I agree with your sentiment about wearing nice clothes for the social hack feeling "fake". At some point in school I made a conscious effort to judge people by

I agree with your sentiment about wearing nice clothes for the social hack feeling "fake". At some point in school I made a conscious effort to judge people by who they are, rather than by the material things surrounding them. And even though I'm playing the sheeple's game by dressing nice(r), I try to still give everyone the benefit of the doubt and judge them by who they are. It's paid off; I got a (very welcomed) free lesson in Cassandra at a tech meetup because I started a conversation with someone who other people were avoiding because of appearance.