Cliques

[ubernoob]

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[ubernoob]

Mean Liar, that post was a complete waste of my time to read it. If you'd just delete it so you don't waste everyone's time I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

[JonSetanta]

Jersey girls at my last college:
"Don't fucking talk to me. The sweatpants say 'stay away'"

.. and then they magnetize towards the nearest beefthroated guido that reminds them of their father.

[JonSetanta]

I should write a reverse version of this....

http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html

[Juton]

I'm a little surprised to hear that, cliques don't seem that big up here past high school. How to gain acceptance will of course depend on which clique you want to join up with. I'm curious which cliques your seeing.

[mean_liar]

I actually recall thinking along ubernoob's train of thought when I first moved to Canada. I came up with rationalizations such as, "the cold weather and long winters means that people tend to hang around in groups more". There were probably others.

I have no idea if they were true or not, and in time it didn't matter.

[Surgo]

Could you describe some of your trouble "infiltrating"? I mean, people gathering in groups of other people who like the same stuff is pretty normal human behaviour.

edit: Site linked by sigma is brilliant.

[ubernoob]

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[Maj]

When talking to teens, it's helpful to understand how their tendency to form groups and cliques is partly a consequence of American culture. In America, we encourage individuality. Children freely and openly develop strong preferences - defining their self-identity by the things they like and dislike. They learn to see differences. Though singular-identity is the long-term goal, in high school this identity quest is satisfied by forming and joining distinctive subgroups. So, in an ironic twist, the more a culture emphasizes individualism, the more the high school years will be marked by subgroupism.

In general, keep your eyes open for cliques that value the same things you do, or else you'll be infiltrating a nightmare. If you're into gaming, check around to see if there's a gaming club. If you want people who sing, ask in the choir room. If you're into trivia and Jeopardy, see if there's a team and go check it out.

[ubernoob]

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[JonSetanta]

edit: Site linked by sigma is brilliant.

A friend showed me a week ago. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around how accurate (and sadly autistic) it is.

Such traits as loyalty and trust are virtues, though, and in my view it's people that trash such behavior as "naive" that I find to be despicable shits in life.

Also, ever since my friend showed me the Geek Fallacies, we keep pointing them out when they occur.. which is every time we go to a party, share a stupid nerd squabble on Facebook, or hang out around hipsters in Baltimore.
I got back at him by pointing out every cheap knockoff Zooey Deschanel or Scott Pilgrim "Ramona" clone and he can't stop seeing it.

[Maj]

No. Part of the reason is that you need to define some goals and values and hobbies that aren't drug-related.

[Zinegata]

Being able to say things in plain English ("I want to make friends") instead of stupid elitist speak ("I wish to infiltrate a clique") would probably help make you seem less like a social misfit who should be avoided like the plague.

I was never really part of any one clique in college, but I hanged out with several groups.

And I never had to hide that I was a loveable, morbid misfit with a blase attitude towards epic levels of death and destruction.

I still insist I am not a warmonger however .

[Fuchs]

What about getting active in support of a cause? Be it the ecology, human rights, animal rights, some local movement, other politics, most of those groups who work for a goal like to recruit more people.

[jadagul]

Paul Graham wrote an essay you might find interesting. The topic is why nerds are unpopular. The key insight is that most groups of people exist for some reason. For instance, I have the circle of friends I go dancing with, and the circle of friends who are in choir with me, and the circle of friends I do math with, and the circle of friends I discuss politics with (and, of course, these circles overlap).

But within each of these groups, a lot of the social dynamics are driven by the type of group. Graham argues that social networks in high schools are fundamentally screwed up because there's no actual reason or purpose which unites the set of "high schoolers," and so there are no external standards and social dynamics are driven by nothing except people attempting to manipulate social dynamics.

It sounds almost like you're encountering the former and attempting to treat it like the latter; you can't "infiltrate the clique" through pure social maneuvering because most social groups have some sort of underlying social dynamic. I'd suggest, like others, that you find something you want to do, start doing it, and then start chatting with the other people who do it. It doesn't have to be something you do already; and I might even suggest that if you just jettisoned something that used to occupy a large chunk of your time, finding new activities might be a good thing.

So go to a few meetings of different clubs, see if anything interests you. (For your purposes I might suggest picking activities that have a reasonably high female-to-male ratio, as well, but that's not strictly necessary). I'm personally partial to social dancing--it did wonders for me as a socially awkward and alienated nerdy undergrad--but it really almost doesn't matter what, as long as you enjoy yourself.

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[Xenologer]

I'm basically asking for two things:
1) Links to scholarly papers that analyze the social psychology aspect of clique formation on a deeper level than just "protection and acceptance." Or your own personal anecdotes and theories. But information on the psychology behind it.
2) Tips on how to infiltrate the cliques without selling my soul. Being a loner has been killing my game because I have no competent wingman and girls just don't seem interested in associating outside their cliques.

I don't actually know where to start with this without being really rude and linking the Wikipedia entry for Anthropology. If what you want is to know how and why people socialize in groups, you're asking a bigger question than you seem to think you are.

I'm going to second Fuchs, and say that if you find something you give a damn about and find other people who also give a damn about it, you've got some instant relateability there. Once you start working on causes with people, you also end up with shared experiences, little war stories and inside jokes, and that goes a long way toward creating a connection.

The only personal tip I can offer is that when I was in high school, I learned that children don't like smarter children. There is only one exception: smarter children who make them laugh are okay. I went from being the one who got really good grades that everybody hated to being the one who got really good grades who had a chunk of the Valedictorian's speech dedicated to her, all because I put some of the wit and insight to the service of entertaining others.

The danger here is in using that humor to scapegoat people outside the group in the hopes of being accepted by people within the group. Don't do that. That makes you an asshole, even though it often works really really well.

Beyond that and what Fuchs said, I'm going to reiterate that you're asking an enormous question that either requires an intuitive grasp of how people connect to each other, or more nuanced and involved study than you're probably interested in doing.

[Zinegata]

The only personal tip I can offer is that when I was in high school, I learned that children don't like smarter children. There is only one exception: smarter children who make them laugh are okay.

Not entirely. The key to being a smart kid and not being a pariah is to not lord it over the other kids.

Just be a normal kid and be wary of being a know-it-all.

That, and socialize more with the other smart kids who aren't asses.

[JonSetanta]

Enjoy your island.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_mentality

[Zinegata]

Enjoy your island.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_mentality

Not exactly. In my experience it's just that smart kids often gravitate towards the same interests.

Again, the key is to be aware that you shouldn't lord it over the other kids, or think that you're superior to other kids.

If you start hanging out only with people who can multiply two ten digit numbers mentally, instead of say people who also like playing the same strategy boardgames that you do, then you really need your head examined.

[ubernoob]

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[Koumei]

I should write a reverse version of this....

http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html

That's really interesting. I read it and realised how much of it is around me. Although I seem to have avoided most of those due to being an ass burger (note: not saying this shows I am superior, just that finally, there is an advantage to being the rude bitch who actively tells annoying people to fuck off).

[K]

This is an interesting thread.

I don't really have any advice. As a reasonably successful social chameleon, I can't say it's made me any happier. Charm is a skill that can be practiced, but it won't get you real relationships (though it can get you laid on occasion).

[jadagul]

Ubernoob: you're welcome. Other things you might find useful: I really liked Carnegie's book How to Win Friends and Influence People, as corny as that sounds; make sure you get an unbowdlerized edition with the hilarious chapters on things like "How to keep your wife from nagging you". I found this paper really helpful at understanding certain social dynamics: it explains the role privacy serves in social interactions, and why people often want to not actually say out loud things that everyone actually knows. Also possibly some of the "pickup/game" stuff, especially if you can find some who aren't suffused with bitterness and misogyny.

K: depending on what you mean, I'm actually going to disagree with that. I'm definitely not a social chameleon. I usually come across as myself, and no one would mistake me for a socialite or a jock or anything. But my social aptitude has improved over the years and it's made me significantly happier.

Let's start with this: I was really into RPGs, at least in theory, when I was in middle school. But I was actually and in literal fact too socially inept to manage to find a group and play them. Let me repeat: I wasn't socially adept enough to hang out with gamers. Possibly because I share certain recently-mentioned traits with Koumei which I'd rather not make it too easy for Google to find.

I didn't have any actual friends until sophomore year or so of high school, and didn't have anything resembling a coherent friend circle--the kind where people will call you to go do things--until halfway through college. I got my first kiss spring break of my sophomore year of college. And all that isolation kinda sucked. These days I have lots of friends, including several close friends, make new ones easily, and have lots of cute girls cycling in and out of my life (seriously, the dancing thing helps with that last one). I definitely consider this an improvement.

And I don't feel like I've had to sacrifice my values or my personality to get there. The real key to that, I think, is knowing what sorts of things you're willing to change and what sorts you aren't. I wanted to learn how to tell entertaining stories, be a witty conversationalist, and be able to tell when other people want me to leave them alone, so I learned that. And I learned both to be more confident and to project more confidence than I was feeling. But a lot of this made me into more myself, which is probably why it's made me happy rather than frustrated.

[ubernoob]

Jadagul, I will definitely read that after I get some sleep. Also, the offer in your inbox stands.

[RobbyPants]

It might be tough now that you're already a semester in, but one option is to simply find people before they fine a clique too. That's basically how I hooked up with my girlfriend freshman year. We started hanging out with each other before we hung out with other people.