Anyone ever had success with reversing the label of "Anti-social" or "Weirdo" ?

Ok, I agree with this. It just seemed like in your previous posts you were suggesting he gives up on his current friends and find new ones.
 
It's unfortunate that people feel they need to label.. so restrictive. But alas, it is the way of the world. I don't know what sucks more.. Being labeled and misunderstood or being labeled and misunderstood--and made to think that in order to be known--you need to act in a way to influence others perceptions of you in order to alter them.


I disagree that you should just accept that you're "weird." Why? Because someone else says so? As a fellow infp I can say I've also spent the majority of my life sulking and brooding over being misunderstood and labeled. What I did, was I stopped caring.

I began to search myself and understand myself so that the labels of others just bounced right off my consciousness. It started to not matter if other people understood me once I began to work at understanding myself. Suddenly, all different types of people were drawn. Yes, they say I'm weird and unhinged, but still they're drawn to the down home earthiness like a moth to the flame. (Mwahaha!)

We get to decide who we are. Others don't get to decide. If people label you, who cares? Let them. You don't have to agree with them. Their ignorance is their problem, not yours to overcome for them.


You know you've met a worthwhile acquaintance or potential ally when someone is real with you, when they don't try to fit you into a box. When they're just as eager to know what makes you tick as you are them. I think it's good and noble that you reach out to other people in their comfort zones. But make sure that you never stop being real to yourself. It's interesting. The more oblivious one is to making friends by pursuing themself, the more friends are made. Kind of the same thing as "A good deed is only truly good so long as the doer does not act good intentionally." Ironically enough, the true things in life are the mysteries. So remain a mystery, ignore the labels, remain yourself, and you'll see that people will be drawn to you for real human interaction--because they'll sense that you're real!

Forgive me, for I wax verbose..
 
[quote=VindurN
 
merrytrees said:
It's unfortunate that people feel they need to label.. so restrictive. But alas, it is the way of the world. I don't know what sucks more.. Being labeled and misunderstood or being labeled and misunderstood--and made to think that in order to be known--you need to act in a way to influence others perceptions of you in order to alter them.


I disagree that you should just accept that you're "weird." Why? Because someone else says so? As a fellow infp I can say I've also spent the majority of my life sulking and brooding over being misunderstood and labeled. What I did, was I stopped caring.

I began to search myself and understand myself so that the labels of others just bounced right off my consciousness. It started to not matter if other people understood me once I began to work at understanding myself. Suddenly, all different types of people were drawn. Yes, they say I'm weird and unhinged, but still they're drawn to the down home earthiness like a moth to the flame. (Mwahaha!)

We get to decide who we are. Others don't get to decide. If people label you, who cares? Let them. You don't have to agree with them. Their ignorance is their problem, not yours to overcome for them.


You know you've met a worthwhile acquaintance or potential ally when someone is real with you, when they don't try to fit you into a box. When they're just as eager to know what makes you tick as you are them. I think it's good and noble that you reach out to other people in their comfort zones. But make sure that you never stop being real to yourself. It's interesting. The more oblivious one is to making friends by pursuing themself, the more friends are made. Kind of the same thing as "A good deed is only truly good so long as the doer does not act good intentionally." Ironically enough, the true things in life are the mysteries. So remain a mystery, ignore the labels, remain yourself, and you'll see that people will be drawn to you for real human interaction--because they'll sense that you're real!

Forgive me, for I wax verbose..
Click to expand...
This is expressed with excellence. Not much one could add to this.
...a tip of the hat to you, merrytrees

I have had acquaintances and people who are friends of people I know wonder how a person my age can have a CD collection which includes NIN, Diamanda Galas, Android Lust, and Sopor Aeternus along with Simon and Garfunkel, Queen, Lou Reed, and Madonna. I get 'the stare' when they find out that I'm an Astrologer and I read the Tarot. They're taken aback because I prefer to wear leather and black clothes. I even get stared at when I go to raves.
I've been labelled everything from strange to weird to 'hippie' (long hair).
But this is their problem because I don't fit into the narrow parameters these people have chosen to surround the world in. Anything outside their conditions threatens their suppositions about life and therefore, threatens their 'safety'.
A person's parameters are their 'safety zone', a zone of familiarity in which the world can follow certain rules they accept. Anything or anyone which lives outside the walls they've built can be labelled 'strange' or 'weird' and be dismissed as not something to deal with.

Be who you feel you are at any given moment, even if it seems to be outside your own image of yourself.
Authenticity is being in the moment, every moment, completely.

...hehe, my turn for verbosely waxing. :D
 
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