Walls within walls

I returned home in 2006 after living in Brazil for two years. I reveled in being able to shower without needing sandals, in the foods I missed, and in being around my family. But there were things I missed about Brazil. Perhaps most unsettling to me was how rude Americans are.

It’s not as if everyone got in my business or said nasty things to me. On the contrary, everyone was kind and left well enough alone, which was precisely the problem. There was far too much personal space. I’d felt lonely for two years because no one called me by my first name: everyone called me by the title Elder because I was a missionary. By the time I was heading home, I missed my first name and the familiarity that goes with it more than flirting, dancing, or ranch dressing. But when I got home, I was an island.

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Social norms

As children grow, they learn to speak and understand the language or languages that surround them. In a very similar way, they learn a set of societal rules: when it’s okay to speak, what to wear, what is most important, etc., etc. Typically, people learn these rules by breaking them or following them in noticeable ways. When they do so, the responses of the people around them indicate whether their actions are acceptable or not. This reinforcement, negative or positive, informs future decisions.

The learning of such expectations usually peaks as preteens and teens begin to assert their independence by increasingly seeking approval from their peers and decreasingly from their parents. The need for peer approval raises the stakes considerably: a strange kid in elementary school is a little different, but it makes little difference; as the teenage years approach and commence, eccentricity becomes frighteningly dangerous to social standing and is shunned. To the social late bloomers, such a change is startling; after all, they have been wearing sweats for years. Why does it matter now?

After a few years, the social pressures seem to diminish. Read the whole story...