"What I learned was that society does not take kindly to seemingly slight deviations from normal."
That's because it isn't efficient for society and people to not jump to conclusions. Nobody is going to take the time to see that your situation is really different then the creep that is living in a van parked outside a school for a different reason.
We hear plenty of stories of how Bill Gates and Jobs didn't shower and of course we know that they ended up fine. But we don't have any data to compare on people that followed the same strategy and didn't end up in a good place because society jumped to it's natural conclusions about people who eschew all social graces.
That's because it isn't efficient for society and people to not jump to conclusions. Nobody is going to take the time to see that your situation is really different then the creep that is living in a van parked outside a school for a different reason.
We hear plenty of stories of how Bill Gates and Jobs didn't shower and of course we know that they ended up fine. But we don't have any data to compare on people that followed the same strategy and didn't end up in a good place because society jumped to it's natural conclusions about people who eschew all social graces.