I've been thinking lately about cultural capital. Specifically, and within a social context, I mean the array of media, experiences, and competences that's expected among a group of friends. Some examples are popular tv shows, how one goes bowling, what asking someone to prom means. In friendgroups I've observed, it seems like there's some shared experiences that contribute to the formings of these friendgroups. For example, my gay-but-cis friendgroup in highschool were familiar with popular Instagram memes, Netflix shows, and bestsellers in Indigo bookstores. My highschool boyfriend and his friends knew Game of Thrones, soccer teams, and superhero movies. My trans friends in Ottawa are familiar with indie video games, ContraPoints youtube videos, and reddit in the early 2010s. Etcetera. I doubt these commonalities were the determining factor in friendships, especially since I've lacked all of them, but it's curious how coinciding the interests are. Maybe it's part of the wider "culture" of being gay or trans or a nerd in 2016. And somehow I slip through the cracks.
I often feel like an imposter in such social situations. I don't want to take the pretentious tone of "I'm not like other girls" in this blog post. I think the experience of feeling singularly ignorant is common, and the nature of group conversations where the most knowledgeable members dominates means you can feel singularly ignorant when you're not even a minority.
Because I research in order to suplant feelings of inadequacy, I've previously sought out the culture that my friends consume. I played the recommended video games, followed twitter discourse, very briefly joined Tumblr, and made a concentrated effort to encounter the foreign terms used in queer conversations. I'm not picky about my interests, but this brute force method has not been useful. Engaging in something to overcome a deficit leads me to overstate the importance of these cultural products in the first place. And since I've been brought to them by ulterior motives, I feel still like an outsider, watching but not participating in the shared experiences.
If there's knowledge which corresponds to certain groups of people, there's also a more universal expertise that accompanies the vaguely threatening "coming of age" experience. A formalization of this can be found in Cards Against Humanity. Players unfamiliar with the terms were "so innocent!" and teased for it. Sex was like a secret keycode that signaled maturity beyond our literal innocence of being only 15. The variation in knowledge seemd to greatly derive from parenting - the presence of sleepovers, the internet, "the talk". I was one of the freaks whose parents ignored sex, who didn't have access to the internet or cable tv, and who had friends similarly at the margins of society. I remember wanting to want this stuff. I remember wanting to want a first date, and so deciding that I did, and going on a first date. It was a failure parallel to that of the paragraph above.
Now as adults, the influence of childhood has abated, but I'm still behind. I've only watched a handful of movies in my life, I've gone to the mall less than 10 times, and I feel like I am generally incompetent when it comes to Doing Things.
Being asexual is a convenient example for this. I've overcome my stubborn pretense at wanting to do sexual things, but I still find myself wanting to participate in this culture which is locked away from me. It's lonely to be the exception, to hear a foreign language spoken around you and know that any attempt to learn it would be clumsy and slow and would highlight just how arduous what is simple for others is for you. Now I purposefully stress the difference - I make jokes about being asexual and forcibly remind people of my existence. It doesn't eliminate the loneliness entirely, but I do at least feel visible.
Essentially, over the years I've learned to divorce cultural capital from friendship. It's taken a shamefully long time to realize that my friends aren't friends with me because I was on a social media platform at the same time as them or watched the same shows growing up. They're friends with me because who I am as a person.
Taking pleasure in niche interests without shame is also a relatively new practice I've allowed myself. I do still like having a social element to my hobbies - probably a factor behind my current dive into governance and queer reality tv shows over rereading Oscar Wilde's essays and architecture, two other interests I could see myself pursuing if they were not tinged by loneliness.
I would be interested in knowing how other people make decisions on what to engage with. I wonder if they often chose one interest over an other so that they can fit in with a certain demographic or have something to talk about with their friends. I wonder if, as they engage with culture, they think "this will make me fit in more! This will make me a good friend!" I wonder also if they repress other interests because it is not useful, or if they fake interests to be included.