3 ms·
It's hard to make friends when you assume you're superior to everyone
by squish78 7y ago
It's hard to make friends when you assume you're superior to everyone
- drivingmenuts 7y agoim In the same position a lot of the time when meeting new people. It’s not because I feel superior, I just lack interest and any knowledge of sports and cars and most topics that a lot of other people use for small talk. Now, if they want to talk about that time their fighter gutted an orc with an awesome double crit, I’m all ears, but Cowboys losing to some other team in sportsball, not so much.
- logfromblammo 7y agoExactly this. Superiority has nothing to do with it. Some people have uncommon interests or opinions, and may be reticent about sharing them in the absence of some enabling signal, as one can be punished socially just for having them. It doesn't help that my employer has a mainstream dress code. If I saw an exact copy of myself before or after work, I wouldn't want to talk to it, unless we were in a nerd haven. I've had too many conversations that bring in early "so what church y'all go to?" or "what's your football team?". The wrong answers can get you a "bless your heart," which seems to be Southern for "fuck off, asshole". Wearing a Chicago Cubs tee-shirt sometimes invites conversation, but my spouse is the fan that live-streams every MLB broadcast that isn't regionally blacked out, and for me it's really more a signal for "I'm from the Midwest." The Chicago skyline on my usual payment card has sometimes unintentionally served the same purpose from restaurant servers and cashiers who are also ex-Chicago-residents. It's why I'm considering a nerd tattoo, like "e^pi*i=-1" or the Fano plane mnemonic for octonion multiplication, or a space-filling model of my favorite molecule, benzaldehyde.