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Comment by Ensorceled | Hacker News Reader

I grew up a geek in a rural area, learning how to filter conversations for your audience was a critical skill.

Topics and conversational style amongst my D&D group was very different than amongst my other high school classmates and very different than when at my summer jobs.

This is just an article about people who never learned that skill.

I'm reminded of a few moments in my life that drove this home ...

A coworker (60 year old railway worker) who said "You shouldn't use ten dollar words in a twenty-five cent conversation."

A girlfriend who described the difference as "Weird is when you know you're weird and compensate when needed, strange is when you don't know you're strange."

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I grew up very geek in a VERY rural area. I knew that there were places that I could be me, where I could be "country" me, and where I could be me "for adults". I learned that the me what I was, was also super unacceptable once I entered the world of higher education. I had to be "smart" me.

Then in my undergraduate degree, I learned about code switching in the context of Mexican-American children of immigrants. And it hit hard.

I was code-switching, but within dialects inside of one language instead of within languages. I also learned in that class that EVERY student who grew up rural, poor, minority, or anything other than middle- to upper-middle class white had extremely similar experiences. It was absolutely shocking to 20 year old me.

To your point - this article absolutely reads like people who just never learned how to navigate different groups.

Code switching is completely natural to me, I would not know how to express myself with just one language to some people. What did you learn about it that impacted you the most?

Honestly, just that it existed and was a common feature of some peoples' lives.

I grew up feeling very outcast. I grew up in a town of less than 50, in a super poor, rural part of the US. My interests were outdoors related, but not guns and god like everyone around me. I was more interested in learning about natural systems and the interplay of wild plants and animals and humans in the world. I never 'fit in' anywhere. None of the school clubs, none of the classes, everywhere I went I felt that I had to 'be someone else'.

Then I went to college and learned that, for many people, they literally get to do that every day, and that there was a name for it! It felt validating that someone else in the world experienced what I experienced (even if it was whole-language based instead of just dialect/cultural norm based).

Interesting, thanks for sharing.

See also masking

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masking_(personality)

Masking seems to have a negative connotation. Usually, and indeed in the Wikipedia article above, it's presented as a boundary or defence mechanism against societal pressures. But interestingly, etiquette involves a lot of masking and the aim is to make interactions more pleasant for all parties.

This is similar to masking but also very different. I just don't talk about geek stuff with family and friends back home because they are not interested. They do, however, know I'm a geek so I'm not "hiding" that from them.

Nor did I suffer abuse or humiliation from classmates or coworkers that made me change my behaviour.

Yup, also a nerd that grew up in a poor rural area. Some of my friends struggled with this but for me it really taught me how to be a chameleon. It also taught me to keep an open mind. While I wasn't into sports (like most nerds) I did find I really liked bowling and was on a league with many of the other redneck kids I wouldn't normally hang out with. I learned I had more in common with people than I thought, even if I really only opened up with my small nerdy crew of friends.

It's paid dividends as an adult because in most situations I can guess there's at least something I have in common with others even if it doesn't seem obvious at first. I can go most places and feel (or at least look) like I fit in. It's also allowed me to have a broad range of interests as an adult that I may not have had had I stayed more insular.

This is just an article about people who never learned that skill.

Is it? I read part and skimmed part, admittedly, but I got the impression this was just an article portraying a particular subculture, one the author wasn't not at all fond of. The author seems to actually take the opposite of your tolerant view that people naturally can use multiple "topics and conversation styles" in multiple social context. I would agree with you but it seems For the author, the topics and conversation styles of the people at this event are the primary evidence that they couldn't be normal in any other context. That and one guy having "shifty eyes".

We were introduced to the concept of "self monitoring"^ in social psychology classes in college, which attempts to describe this phenomenon.

Reading about it was a bit of a light bulb moment for me, as it offered some explanation for why I'd always made friends with people from varying social circles, who often seemed to not get along with each other, while finding it relatively easy myself to get along with most any social group.

^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-monitoring

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