Hmmm... what to say? I should start by saying that that's the way I felt about myself in my 20s and it continues to this day. I've tried changing so I could better blend in but the implant never really took. You are an asshole, just like me. All that said, there are a few things you should be aware of:
(1) If you find a way to blend in better, to become another bland shade of white instead of brilliant red, the world will reward you. You'll do better at work, make more money and seem less threatening to other people. You'll also probably hate yourself. There might be some sort of medication that can help ease the dilemma. I suggest a course of heavy drinking and psychedelics tempered with reading some Bukowski and maybe some Alan Watts. It might not help your career much but it will help to get you to the place where you are cool with just being you.
(2) The people who do like you, probably REALLY like you. That's cool isn't it? The problem there is that if you portray yourself as Iron Balls McGinty, others may see you as some sort of lightning rod to do all the outspoken shit that they are too afraid to do and you get a weird hero/entertainer complex. I've been burned by this a few times. Be wary.
(3) Ask yourself - why do people hate you? Do you give them reason to hate you? Are you mean and capricious or do they just not understand your personality? This is serious. If your brashness has actually hurt someone or made them feel "lower" than you, be humble and apologize. Ask them if they can do you a favor - It's an easy way to flip the power dynamic. If it's a matter of them just not "getting you", I wouldn't worry. They'll either come around and see that you're just another human wage slave like them or they wont. If they never come around, so what?
(4) Stop trying to adjust yourself to fit into some ideal of human behavior which is in fact, created by yourself. Everybody is weird and opinionated and arrogant and dickish because everyone has a completely different life story. And that's whats great about being a human being - not just consciousness but awareness of that consciousness and how it effects others. You might think that you are an outlier in society but you are still in that society, effecting it, changing it and getting changed by it. Trying to conform to an arbitrary behavioral standard cheapens the whole experience for everyone, but mostly you.
Remember - Patrick Bateman did what he did because he "just wanted to fit in".
Seconded.
I mean, I actually can put on some pretence of friendliness most of the time but I rarely ever blend in either way, also I am very aware that I'm both blunt as hell and also just have a terrible temper.
I don't even dream about changing it though. To be very honest, I don't think it's too good an idea getting too social with coworkers anyways: you're there to get shit done, not to hang out. I sort of just do the smile and nod thing at work (yeah, I actually was an investment banker, like Patrick Bateman. I was no VP though, nope.) Because after all, coworkers are people that you sort of just end up with and need to put up with, instead of people you choose to hang out with. I'm mostly friends with people who are also blunt as hell and with terrible tempers, or at the very least don't mind when I insult them randomly because they either are used to how I hold conversations, or they insult back and know I wouldn't give half a damn.
When it comes to being social with people I don't think there's really anything as being right/wrong or normal/abnormal, but what both parties agree/imply as acceptable and comfortable. If someone is ultra important to you you might as well try catering to their preferences but overall I don't think it's worth it. Smile and nod at your acquaintances and be as much of an asshole as you like with actual friends, because how much would two people get along or have anything in common anyway if their usual social bottom lines differ so much that they end up keeping getting annoyed by each other and offended by each other's actions? I mean, it's sort of like dating: neither party has to be wrong but it might just be you two aren't compatible, and the thing to do is to just move on and find someone who finds it utterly hilarious and awesome how brash you are. There's plenty of fish in the sea, whether it be lovers or friends.
Another thing is, I've tried playing dumb or whatnot with friends whom I'm sort of "better than" in some way, or not playing dumb but admitting very loudly that I'm not as good as them in some aspects, for example with people holding less advanced degrees than I do I always made it very clear I was much younger and lacked real world experience comparing to them. Turned out that doesn't work. I always end up finding them becoming too condescending/patronizing towards me instead, provided they give a damn about my more advanced degree—if they don't to begin with, they are pretty nice to me and always try to help me when I display clear lack of common sense.
I could be terribly wrong at this, but I've come to the conclusion that it's much better just to stay the hell away from people with which there's a huge difference of something between you two and also something that seems to matter to them. As in, for example if you hold a more advanced degree than someone and degrees matter to them, just bail. It's much better to hang out with people at your own level instead, in whatever sense it might be. When I worked where the average employee never finished university, and the boss held a local bachelor's, the dynamic was total shit and the college dropouts though friendly with me were condescending as hell, saying I had only book smarts—by God growing up I've never been called that by anyone, because I was a total fucking delinquent in middle and high schools, twice almost expelled, and for the most part drank my way through college, though on scholarship money; the boss treated me like shit because she thought I didn't have much work experience. Whereas when I worked in investment banking where Ivy League was the norm and now where the average education level is master's, with two dudes holding PhD in our office alone, no one ever gives a damn about who graduated where and never made a fuss over the whole damn thing about degrees. I do have friends outside of work who are just high school grads, and they plain don't care about degrees and we get along great. So yeah, sometimes people are just petty enough to get bothered by bullshit and... Frankly, it's their problem.
EDIT: Jesus Christ I keep hitting the post button before I even finish typing.
