Thoughts on social circles one hangs out with

I have moved from places to places in my life. From my village to Solapur, then Solapur to Chennai and later to Delhi for work. Recently, I moved to Amherst for my Ph.D. In these hops, I have met many people, lived with different set of folks, have had both good and not so good interactions. With an ongoing transition in Amherst, in this post, I wanted to jot down few thoughts about how change of groups and places affects oneself personally, tell some of my own experiences, and a few random ideas about the dynamics behind this change.

The story begins...

I see change of places and a person's behavior sticking to a particular style as their strategy in a social equilibrium. For those of you who don't know what an equilibrium means, when multiple people interact and work together, there comes a state where everyone defaults to a certain behaviour. Under such equilibria, if you are with family members, you are a totally different person, and when you are with your work place colleagues, you act professionally. If you have multiple friend circles, particularly, if you are like me, who has to move places to places, with a switch of context, your behaviour defaults to a way that is special for that particular circle with which you are hanging out. Many a times, you are held in very high regard in one of these circles and you would want to be equally regarded in the ones you meet in the future. Also, while mixing with new people, you might not want to be associated with a particular ideology. I gave it a thought, how can one carry the image they want to present consistently across multiple groups without offending anyone or being seen as rude?

From my personal experience, a crucial part of the answer to the question of smoother transition is very dependent on the time one spends in a circle and how much idea the people in the new group have about you, your work, your accomplishments, etc., already. In an inter-team collaboration, you hardly get time to form good rapport with those you are working with. I have seen research collaboration, where you drop by every other week to ideate and take/give updates. It is very hard to make a lasting impression on the folks involved. But, for purposes of this blog, we will skip the short term engagements and focus on more interesting case of circles where we hang out very frequently. I want to understand how the new person's self-image changes and how their default behaviours form when they interact with different groups.

As I give it a thought, the quality of people you hang out with matters the most while molding your personality around. I will give an example of my class in Solapur from early 2010's. The batch I was part of, which completed grade 10 in 2014, was one of the exceptional batches. Everyone was very hard-working, very sincere, smart, and obidient to teachers; many ideal students in that batch. When I moved to this school from my village, I was astonished by their kindness, innocence and intelligence and always thought of myself as a fortunate guy to get to interact with these folks and learn with them. My own behaviour became reciprocative to these great individuals and overall, I feel, the whole foundation of my future trajectory was laid here. Not to mention, all these awesome folks are doing great in their lives today. Therefore, such a transition to a good social circle as a student helped me a lot.

Now comes the reason why I started writing this blog. Not always I have associated with better people. Sometimes in ignorance and sometimes due to the work and education constraints, I had to mix with folks with whom I really shouldn't have mixed, at least in the retrospect. Although you want to act in a very amenable, healthy kind of way with those around you, if the other person's behaviour always hurts your own self-image and distorts your ideal scenario, you are probably in a wrong circle. Some folks just do not want to see you in the way you see yourself although you deserve to be seen that way. The inspiration from your group really helps the individuals grow their self-images, do great things and contribute overall. But if they are not willing to accept your identity, it will hurt your self-image significantly and might as well lead to negative coping strategies where you let other people push you only because you deem their company dear.

To be mindful of how a transition to a circle is affecting me, I have started taking (mental) notes on how my behavior is defaulting and if I like it to default in that particular way. Also, to judge whether I am associating with the right folks, the simplest way obviously is to check whether I am happy hanging out with the folks and whether I am able to pursue higher things which I want to pursue without hesitation. If not, then something needs to change for sure. Seeking better circle is always advantageous, I have found. To me, a better circle is where the people in the circle really care about what I want to do with my life and highly supportive of it. This puts responsibility on me as well to encourage the folks around me in their own endeavours for more fulfilling lives.

The conclusion is...

The circle you are currently in, changes your default behaviour for both good and bad. The equilibrium reached has to be beneficial to everyone. Otherwise, find a better social circle.