Another solid hitter. Too many of us spend too much time on the losing endeavor to get people to like us.

We do live in a very conformist society. Especially since the mid 20th century. Go back a century before and there was a lot of emphasis on character building and morality discussions but a lot more tolerance for offbeat personalities too. Of course, offbeat personalities didnt have the means they do today to be quite flamboyant (visually) with "being who they are". And with so many fewer people in the world, it didn't produce counter cultures like it does today (Goth, for example).