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This is the latest in the Tough Problems series. In each installment, I present two composite questions that my clients face and my response to each.
Dear Dr. Marty: I am so out-of-step with the mainstream. I could care less about what's hip, which sports team wins, or what's the hottest band. My friends claim that I say that to seem superior, and a therapist "wonders" if I'm covering up some insecurity.
Even though I'm 30, I think it's just my honest preferences: I like Barbra Streisand's Partners album, a classic movie like Meryl Streep's Sophie's Choice, a musical like The Sound of Music, and to read not People magazine but articles that help my work or personal life—yes, like Psychology Today plus novels from Virginia Woolf to Tom Wolfe. Do you think I'm being out-of-step for effect?
Marty Nemko: You think hipsters don't do things for effect?! That aside, without knowing your psychological makeup, I can't assert that unhealthy psycho-strategies are fueling your choices. Staying on the facts, shouldn't you be entitled to your personal tastes, even if they're not mainstream? If you want to be mainstream, believe in angels—79 percent of people do! Does that mean you should?
If you want greater acceptance, could you find common ground with enough people on other bases: career, relationships, hobbies, or politics? And are you too downplaying the value of solohood? Many people find much contentment in solitary activities, even a largely solitary existence. If you allow yourself to step back from the middlin' mainstream, what—at least at this point in your life—feels right?
Dear Dr. Marty: I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I'm one of the very few Republicans. Everyone despises President Trump: Many people wish he were dead and certainly believe that any Trump supporter is a fool if not a Nazi.
While I dislike some things about Trump, I believe in some of what he does: for example, his tough stance on illegal immigration, demanding fair trade with China, insisting the United Nations pay its fair share, and that, until the coronavirus pandemic, the economy (including my retirement savings) did very well—The stock market was at an all-time high, and we still have the lowest unemployment rate in more than 50 years. Yet I don't dare say any of that to anyone lest I be reviled, lose friends, maybe even lose my job. Am I doomed to live with duct tape over my mouth?
Marty Nemko: Even in the Bay Area, the Left's epicenter, there are Republican and libertarian MeetUps and local chapters of the Republican and Libertarian parties. Attend a few such meetings, and you might meet kindred spirits. Parenthetically, I must admit it's ironic that the Bay Area proclaims itself "inclusive" indeed "celebratory of diversity," yet tends to stop celebrating and start censuring and censoring dare someone not goose-step to the revolutionary march.
I read this aloud on YouTube.
