Oh my. This so much. To be honest, it came across as incredibly selfish and self-centered when I was there, as a person from the east coast. It was as if people

Oh my. This so much. To be honest, it came across as incredibly selfish and self-centered when I was there, as a person from the east coast. It was as if people talk at each other instead of with each other. One element of this I think is that California is highly individualistic. The people there ARE self-absorbed. It is a celebrated cultural value. It's the exact mirror of Tall Poppy Syndrome. No one cuts you down for talking about your own interests and uniqueness instead of collectivist and egalitarian topics like sports or the weather. There's also a less intricate social code that comes from mixing together many people from different cultures. In a high-context, temporarily stable society, things get stratified and the litte social lubricants, expectations, and niceties get written into the socal contract and within the structure of the language itself (formal vs. informal forms). In a low-context and dynamic society, you are basically free to communicate without referencing the rulebook on what you should be saying or how you should be saying it and you bring less expectation that the other party will respond in some particularly scripted way.