Code switching is an essential skill in life – the act of knowing you are talking to and changing the way you talk to that person depending on your relationship with them or the setting you are in. Some people are freer spirits than others, instead choosing to “be themselves” in every scenario, which can be refreshing in many ways. In other ways, it can present itself as a problem, an example being Donald Trump’s remarks on Twitter which can be interpreted as unpresidential by some.
That being said, I code-switch quite often in my life, five different personas coming out in differing scenarios this week, which entailed the continued meeting of people (strangers*).
- Workplace Environment: The first most obvious form of code switching is in my classroom, where I generally do not cuss in front of students, and try to be as professional as possible (which still being rude, condescending, and sarcastic to students). Depending on my relationship with co-workers I am pretty open in conversations with those I’m close to, and generally more protective around people I’m not yet comfortable with. In a group setting with more than 5 people I’m generally less likely to talk with everyone looking at me, which is why I find “circles” particularly uncomfortable.
- Family Environment: Around my family, I’m pretty free to do whatever I want and say whatever I want. I literally have no filter, and could care less what they think. Obviously the amount of Vietnamese I can speak limits my ability to talk trash to my parents, but that being said, I don’t feel restricted.
- Friends: Around friends I’m close to I’m generally “off the cuff”, which means I say whatever I want, no matter how crude and offensive. In a way, I’m not politically correct at all, and don’t necessarily filter my words around other people. This is around people I’m never awkward around and feel 100% comfortable to be whoever I want at any given moment in time. This can be quiet, reserved, and caring, or loud, disruptive, and crass.
- Strangers: Finally, around strangers, I tend to be more light-hearted, more friendly, and try to overcompensate in listening. My humor and sarcasm doesn’t really come out at first, but rather later, after I get more comfortable around people. I also tend to be quiet in meetings if I don’t feel experienced or have not yet acquired an area of expertise. For example, in Anime Expo meetings I generally don’t say much having not really experienced the position of being an assistant manager yet, my input being thus limited.
- Strangers who I encounter more than once: Having now been immersed in the meetup experience, I have encountered people who I met at previous meetups at later meetups. For example, I went to a boardgame meetup introduced to me by a friend I met at last week’s Arboretum meetup. We talked for a bit, before I branched to learn some new boardgames introduced to me by strangers.
Boardgames are such a fun experience, and I hope to continue learning new ones at these meetups. I learned how to play Potion Explosion, which was a fun game that required collecting potions and points, as well as Splendor, which intertwined collecting gems. Boardgames is such a niche hobby, because I don’t think they will ever be out of date, because people continue to play them despite newer techniques of play available. Even if I ever feel uncomfortable at meetups, I never feel out of place playing boardgames with people because it’s an essential hobby I will continue doing for the rest of my life.
Finally, at a coffee and conversations meetup this past week I met one of the event organizers who told me his story about how after his move to California he founded his meetup group which now has 2700 people. With his experience in mind, my eventual goal in the future is to create my own meetup group and hopefully continue meeting people through that mechanism.
As I continue to code switch in conversations, I hope to broaden my horizons and meet more interesting people. Even if some of them turn out to be shady (some people go to meetups to recruit people to their pyramid schemes or find clients for their business), I am destined to meet equally amazing people on the opposite side of the spectrum.
