Plenty of people take real pride in not caring what others think. Look closely, though, and the people who say this tend to dress alike, listen to the same things, use the same language, and signal the same values as each other. Not caring turns out to have its own dress code.
the foundation
For most of human history, being excluded from your group wasn’t just unpleasant, it was dangerous. Shared resources, protection, information about threats, all of it ran through group membership. The drive to belong isn’t a personality trait some people have more of than others. It’s foundational wiring that exists well below the level of conscious identity, which is exactly why it shows up even in people actively trying to opt out of caring about it.
the layer
This is why rebellion against fitting in so often produces its own extremely strict version of fitting in. Subcultures built explicitly around rejecting mainstream norms, whatever the era’s version happens to be, tend to develop detailed, fairly rigid expectations of their own: specific aesthetics, specific reference points, specific ways of talking that mark you as genuinely part of the group rather than just visiting. Even cultures that prize individualism as a core value, the idea of being your own person above all else, tend to express that individuality through a surprisingly narrow, shared set of products, phrases, and aesthetics. Being a unique individual, in practice, usually means belonging to the specific subgroup of people currently performing uniqueness the same way you are.
the motive
Brands have built entire identities around selling individuality as a packaged, mass-produced product, which is a strange contradiction if you sit with it for more than a second. Be yourself campaigns, personal branding advice, and influencer messaging about authenticity all encourage you to feel like a uniquely expressed individual, usually by buying or doing something that millions of other people pursuing the same message are also buying or doing. The tension between genuinely wanting to belong and wanting to feel like your own person is real, and there’s a profitable industry built specifically on selling you a resolution to that tension that never quite resolves it.
not caring what people think is still a way of caring what a specific group of people thinks. the group is just smaller, and pretends not to be one.
the reframe
Wanting to belong isn’t a weakness to overcome on your way to becoming truly independent. It’s a basic, old need that never goes away, no matter how strongly you frame yourself as someone who’s above it. The more honest move usually isn’t pretending not to need belonging. It’s being thoughtful about which group’s approval you’re actually orienting your life around.