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I’ve spent my whole life as the one who stands just outside the circle. As a teenager, I remember innocently joining a round of “Never Have I Ever” at a party, only to feel painfully spotlighted by the game. What was lighthearted fun for others became, for me, a minefield of othering, seemingly designed to single out anyone deviant from the norm. While peers bonded over shared wild anecdotes, I sat there feeling alienated and cornered, expected either to play along or be marked as the odd one out. In those moments, something visceral in me refused to surrender. If someone tried to nudge me into the group’s flow “Come on, just say it, just do it!” every fiber of my being answered with a stubborn no. I often literally crossed my arms and fell silent rather than raise a hand or take a drink under pressure. This pattern repeated itself everywhere: in Truth or Dare games (I always chose truth, because dares meant handing over my agency), and later, in romantic relationships (where I bristled at the unspoken “scripts” I was suddenly expected to follow). To others, I’m sure I often appeared a stick-in-the-mud. But I knew that something deeper was at stake each time I was pushed: my autonomy.

Daisy, a character of mine, holding an asexual flag, wearing a black ring on her middle finger and white ring on the other middle finger, signifying asexual and aromantic, respectively.

Looking back now, I recognize this lifelong pattern of gentle (and sometimes not-so-gentle) defiance as a core part of who I am. I have a superpower for resisting group influence. It’s almost reflexive, a psychological armor that formed over years of feeling pressured or out-of-place in group settings. In fact, psychologists have a term for the reflex that fires in me: psychological reactance, which is essentially “a reflex reaction to being told what to do, or feeling that your freedom is under threat.” When someone pushes you too hard, instead of complying, you become less inclined to do what they ask. That definition captures my experience perfectly. From childhood onward, the more a group tried to absorb me, the more my identity rebelled. I developed a nearly visceral need for autonomy in what I do. This need eventually permeated every aspect of my life. Even (or especially) domains where intimacy and social expectation are the norm. The very same forces that made that party game so distressing, like peer pressure and the demand to conform, later underlay my lifelong friction with traditional romantic relationships, as I discovered when I kept balking at the arbitrary “rules” of dating. I simply could not accept doing things just because “that’s what couples do.” If a romantic partner said we had to hold hands in public or use cutesy nicknames “just because we’re dating,” my instinct was to not do it, almost on principle. It wasn’t spite; it was that same internal guardian rising up to say “No one gets to script your behavior but you.” Of course, behaving this way in a relationship often created conflict. More than one ended toxicly, as you might imagine. At the time I didn’t fully understand why I reacted so strongly. I often wondered, “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just go with the flow like everyone else?” It took years to find the answers. In my twenties I finally stumbled upon vocabulary that made everything click: aromantic and asexual. Discovering these identities was a revelation. I learned that I wasn’t broken after all, I was simply part of a community that experiences attraction and relationships very differently. As I read others’ stories, I realized my aversion to prescribed romantic scripts wasn’t a personal failing; it was a trait I shared with many aro-ace folks who value unconventional forms of connection. Finding the labels aromantic and asexual, and the supportive community around them, was lifesaving: it made me realize I was not broken… just different. Along with that realization came a powerful affirmation of the value I had been defending all along: autonomy.

I have always been careful in my relationships, especially around emotional closeness, because I am sensitive to how quickly expectations can form. Even before I had the language to explain it, I understood that it was not fair or healthy to try to control how others act, and I tried to avoid doing that. At the same time, I was very clear about what I did not want for myself. I’ll say it clearly, I am personally disengaged with the idea of polyamory. Being invited into that kind of structure feels wrong in my body, not just in my head. Even when I cared deeply about two people as individuals and liked each relationship on its own, the idea of a group dynamic in an intimate relationship felt like a loss of self rather than a gain of anything else.

This became painfully clear during a boundary violation that had a lasting impact on me. I had explicitly said that I did not want two of my friends to kiss each other inside my home. Yes, I know now that consent isn’t really about controlling other’s actions with anyone else. But I felt like I had a safe place at my house, somewhere I do not want to be surprised by situations that trigger anxiety or insecurity. We had that conversation on purpose, so when the boundary was crossed, I felt betrayed. Still, the emotional damage remains, especially because of the context. I was cuddling with each of them in a space that felt happy and safe, and that moment was suddenly overwhelmed by insecurities about being asexual, aromantic, and deeply uncomfortable with throuples. What stayed with me was a strong need to re-establish myself as my own person. That experience reinforced my tendency to resist group emotional dynamics and to protect my individuality when I feel it is at risk.

Yet as strongly as I cling to personal autonomy, I’m also academically fascinated by the human pull of group identity and even as far as radicalization. Perhaps because I’ve always stood at the edge of the crowd, I can’t help but wonder what it’s like in the center to be so fused with a group or cause that it defines you. In a sense, radicalization and my anti-group autonomy are two sides of the same coin, each an extreme answer to some fundamental psychological needs. This paper is a personal exploration of those two paths. I’ll weave together my own experiences (from troubled party games to intellectual rabbit-holes) with broader reflections on psychology. I’ll also draw connections to some unlikely sources, including a boy-band called Boy Throb, to illustrate how performance, identity, and human needs play out in both radical group contexts and in an “autonomous self” like me. My journey may seem far removed from the likes of extremists and cult followers, but as I’ll show, we’re motivated by some of the same needs; we just take radically different routes to meet them. Identity-Fusion vs. Identity-Rebellion So, what exactly do I mean by radicalization and by the autonomous anti-group stance? At the simplest level, radicalization is the process by which a person becomes so tightly bonded with a group and its ideology that the group’s identity effectively consumes their own. Psychologists sometimes call this identity fusion. The individual’s self and the group’s cause fuse together, often to a point where the person will do anything for the group (even commit violence or self-sacrifice) because the group’s fate feels like their own. We usually discuss radicalization in contexts like religious extremism or political terrorism, but in truth it’s a spectrum that can include milder forms (think of ultra-fanatical sports fans or die-hard political partisans). The common thread is that the group becomes the person’s primary source of meaning and identity.

It’s easy to assume people are “brainwashed” into such extreme group alignment purely by ideology, by believing the content of some radical doctrine. But research suggests ideology is often secondary. In many cases, people latch onto extremist groups not just because of what they think, but because of what they need. Participation in violent extremism is better understood as driven by a need for identity and belonging than by doctrine alone. A radical group offers a powerful promise: “You feel lost? Join us and you’ll belong. You feel insignificant? Our cause will make you important.” Social bonds often pull people in before any ideology does. Only after someone is embedded in a tight-knit group of comrades do they fully adopt the beliefs… By then, the social connection has hooked them. In short, radicalization is largely a social process. It’s what happens when the basic human hunger for belonging, meaning, identity, even adventure and catharsis, finds an answer in an all-encompassing group. The result is a kind of identity alchemy: my self merges with our cause.

On the flip side is what I call the “anti-group” stance, exemplified (extremely) by my younger self. If the radicalized person resolves the tension of “who am I and where do I belong?” by merging with a group, the anti-group person resolves it by refusing to merge with anyone. It is identity-fusion in reverse. An identity rebellion. Instead of absorbing external ideals, I reflexively reject them if they even smell like they’ll override my agency. I could describe it as carrying an internal compass so strong that I’d sooner walk alone in the wilderness than let someone else yank the needle around. To someone highly group-oriented, that might sound lonely, or even pathological. Indeed, taken to an extreme, an anti-group mentality can be maladaptive (alienating potential friends or partners, breeding isolation). But for me, this stance wasn’t born from a lack of social needs; it was born from the protection of them. I learned early that groups could hurt me, exclude me, or demand from me what I wasn’t willing to give. My fierce independence is, in large part, a scar (and also a shield) from those experiences.

One way to understand the anti-group mindset is through the lens of that psychological reactance I mentioned. When I perceive an attempt to control me or subsume me into the collective, a red alert goes off in my mind: “Warning: your freedom is under threat!” The result is that I push back, hard. I do the opposite of what’s expected, or I disengage entirely, purely to regain my sense of self-determination. It’s basically an allergic reaction to pressure. This is a documented psychological phenomenon: when your autonomy is threatened, you may feel an urge to rebel… simply because it has been mandated. If a group’s going one way, my mind instinctively swivels 180 degrees. As a teen I even cultivated a bit of pride in being the contrarian. If the teacher brought up a concept, I’d intentionally play the devil’s advocate. If my friends all joined a new social app, I’d stubbornly abstain (at least for as long as I could get by without). It wasn’t that I thought I was better than them; it was a knee-jerk strategy to avoid the risk of groupthink taking root in me. I was terrified (on a subconscious level) of what might happen if I did just go along. I couldn’t articulate it then, but now I see clearly: I feared losing myself… Losing my values, my unusual interests, my sense of control.

Crucially, the anti-group stance isn’t about lacking social or psychological needs. I still have the same fundamental needs everyone does (more on those soon). The difference lies in strategy: I seek to fulfill those needs without surrendering my individuality, whereas a joiner or “radical” type might fulfill them through unity with others. In effect, I’ve tried to become a self-sufficient island for everything that a group might otherwise provide. If a radicalized peer says, “I know who I am because I’m part of something,” I counter with, “I know who I am because I stand apart.” One is an external route to identity; the other, an internal route. One involves obedience to a larger blueprint; the other, an almost obsessive self-determination.

The boy band, Boy Throb, against a green screen cloud background with a foam number 1 hand in the right corner. The music video is called Finger.

Let me illustrate this contrast with a concrete (if whimsical) example. Now, I don’t use or watch Tik Tok (I’ll even resist looking at people’s screens in public if they are on it or attempting to show me something). It’s apart of my Anti-Group tendencies (but much more on that later). However, a video made its way over to me on YouTube, a music video called “Finger” and a video essay about the band. So recently, I became engrossed in the online saga of Boy Throb, a parody-turned-real (were they even a parody to begin with?) boy band that went viral in spectacular fashion. Their story struck me as a funhouse-mirror reflection of these two paths. Here were four young men who deliberately authored an outrageous group persona: they donned matching salmon-pink tracksuits and declared themselves “the world’s next biggest boy band” on TikTok, straight-faced and brimming with over-the-top confidence. In their very first video, Boy Throb announced a mission to get their fourth member (stuck overseas) a U.S. visa by racking up one million followers. It was a performance for the ages: part genuine hustle, part satire, all presented with such earnest self-belief that viewers couldn’t tell where the joke ended and the real passion began. And you know what? It worked. Fans flocked to them. Boy Throb’s online rise was meteoric, they hit that million-follower goal in a matter of weeks, essentially gunning from 0 to 1,000,000 at a sprint. The fandom even gave themselves a name (“the Throb Mob”) and rallied around the band’s every post and goofy storyline twist. In other words, Boy Throb managed to manufacture, out of thin air, a group identity that people wanted to be part of. They created a little radicalization sandbox (albeit a benign and humorous one): a cause (help Darshan get a visa!), a shared identity (we’re Throbbers!), an us-vs-world narrative (eccentric underdog boy band vs. the doubting public), and charismatic leadership (the band members themselves setting goals and calling on fans for help). Observing this as an outsider was fascinating. I found myself emotionally invested, even moved, by what started as a tongue-in-cheek enterprise. At one point I was watching the video essay about their journey and realized I had tears in my eyes, the way you might when a scrappy group of friends finally “make it.” I had to laugh at myself: I, the consummate skeptic of group endeavors, was crying over a boy band!

Boy Throb writing a tandem bicycle with the fourth member, Darshan, on a telepromper to join them remotely.

Boy Throb’s case also highlighted something important: the role of satire and self-awareness. The band was self-created and self-aware. They knew they were ridiculous and leaned into it, but they also clearly cared about their project. Boy Throb knows they’re being funny... but in the end, they’re not just a joke; they’re a bunch of guys who came together to make their dreams come true as a team. In a way, Boy Throb exemplified intense self-authorship: they wrote a narrative for themselves (half-comedy, half-destiny) and then lived it with utter conviction. I realized that this is something I deeply respect and even emulate in my own way. My anti-group stance doesn’t mean I lack ambition or mission; it means I script those missions for myself rather than signing onto someone else’s. I, too, often cloak serious personal aims in humor or creativity. For instance, I’ve turned deeply personal explorations (like researching human sexuality, which I’ll discuss later) into a kind of playful intellectual performance, much like Boy Throb turned their ambitions into a flamboyant show. The common denominator is agency: being the author of one’s story. Boy Throb could laugh at themselves and still earnestly declare, “We’re going to win a Grammy,” in one breath. That paradox of sincere absurdity resonated with me. It’s how I feel about my own life sometimes: I refuse to take part in society’s pre-written scripts, yet I’m writing my own script with equal parts sincerity and irony.

My tribe of oddballs holding a stack of Arizona ice tea cans from the floor to the ceiling.

In summary, radicalization and the anti-group mindset are both about identity, but one achieves it through fusion and the other through refusal. One says, “Find yourself in others,” the other says, “Find yourself despite others.” Neither is a random quirk; both arise from deeply human motivations. To understand those, let’s dig into the psychological needs that drive people toward groups, and how someone like me tries to meet those same needs outside of groups. Shared Psychological Needs Why do people join fervent groups or movements? And why, conversely, might someone like me instinctively avoid them? On the surface those seem like opposite behaviors, but I’ve come to realize they originate from the same set of human psychological needs. We all, to some extent, crave: belonging, meaning (or purpose), a stable identity, structure and clarity, emotional catharsis, and even leadership (guidance or mentorship). The radical joiner and the autonomous loner just have opposite strategies for fulfilling these universal needs.

As we can see, radicalization and anti-group autonomy are two responses to the same inner thirsts. We both seek belonging, meaning, identity, structure, emotional release, and guidance… But in diametrically opposite fashions. And intriguingly, sometimes the two paths can lead to oddly similar outcomes by very different means. For example, a devoted member of a cause and a fiercely independent loner might both end up willing to die for what they believe in. One for their group, the other for their principles. Both can display extreme conviction and sacrifice, just oriented differently.