Maybe this is old advice, or so obvious that everyone figures it out. But handy tip for if you are strange, and you want others to not think you are strange: hang out with foreigners. To foreigners, everyone from your culture is strange. It could easily take them years to realize that some of your peculiarities are actually your peculiarities, not quaint oddities of your backward culture.
A person who is wiling to emigrate to another country is a person who is wiling to sacrifice their own "comfortable assumptions" to learn new "comfortable assumptions".
So if you are a native and do not want to share some or all comfortable assumptions of your native land it's logical to seek out the company of persons who already have chosen to do likewise.
For example - I have food allergies that make more "American foods" a gastronomical and gastrointestinal horror show for me. So it is logical for me to seek the companionship of people who do not consume dairy products or wheat products. I learn about their safer foods, which are nourishing and inexpensive.
They teach me about how they look at the world. I learn new methods of framing ideas and as I explain "how to be an American" I learn to critically examine what it is to be an American. So I grow freer while helping them to adapt to America.
It's not "wierdness" as much as searching for "elusive obviousness" and being able to examine them critically.
Nice of everyone to be so understanding. I live in China, and this is exactly part of the reason. The point is not that Chinese people *can't tell I'm weird*; the point is that they don't have expectations of me that I keep disappointing. The problem is never that people "know" you don't quite fit in. It's that they *feel* it - and in return, you feel frustrated because you're not meeting expectations. Among foreigners, there are fewer expectations.
Or is this even more subtle, such as you wish to be perceived as strange when posting to Overcoming Bias, but you still prefer to not be perceived as strange by your roommates?
Yes, that's it. Katja (presumptuously) assumes that readers of this blog think of themselves as strange and, consequently, will both sympathize with her devices and benefit from her observations. And many readers apparently do both. Those of us who don't think we're that strange (or don't care that much about the impressions we make) resent the presumption or tire of irrelevance.
People don't find you weird if you write a blog post saying that you are weird. They find you weird if you act weird around them. Anyway blogs provide psychic distance.
Wait a minute. If you don't want people to think you are strange, why would you announce to everyone who sees this blog that you identify as strange? Is it that you previously didn't want people to think you were strange (i.e, when you moved to Pittsburgh), but that have since changed your mind? Or is this even more subtle, such as you wish to be perceived as strange when posting to Overcoming Bias, but you still prefer to not be perceived as strange by your roommates?
1) What basis would they have for comparison such that they could make the judgment? Unless they were so non-foreign foreigners that they'd had long experience of Western housemates...
2) Because she thinks it might be interesting or productive of interesting responses?
But handy tip for if you are strange, and you want others to not think you are strange: hang out with foreigners.
I am kinda strange in various ways.
But I don't see why I'd want others to not think that, especially so much that I'd deliberately seek out people who are (necessarily) strange-to-me, just to avoid that.
It's neither something to be Made Into Core Identity nor something to be shunned and hidden.
Do you mind me asking what part of the US you are from or referring to? I was raised in a very diverse neighborhood and never thought that to be strange.
Also, foreigners are much less likely to have mastered the subtle cues with which locals convey that one of their number is strange, without the social costs of saying so directly. If your foreigners share a culture, however, you're also likely to miss some of their equivalents of the L-handshape on the forehead whilst in your presence.
It sounds like London.
A person who is wiling to emigrate to another country is a person who is wiling to sacrifice their own "comfortable assumptions" to learn new "comfortable assumptions".
So if you are a native and do not want to share some or all comfortable assumptions of your native land it's logical to seek out the company of persons who already have chosen to do likewise.
For example - I have food allergies that make more "American foods" a gastronomical and gastrointestinal horror show for me. So it is logical for me to seek the companionship of people who do not consume dairy products or wheat products. I learn about their safer foods, which are nourishing and inexpensive.
They teach me about how they look at the world. I learn new methods of framing ideas and as I explain "how to be an American" I learn to critically examine what it is to be an American. So I grow freer while helping them to adapt to America.
It's not "wierdness" as much as searching for "elusive obviousness" and being able to examine them critically.
So that's why New York is so cosmopolitan.
Nice of everyone to be so understanding. I live in China, and this is exactly part of the reason. The point is not that Chinese people *can't tell I'm weird*; the point is that they don't have expectations of me that I keep disappointing. The problem is never that people "know" you don't quite fit in. It's that they *feel* it - and in return, you feel frustrated because you're not meeting expectations. Among foreigners, there are fewer expectations.
Or is this even more subtle, such as you wish to be perceived as strange when posting to Overcoming Bias, but you still prefer to not be perceived as strange by your roommates?
Yes, that's it. Katja (presumptuously) assumes that readers of this blog think of themselves as strange and, consequently, will both sympathize with her devices and benefit from her observations. And many readers apparently do both. Those of us who don't think we're that strange (or don't care that much about the impressions we make) resent the presumption or tire of irrelevance.
What?
Hmm. So it works kind of like this, then? http://www.azlyrics.com/lyr...
Link?
People don't find you weird if you write a blog post saying that you are weird. They find you weird if you act weird around them. Anyway blogs provide psychic distance.
This is wonderful far-mode idealism, but in near mode most people most of the time don't want to seem weird.
Wait a minute. If you don't want people to think you are strange, why would you announce to everyone who sees this blog that you identify as strange? Is it that you previously didn't want people to think you were strange (i.e, when you moved to Pittsburgh), but that have since changed your mind? Or is this even more subtle, such as you wish to be perceived as strange when posting to Overcoming Bias, but you still prefer to not be perceived as strange by your roommates?
1) What basis would they have for comparison such that they could make the judgment? Unless they were so non-foreign foreigners that they'd had long experience of Western housemates...
2) Because she thinks it might be interesting or productive of interesting responses?
But handy tip for if you are strange, and you want others to not think you are strange: hang out with foreigners.
I am kinda strange in various ways.
But I don't see why I'd want others to not think that, especially so much that I'd deliberately seek out people who are (necessarily) strange-to-me, just to avoid that.
It's neither something to be Made Into Core Identity nor something to be shunned and hidden.
It just is.
Do you mind me asking what part of the US you are from or referring to? I was raised in a very diverse neighborhood and never thought that to be strange.
Also, foreigners are much less likely to have mastered the subtle cues with which locals convey that one of their number is strange, without the social costs of saying so directly. If your foreigners share a culture, however, you're also likely to miss some of their equivalents of the L-handshape on the forehead whilst in your presence.
Not sure about that. I'm under the impression that when I was in Ireland, most people didn't attribute much of my weirdness to my being Italian.