I don't think I'm alone in that I find it impossible to find common ground with most normal people. I am a proper
weirdo and my neighbors near my current home are basically randomly selected suburbanites.
I would struggle to talk to them for 3 minutes.
My friends are my friends because they have the right values, priorities, and culture. My culture has almost no overlap with that of the "community" in which I live. They don't know my music, my food, my memes, my values, my lifestyle. We're not even awake at the same time. All we share is geographic proximity.
Pretty much every time I talk to random people in the US for more than a few minutes, they drop inflammatory remarks to see how I respond, to identify which side of the culture war I am on, so they can (based on my identifying responses) either antagonize or befriend me. I ignore these comments, as I am disinterested in the American culture war and its political sports-teamism.
The article is right, and I think yours is a casual dismissal.
I would struggle to talk to them for 3 minutes.
My friends are my friends because they have the right values, priorities, and culture. My culture has almost no overlap with that of the "community" in which I live. They don't know my music, my food, my memes, my values, my lifestyle. We're not even awake at the same time. All we share is geographic proximity.
Pretty much every time I talk to random people in the US for more than a few minutes, they drop inflammatory remarks to see how I respond, to identify which side of the culture war I am on, so they can (based on my identifying responses) either antagonize or befriend me. I ignore these comments, as I am disinterested in the American culture war and its political sports-teamism.
The article is right, and I think yours is a casual dismissal.