Anyone else have a hard time not being a contrarian?

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It's as though whenever society zigs a part of me wants to zag.

Example: In high school many of my friends got into star trek and about the same time I got into starwars.

Anyone else have this problem?

Yep. While everybody else when I was in high school was listening to The Beatles, Chicago, Creedence Clearwater Revival, etc., I was listening to The Metropolitan Opera.

Of course, can I help it if I'm a damn stubborn hardheaded PA Dutchman?

It really pains me to agree with you.

When I was in high school, everyone was into the Grateful Dead, I liked Metallica.

A vast majority of people love sunny days and feel energized by them.
I hate sunny days and feel sick in direct sunlight.

It shades my political/world/theological view too.

When many of my friends in college were fans of howard zinn I was of the opinion that he was a slimy smear merchant.

I seem to feel a need to be different even when it's not always to my benifit.

Yes.

Examples:

Everyone--Prolife, Me--prochoice

Everyone--old music and rap, Me--heavy metal and electronica

Everyone--boyfriends, spouse, wanting children, Me--focusing on career

Everyone--sappy movies Me--comedy and gruesome horror films

I don't consider it a problem. People are the problem.

I've always had an anti authoritarian streak. Right when I was a little kid just starting school if someone told me to do something, there was no way in my mind I could do anything but the opposite. A teacher innocently told the class not to look at the sun so I did. I had to do it several times to be sure people could see me disobeying her. Obviously never occurred to me that it was in my best interest to listen.

I tried so hard to follow teachers instructions.

Yeah it's weird, 50% of the time I was an obedient sheep and the other 50% I was the devils advocate.

I don't know how I can keep going from meek and submissive to dominant and back again without even releasing why.

It's not you, it's them.

Normal (or neurotypical of you're overly sensitive to averages) people refer to their biases for how to react to info before they consider outside sources or the nature of the info itself; this is a natural part of how they maintain a sense of security. So they interject voluminous quantities of bull*** into most conversations.

The trouble is that our lack of connection to them emotionally is because we don't share those biases, because we don't feel the subconscious need to group for security that comes with unfettered belief. Consequently, we're accurate more often... but not perfect, and therefore prone to both losing empathy and being arrogant.

The reason you want to interject is because you're sensing that they haven't reasoned through their argument or position, or because you simply know they're wrong based on something more tangible than a belief or what they heard from a trusted (but likely inaccurate) source.

All the time. i cannot bear it to watch a view go unrepresented, so will oftimes be arguing the heck for a point I don't even personally believe or support - just because the other person/s have failed to account for it in their argument.

It makes life confusing for everyone who has to interact with me, me included.

I do that too. Even when the person is making a point I agree with, if they are doing it badly by using an unfair generalization when a better argument could have been made if they had applied their brain a bit more I feel like I want to jump in an point out how someone would immediately tell them their argument was flawed. Most of the time I manage to keep my mouth shut though and just think the counterargument. Mind you I think being analytical helps me hone my own views on things and makes me think about why I view things the way I do.

I do it to myself alot as well. I'll think one thing and then think, "we'll if someone disagreed with me they would say..." then I think of how I would respond and how they would counter that.

No wonder I'm always tired. I can't ever switch off.

LOL!!

feel free to make all my reasoned arguments for me from now on, you are doing it so well

Agree with both of you! I play devil's advocate too much that people think I'm intentionally being argumentative or disagreeable, when in fact I just like to explore multiple sides of the issue to gain a better understanding! [Negatively: I like debating; Positively: I like learning!]

lol always...recently I have been trying to watch others' feelings and contradict only to help a situation.


Always been anti-authoritarian.

I appear to be a contrarian. I'm the type of person to consider both sides of an argument before giving my opinion. One party will give their side and I'll point out the obvious flaws. However when I do the same with the other party both sides only remember that I didn't take their side. Thus everyone thinks I believe the exact opposite of what they believe when in reality I believe bits and pieces of both and bet on the most likely solution. Notice that I said "bet". I'm always alert and looking for scams so when I know that everyone else is looking left, I tend to look right. I'm one of the few people who noticed the moonwalking bear in that youtube video.

The irony is that society believes that people like me don't do anything that benefits them but aren't dependent on guys like me to survive. Neil DeGrasse Tyson pointed this out in an interview where people were lobbying against astronomy on the basis that the tax money would be better spent elsewhere. With so many people looking inward within the pack, someone has to look outward for predators.