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I'm also looking for a short story. It moved me and made me laugh out loud on the train into London, more than thirty years ago. I thought it was in a Robert Silverberg collection, but I've looked through a list of all his works and none of them stand out.
The premise is that of a mild-mannered man who cannot understand why some people are so abrasive, so different from himself. Then one day he has an epiphany, realising that we are like a stew, some people are onions, some are carrots and some are potatoes. Carrots are not elongated orange onions, they are something distinct in themselves, and from that day he stops trying to understand people from his perspective on life. And he starts standing up for himself.
The one scene I can remember is where he is sitting at the front of a traffic queue when the lights change to green. When he doesn't move immediately, the car behind him honks their horn. Instead of sucking it up as he once would have, he gets out his car and approached the driver behind him, and explains the error of the driver's ways.
There's also another scene where he is told he can't come into a restaurant because he hasn't got a tie, though I can't remember much else.
I have been searching for this story for years. I would be eternally grateful if someone could identify it.
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