Bullying in interest groups

Some people, despite what they're part of, are still a-holes.

I've seen that firsthand in a lot of subcultures I was... part of (I guess). Be it the elitist club of goths at a club, be it the elitist group of gamers at the local gamestore. And just as much it's the same if you're into a specific show or whatever and try and mix with those people. Some people still keep an elitist and snobby attitude no matter what should bring you closer.

I've been talking about it a bit with me girlfriend recently, since she's into those Ball-jointed Dolls and even that community, how small it is, is full of elitists that do not want others to feel fine. It's a culture full of spite from what I've gathered. And that's not the only culture. Quite often there's a notion of "my stuff is better than yours" and that's a reason for bullying already. Even if I have more knowledge about it, a fair share of people thinks that you can measure involvement of a scene by materialism.

The best way to deal with bullying in my opinion is to try and ignore it most. Enjoy the hobby/interest you have for yourself, if you run into people that's fine. But looking for people yourself is inviting a big chance to end up with the not so nice group, and I think even more so, in special interest, the community is much smaller, which makes it easier for some kind of elite to rise and rear it's ugly head.

As for excluding people with ADHD or aspies explicitly. I've ran into people like that. It's that the notion of people suffering from either give a bad connotation, mainly due to what people think they are all about. To a lot of people everyone with autism is like the guy from Rain man, and everyone with ADHD is like a way to hyper, colorful, cheerful all over the place person.

For a lot of communities Im part of there is no relevance of mentioning that I have either so I just see what works for me and what doesn't. I'm not keeping it quiet because people look at me differently otherwise, I do so because... I see no benefit in it, just like there's no reason why I should tell them how much money I make, if I'm either gay or straight (or bisexual even), what my favorite meal is, etc.

I also found out that people who yell hardest that they in fact have ADHD in a setting where this information is not relevant, are either faking it (and just have a slight high on energy drinks every once in a while) or are in fact the people some find really annoying. As someone diagnosed with ADHD myself, there's still people that claim to have it and I think are way to annoying, loud and obnoxious. Those are the people that exclusion is based upon.

I guess the best we, the oppressed and bullied, could do is perhaps a few things:

(1) Accept that we're bullied because we couldn't fit into the psyches of the other organisations
(2) Form our own group with helpful people we trust
(3) After building a foundation of the group, be open to most other people sharing the same interests, and assert authority when needed