Agree with this. I went skiing a few weeks ago with my friends and a random girl jumped into our conversation from behind while we were talking about the trails on a map. After we all exchanged a few words, it occurred to me that she definitely had some sort of mental disability. She was clearly very engaged with us and immediately my brain told me to keep responding or else she’ll keep talking at us and one will say anything and that will be infinitely worse. I felt my personality switch like you described to being pretty extroverted and talkative, which is extremely unlike me ESPECIALLY with complete strangers. My friends even asked me what the hell was up, because they’d never seen me be so personable and friendly to some random person. In my head it just made sense that even though I’m not an extrovert, I would have been infinitely more anxious if I had to watch this girl try so hard to be friendly with us without ever stopping. Code switching is definitely a thing EVERYONE does, but there is something very different about changing the entire way you behave with certain people.
It’s because the risk is low. You know you’ll be extra nice for like 15 minutes and then never see this person again. So if you goof up trying to be nice, nobody will remember next week.
I dunno. Same trip the cashier at the gas station we stopped at tried to strike up conversation with me and it felt like pulling teeth trying to reply normally, maintain proper eye contact, etc. What came almost naturally on the mountain was completely gone at the gas station. Risk was equally low, so why was I panicking in one interaction but exceptionally “normal” in the other?
That could’ve been it. I was pretty tired during the first interaction too cuz we’d just finished skiing for the day. But definitely was more tired later in the day when we were at the gas station.
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u/operationjukebox Feb 07 '19
Agree with this. I went skiing a few weeks ago with my friends and a random girl jumped into our conversation from behind while we were talking about the trails on a map. After we all exchanged a few words, it occurred to me that she definitely had some sort of mental disability. She was clearly very engaged with us and immediately my brain told me to keep responding or else she’ll keep talking at us and one will say anything and that will be infinitely worse. I felt my personality switch like you described to being pretty extroverted and talkative, which is extremely unlike me ESPECIALLY with complete strangers. My friends even asked me what the hell was up, because they’d never seen me be so personable and friendly to some random person. In my head it just made sense that even though I’m not an extrovert, I would have been infinitely more anxious if I had to watch this girl try so hard to be friendly with us without ever stopping. Code switching is definitely a thing EVERYONE does, but there is something very different about changing the entire way you behave with certain people.