Sheldor the Conqueror

[FranEssi]

Sheldon is now looking to the others for guidance, they have successfully damaged his sense of self. And these characters all had less confidence in themselves than he did. Now it's the other way round.

While I totally agree with you about the fact that Sheldon's confidence and his sense of self have been severely damaged in the recent seasons, I'd like to also point out that his seeking advice from others when it comes to dealing with social situations and interactions is something that has been a part of his character since day one. He has always had that vulnerability about him. In the very first episode, when Penny is in his and Leonard's apartment, she asks, "Will it be totally weird if I use your shower?", to which Sheldon replies "Yes!" but he quickly changes his answer to "No!" when he sees Leonard giving Penny a negative answer. The same happens in the second episode, when he and Leonard take Penny's mattress upstairs and she asks if it was hard to get it up the stairs. Sheldon is about to say "Yes!" but again he changes his answer to "No!" when he sees that's what Leonard is doing. Also notice how he immediately listens to Leonard when Leonard asks him to go apologize to Penny for getting into her apartment in the middle of the night. Then comes the "non-optional social convention/obligation". If I am not mistaken, it's in the episode Penny is trying to throw Leonard a birthday party. Howard tells Penny all she has to do is tell Sheldon "it's a non-optional social convention" to get him to do what is needed. And we see that it works on Sheldon, and he immediately changes his course of actions to adapt.

I think this all shows that he has always been aware of his lack of understanding of certain social protocols and situations and has trusted his friends and the people around him to point it out to him when he is being oblivious to those protocols and situations. Because he seems to know that there are certain social rituals you have to go through, whether you like it or not, in order to get by in society and in life.

But here is the problem.

While I appreciate his awareness of his weakness, and his willingness to trust his friends' advice and interpretations of social life, I think he and his friends take things too far sometimes. They have been for a few seasons now; to the point that Sheldon has become (or is shown to be) too naive in social life, always ending up "in the wrong". He is trusting his friends' "life lessons" too much IMO, while doubting his own intellect and POV in the matter. As taffinabean said, he is now needed to be told that he should be 'sad' at a funeral!

I hate how the show is completely tossing away and rejecting "intellect" as one of the viable tools/ways/methods you can use to decipher the world around you. I am not forgetting that Sheldon has difficulty processing, understanding and expressing certain emotions and that intellect alone, intellect without the presence of emotions, cannot make a healthy human being, but suggesting that intellect has *nothing* to offer when it comes to everyday life is ridiculous IMO. Also, who says that the people who are giving Sheldon advice are emotionally healthy people themselves? They are far from it! But as SpaceAnjl said, having someone like Sheldon around probably makes them feel better about themselves and helps convince themselves that they understand so much about people, relationships and life in general.