That's a great point. I see it in effect in my life in several indirect ways. Some people I might want to hang out with (because I find them interesting) give m

That's a great point. I see it in effect in my life in several indirect ways. Some people I might want to hang out with (because I find them interesting) give me the impression that I'm below their status level. I'm conscious about this and probably concerned about this too much. Another part of me really hates this attitude in people and then resorts to thinking that if they're that centered on status, maybe after all they aren't that interesting. Of course I could try harder, but with social situations this usually just leads to the inevitable impression of being in need for something (which is majorly off-putting). There's so much that could be said about this topic but in the end everyone's time is limited. So we decide: Do I want to spend time with person X or do I rather use that time to work on... my career, ... or maybe just read a book. Since this applies to another person as well, this makes me afraid to ask: "Hey, do you want to hang out with me, or do you think the time spent with me will be less valuable than what you normally would do?" The harsh truth might be that the other person deems us less interesting than doing whathever else they do. And we ought to be ok with that. I'm quite aware of this and it's one of the reasons why I oftentimes don't engange in social situatioins in the first place. I've encountered dozens of awkward social situations where I left the party early on some pretense when in the end I just thought you're all boring as hell, I want to go home. Some of these situations were quite painful. However the risk of having to go through such a situation shouldn't keep me from enganging more actively. I'm writing this partly as a statement to make myself be more active again in that respect. Most of _ is crap and social groups are no different. But allowing the average to prevent the exceptional (great friendship) we might run into shouldn't be the case. So I'm saluting all the weird interactions to come as the price to pay for finding friends close to my heart.