For my 900th post I wanted to talk about what I'd consider "reverse conformity"; not so much conforming to the crowd as to avoiding being like it.

In middle school, and most of high school, I practically made myself think almost everyone (except for my teachers and my few friends) was out to trick me, based on only a few things from elementary. The first to come to mind is in grade 6, when some people in the class took things from a substitute teacher's purse, put the stuff on my desk as she came in, to make it look like I did it. My memory of that is fuzzy, but I don't remember anyone in the class saying I didn't and I assumed this had to mean that EVERYONE in the class was either part of it or all secretly talking when I wasn't around about how to upset me, for whatever reason... this is an example I've probably used a few other times on this site, (and still will continue to) and it isn't the only example; it's during things like this when I'd make myself assume the worst, because I figured I'd rather risk not being open to friendliness than risk getting embarassed by the rest of the crowd who could make me look like some kind of idiot for even trusting them.

On top of that, not wanting to be like the "majority" (which I had a kinda generic idea of, and again, didn't include teachers) I tried to make myself act like some kind of "opposite of the crowd" and avoid conforming in what I should've known was a superficial way; in things like popular culture and entertainment I'd try to make myself like popular things less, and when I already liked something and knew it was popular, I'd try to make myself think it wasn't. The more I'd try "popular" things and find myself glad I did (ie. Zelda games, 2pac rap) the more appealing I'd find the idea of common ground with "the majority"; not so much that certain things in entertainment were so crucial to not miss out on (I miss out on entertainment things all the time) but that if that's what would be the case there, I wondered what in the bigger picture I'd have missed out on through the way I made myself look at things. For example, in grade 7, I was nominated for student council representative, yet I turned down the nomination because I wondered if it was some kind of trick to embarass me. I didn't say much about it, but someone in the class was saying they would've voted for me; I assumed it had to be BS, since that was one of the people in the classroom in the example I mentioned earlier.

I was so careful to avoid wishful thinking, I made myself be cynical... well, at least about particular social things at school. So careful to avoid following the crowd, I followed whatever I thought was the opposite.

My thinking changed towards the end of high school though. One day towards the end of grade 12 as I found myself getting into MSN, I asked various people for their MSN names and they passed the paper around, giving back quite a list of names. It made me feel welcome, even if only for online conversations. That afternoon I noticed one of them sent a message along the lines of "if we ever made fun of you in a way you felt hurt by, just want you to know we didn't mean any harm"; moments like that really made me look at things differently.

During my first year of university, a couple things drove the point home. During high-school I was more of an obedient type who would for the most part get my homework done and get good grades, etc... yet during university I found myself acting quite different, fell into the habit of putting things off. I was more like what I used to percieve "the majority" as being; except that by then, "the majority" seemed to be more like what I used to be, probably because it wasn't quite of the same people. Aside from that role reversal, the kinds of things I learned about also drove the point home. First-year psychology, especially, mentioned such things as the bystander effect, which gave a new way to look at certain bad memories, (such as in my example, perhaps others not feeling inclined to jump in if they expected others to) and know that the appealing idea that they were a case of common ground with the "majority" wasn't just wishful thinking; it was grounded in science.

Conformity isn't just that to the majority. It can be to whatever one makes oneself think is the opposite of the majority. Either way, it can make people less inclined to be themselves, whatever "themselves" would be. I guess that should be an obvious lesson, but I doubt it's the only one, and I think there's even bigger lessons to be learned here; I'm just not quite sure what...