In California, having money is something that you tend to keep to yourself as much as possible. You would not be in a public area talking with your friend about "I am a little glad my parents divorced because to tell you the truth I never saw my dad anyway, and now, he really compensates for it by buying me alot of things. It's just a better system now ::te he te he::"
(Other non-related quote "I used to really be into school, but now I just like drinking. Alot. Really, I just love drinking and buying things!" Girls all over (if not all) share this attitude, and I am glad these ones next to me are unabashed in saying so.)
This just wouldn't happen in California. A byproduct of this is the "thrift store" epidemic. On the East Coast, its a badge of pride how much you have and nothing more or less. I actually appreciate this behaviour because it is honest. And I appreciate honesty. It brings me to part 2, (which in fact is a generalization of item 1, making 1 simply just a corollary of 2 [or 2 is the generalization of 1 across a larger set of possibilities]).
2) People in California are very damn progressive and sensitive towards other people. Because of this there is an epidemic of not telling people important things that happen in people's lives. Acceptance into some school. An interview at a prestigious place of employment. A new job. Going on a date with a new person. In general doing or having something of note happening to you. It has become the status quo to at all costs not mention this event for happening. I see two reasons for this. One, to attract more attention to it - knowing at some point someone will find out in a round about way and then not only do you win some acclaim for the achievement itself, but also for how extremely humble (or in my opinion extremely a piece of shit) that no one even knew it had happened, although it was nearly two years ago. (e.g. "What!? As a young child you were a world champion Mahjong player??!! I can't believe you haven't mentioned that!" another, "You've been working on your PhD at Harvard and you fly back every couple nights for the last three years and acted like you attended CSUN so that no one would be offended or feel less accomplished?!! Thanks for doing that for us!!" The longer you don't let people find out about these things the better (Indeed the data has shown acclaim for this behavior exhibits exponential growth).
Also in this set are events that are more melancholic - the passing of a member of the family, the rejection or negation of any of above mentioned events, or any other sort of tribulation that actually would feel good to mention to a friend. These behaviours follow a different set of rules, but are in someway related (although the data has NOT bourne a conclusion quite yet).
New York people don't exhibit this behaviour friends. They let people know the good (mostly) and the bad.
Point being, you don't have to spare me feeling inadequate or lesser of a person because you are doing something of note. I can handle it. Let a playa know.
u said there are 2 reasons people dont tell people things....u only listed one...is that some kind of metaphor?
ReplyDeletealso drawing these mass generalizations is really insulting to the community and a huge knock on ur credibility. all i really read from this article is "SELECTION BIAS! SELECTION BIAS!"
ReplyDeletemy hypothesis is there is no statisitcal difference in the tendency of "NY people" to share things vs. "LA people" or any other group.
a little more rigor would be appreciated by all.
FW - (Thanks for your very frequent comments).
ReplyDelete1) Yes
2) F-Test that H=0 (comparing means) is VERY low. My results hold ALWAYS within (plus or minus) 1.96 st dev (normalized). But thanks for your comments again!!