Have you ever felt unfairly judged by another person?

[hifiguy]

71. I get along with musicians effortlessly

and have been in many bands over my 40+ years of playing bass. Get me going on King Crimson, Beethoven or Bill Evans and I will yak your ear off. I get along with people in high-end audio, about which I have written professionally for nearly 20 years and go to the Consumer Electronic Show nearly every year. I chatter like a magpie with audio people because there's a common interest to get over those first five minutes with people I don't know. Put me in a job interview and I am as talkative as a stuffed owl. I don't mix well with people I still think of as "grownups" or stupid people. Put me in front of a Minnesota Audio Society meeting and I can speak extemporaneously for 45 minutes and do a half-hour Q&A afterwards. There I can put on my wannabe professor's hat, a role in which I am comfortable and understand the dynamics of the situation.

I don't give a hoot in hell about your golf game, your kids' high-school sports or your lake place. If you enjoy it, fine, i give you joy of it, but don't expect me to be interested. I don't expect you to share my interests either. To me it's just reciprocal courtesy. But it isn't in a society that puts such a ludicrous emphasis on "selling yourself." I couldn't sell dollar bills for a quarter each. I hate "being sold" and will not/can not impose it on others.

in a nutshell, I get along perfectly normally with other nerds with whom I share interests. I really don't give a rat's behind about others, but in a totally non-malicious way.