Having been hassled, attacked and ostracized for many years for being different, and not being able to fight back (nor allowed to try) I am conditioned to stealth mode and confrontation avoidance.

Oh yeah, at one job, I had an idiot I was trying to ignore *set fire* to the newspaper I was reading. And while he got in trouble, I got a lecture about not handling things properly.

<sigh>

I don't grok a lot of social rules and I was rather thoroughly conditioned from an early age by amatuer aversion theraphy to "you aren't allowed to make mistakes. Not a good combo.