems out of the question. Ditto with doing things they like doing. Those groups gave you a hard time in the past (or they were perceived that way). But again, I now think most people in these, and other, demonized groups aren't that bad once you get to know them.
Some differences are better than others
I said earlier that sometimes breaking away from the mass consensus can be a good thing. Western society values and romanticizes non-conformity to a degree. People who act like everyone else are 'mindless sheep'. People who go their own way are trail blazing true individuals. But some ways of being different are better than others. If you're very creative, if you have a cool, unique style, if you have bold, challenging opinions, if you reject unjust laws, those are all good things. If you act in a way that just comes off as weird or bothersome to people, you won't get rewarded for your different specialness. Also, sometimes people use 'not conforming' as a rationalization for not changing real problems they have.
The 'you're fine the way you are' myth
I hinted at this already but address it more in the Being Honest With Yourself About Your Problems article. The gist of my thinking is that sometimes people do have real problems that need to be fixed. It's not selling out to work on them.
My views on what to change in yourself:
For every aspect of yourself, keep the good parts, toss the bad parts. Any trait has a mix of strengths and weaknesses. For example, being 'weird' may give you a cool sense of humor and a high level of creativity, but may also make you a little too random, disconcerting, and inappropriate at times. You can work on getting rid of those bad aspects of being weird, but retain the good ones.
Again, the key factor in all this is what's important to you. That should dictate every decision you make in this area and where you want to end up on the 'Never changing' --- 'Totally changing' continuum.
