geekhack
geekhack Community => Off Topic => Topic started by: berserkfan on Wed, 28 January 2015, 10:31:16
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I don't know where to begin, frankly.
At the root of the problem is that I keep making silly purchases that are impulse, or plain unnecessary.
I keep overspending and getting into bad transactions. Such as getting scammed.
And I also am too soft. I'm the type of guy who finds it hard to say no to people, or find it hard to accuse people of telling lies even when it is so obvious that I am being cheated.
I avoid local forums. It's like every 3 times I get into a local transaction, I get cheated. In our local parlance Singlish, 'mint' means 'used for more than one year, with missing parts, no box, dust packed under keycaps'. I keep forgetting, and using the American definition of 'mint', except when I meet somebody and his 'mint' is not the American English 'mint', and he shamelessly assures me that it is 'mint', I wind up going along just because I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. Then I go home and under better lighting, I find that something is clearly 3 years or older. IE significantly not as described.
The strange thing is that I wind up in these kinds of deals when buying from people up front! But not when buying online (since I can file paypal complaint). In other words, I am screwed during the times when NOBODY should ever be screwed.
Feeling frustrated and depressed. How can I get rid of the bad habits of a lifetime? How can I stop impulse purchases, bad purchases, back out of dubious deals, become more assertive as a person, etc?
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A poor analogy could be compared to an alcoholic at a bar...you need to get out of the bar, get off the computer. Go do stuff outside..
The computer connects you to your impulse buys. Take a break, go somewhere. Don't want to sound direct/mean but you need to remove yourself from the temptations for a bit.
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Well.. that's kinda why they invented contracts..
Being assertive has nothing to do with it..
If you have a contract.. you have a contract..
If you fly by the seat... and buy something online such as a forum.. the most you can do is call them out on it, so other people won't trade with the dude no more..
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Wait three days after you look at something you want?
I mean... food items may be out of the question, however many of the food items you buy could be non-essential.
You could also dump a third of your income into a savings account so that you think you have less money than what you really have.
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A poor analogy could be compared to an alcoholic at a bar...you need to get out of the bar, get off the computer. Go do stuff outside..
The computer connects you to your impulse buys. Take a break, go somewhere. Don't want to sound direct/mean but you need to remove yourself from the temptations for a bit.
This is not the solution..
Leaving the computer is not an option..
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Wait three days after you look at something you want?
I mean... food items may be out of the question, however many of the food items you buy could be non-essential.
You could also dump a third of your income into a savings account so that you think you have less money than what you really have.
As hard as it sounds, I think FrostyToast had a great idea
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A poor analogy could be compared to an alcoholic at a bar...you need to get out of the bar, get off the computer. Go do stuff outside..
The computer connects you to your impulse buys. Take a break, go somewhere. Don't want to sound direct/mean but you need to remove yourself from the temptations for a bit.
nONONO digi, I don't have such a problem when at the computer! For instance, I do negotiate prices hard with people when online, and I have even filed complaints against a couple ghers in the past. I'm not that much of a pushover when I have my trusty keyboard under my fingertips.
The problem is up-front transactions. I am VERY bad with these. In our local versions of craigs' lists I always get screwed. The same thing that won't get me screwed when online (since I will read reviews and ask people and sometimes research a seller's reputation and exhibit heck lots of patience before I enter a buy), I get screwed when it's up front, when someone's doing the hard sell thing, when I can't just say wait a moment let me do the research on my phone, when I'm faced with something worth less than half the price online... I'm terrible and keep losing money that way.
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Just decide to stop spending on impulse. Haha
It can be done, I have done it, but I always get sucked back in.
But really, just decide that you aren't going to buy something unless you really need it. Every time you start to make a purchase, ask youself, "Do I really NEED this, or do I just WANT it?"
To avoid scams, try and listen to your gut more. If something seems too good to be true, it is. And if something gives you a shady feeling about a deal, just stop right there. No need to go through with things just to be polite. They sure aren't being polite by trying to pull something over on you.
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Well, then your problem isn't transactions in particular..
It's social anxiety.. LOL
I had a buddy a while back, he was very social anxious.. But after he finally got a GF, it really made him open up..
I asked the GF, how she did it.. She was pretty open about this, and the answer actually surprised me.. Her words were, " I just let him do things to me, things that are more animal-istic, and the mentality has translates toward other things. "
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Just decide to stop spending on impulse. Haha
It can be done, I have done it, but I always get sucked back in.
But really, just decide that you aren't going to buy something unless you really need it. Every time you start to make a purchase, ask youself, "Do I really NEED this, or do I just WANT it?"
To avoid scams, try and listen to your gut more. If something seems too good to be true, it is. And if something gives you a shady feeling about a deal, just stop right there. No need to go through with things just to be polite. They sure aren't being polite by trying to pull something over on you.
This is sound advice and I would add to it something I've started doing lately that I've seen suggested many times, if you really think you want something wait a day or two and come back and re-evaluate your desire for that item.
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Just decide to stop spending on impulse. Haha
It can be done, I have done it, but I always get sucked back in.
But really, just decide that you aren't going to buy something unless you really need it. Every time you start to make a purchase, ask youself, "Do I really NEED this, or do I just WANT it?"
To avoid scams, try and listen to your gut more. If something seems too good to be true, it is. And if something gives you a shady feeling about a deal, just stop right there. No need to go through with things just to be polite. They sure aren't being polite by trying to pull something over on you.
This is sound advice and I would add to it something I've started doing lately that I've seen suggested many times, if you really think you want something wait a day or two and come back and re-evaluate your desire for that item.
Impulse buy is always gonna be there, but the op is OK with impulse-buying, he's not ok with the Exchange process..
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Every time you start to make a purchase, ask youself, "Do I really NEED this, or do I just WANT it?"
I do this a lot now and it's really helping. I usually sleep on it and can reason not buying it after that.
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TP4, it’s not quite social anxiety.
There’s a side of me that’s much more (I guess you can call it) Chinese, and it pops up by default in social interactions (social conditioning?).
For instance, I am nonconfrontational in daily interactions. I like Harmony and Being Harmonious. I give face to people. I want to ‘get along’. I am loathe to tell (or show, via body language or actions), someone that what he says simply does not gel with my observed reality. Which means I don’t point out that he’s bs-ing me, I don’t walk off, and I let him lead me by the nose.
That is very frustrating to cure.
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Wah you make me worry of your impression of me :(
Anyways, just say no. I've learnt not to be 好好先生 anymore.
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haha.. essentially what you're saying is, there's too much rice in your diet??
Ramen may not be the solution here either, 'to my dismay', too Kor/Jap
You need some 'Murica... Steak and Freedom Fries..
+ Hit the Gym.. also.. that girlfriend thing.. It really really helped my friend.. he's been quite a different person since..
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For instance, I am nonconfrontational in daily interactions. I like Harmony and Being Harmonious. I give face to people. I want to ‘get along’. I am loathe to tell (or show, via body language or actions), someone that what he says simply does not gel with my observed reality. Which means I don’t point out that he’s bs-ing me, I don’t walk off, and I let him lead me by the nose.
Remember, there is no harmony without conflict. Nature fights itself to find balance. It is only through that continuous struggle with others and coming to live with the surrounding that it is possible to be in harmony with the world around you.
I am not saying that you need to be an angry bitter *******, but that there is often resolution and greater harmony found as a result of conflict. Those couples that have the strongest relationships are those who are not afraid of conflict and who learn how to engage that conflict in a way that creates a beneficial resolution.
Being harmonious does not mean not engaging in conflict, it means learning when that conflict is appropriate and when it will create greater good and harmony. It does not mean being a push over.
Just look at what you said here, the ardent desire to have harmony with others no matter what is causing disharmony in yourself. You would not be feeling depressed and distraught if you did not have a struggle within yourself about how you feel and realizing that your emotions and well being are suffering without good reason or cause.
But enough with the new-agey sounding stuff.
Others have given good ideas, but I'd recommend practicing conflict and conflict resolution. Maybe have family or friends challenge you and learn how to be more assertive in that practice. Maybe do public speaking or debate. Take business classes or barter with people in a market or swap meet. Find some way where you can be more assertive and learn how to challenge things in a beneficial way.
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Zen master nubbinator.
(http://i.imgur.com/y32AgJf.gif)
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Remember, there is no harmony without conflict. Nature fights itself to find balance. It is only through that continuous struggle with others and coming to live with the surrounding that it is possible to be in harmony with the world around you.
I am not saying that you need to be an angry bitter *******, but that there is often resolution and greater harmony found as a result of conflict. Those couples that have the strongest relationships are those who are not afraid of conflict and who learn how to engage that conflict in a way that creates a beneficial resolution.
Being harmonious does not mean not engaging in conflict, it means learning when that conflict is appropriate and when it will create greater good and harmony. It does not mean being a push over.
Just look at what you said here, the ardent desire to have harmony with others no matter what is causing disharmony in yourself. You would not be feeling depressed and distraught if you did not have a struggle within yourself about how you feel and realizing that your emotions and well being are suffering without good reason or cause.
But enough with the new-agey sounding stuff.
Others have given good ideas, but I'd recommend practicing conflict and conflict resolution. Maybe have family or friends challenge you and learn how to be more assertive in that practice. Maybe do public speaking or debate. Take business classes or barter with people in a market or swap meet. Find some way where you can be more assertive and learn how to challenge things in a beneficial way.
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(http://weknowmemes.com/generator/uploads/generated/g1333334785716704927.jpg)
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I hate price negotiation.
As a person who has made my living in "sales" for decades, I have been successful when my situation did not involve price negotiation, and have always failed spectacularly when significant price negotiations were required.
I tell a prospective customer, up front, that I will give him the best price that I can, and that it is not negotiable. The people who I am successful with appreciate my honesty, and we can have an open and productive dialogue throughout the project.
People who do not take me at my word, and still attempt to negotiate price, are thus insulting me and I resent it. I rarely win their business, but it does not bother me. They were likely to be customers who would have been "trouble" all along, and, perhaps, might have even attempted to re-negotiate the deal even after it was agreed on.
It is my belief that "price negotiation" is a mechanism by which dishonest people are able to do business together.
I believe that the entire process is founded on, and carried out in dishonesty.
Let's look at an example where I have an item for sale.
Buyer asks: "what is the least that you will take for it?"
Seller replies: "$100"
Buyer (to himself: "he is lying, he will take less") "I won't pay over $70"
Seller (to himself: "he knew that I was lying, but he is lying also") "I would take $90"
Buyer: "I can give you $80"
Seller: "I will take $85"
Both: "OK"
Buyer (to himself: "I wonder if he would have really taken $80?")
Seller (to himself: "I wonder whether he would have really given me $90?")
To me, this was not an honorable transaction and neither party is truly happy.
The first thing that I learned, on the first day of my first sales training class, is that the definition of a good business transaction is that both parties believe that they received a fair deal. That has always been the ideal that I look for in my dealings with other people: giving and receiving fairness.
The only way that this can work, in real life, is when you are willing to walk away from any deal that you do not feel is right. In the absence of "external forces" this is usually pretty easy.
But, as a seller, if you "must sell" then you have to accept the possibility of letting your product go for less than its true value, because you are under duress. You need to think carefully about what you can and cannot allow.
As a buyer, if you are casually walking along and something "catches your eye" then it is easy to simply keep on walking.
But, on the other hand, the more time, energy, emotion, and effort that you have invested in a deal, the harder it will be to let go when it seems close to being consummated.
My final advice is to try to mentally prepare yourself to walk away from any deal, any time.
Besides, if you are going against a price negotiator, that is the only way you will really hear his best offer!
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I hate price negotiation.
My final advice is to try to mentally prepare yourself to walk away from any deal, any time.
Besides, if you are going against a price negotiator, that is the only way you will really hear his best offer!
I agree with that whole post Fohat. I will walk away even if it's something I really would like to have. I make my best offer, and if they don't take it, it's their loss. Sometimes I am disappointed, but I am not going to go through a bunch of hassle with a reluctant seller either. I can't look at it like "I'm so depressed". There are always good opportunities for everything.
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May I offer you a piece of advice that I follow myself?
Before making any sort of purchase, I research everything I can about it and make sure I really want it, then after that:
SLEEP.
Sleep for a night, and make the decision the morning after.
If you still like the item as much as you did the night before, then by all means, buy it.
Always sleep on it, before making a purchase, unless you don't have the time.
I understand some purchases require speed, but for those that don't (such as a GB you have a week to think about), sleep on it.
I hope this helps.
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learn how to say NO to people, especially in the case when you're in position to get screwed over.
Also when you're contacting these people prior to meeting up, be blunt and say, "hey if the item is not as described, I am going to back out of the deal no matter what. Our time is precious, so don't waste my time and I won't waste yours." Be firm on that sentiment, so hold yourself to it. If the item is not as described, then back out immediately. Tell em thank you, but the item is not as described, sorry no can do, adios (in your own language of course). Be polite but curt. More importantly you'll feel better because you didn't waver and be undermined by some chump trying to poke u in the butt.
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Or bring a Gun.. Nothing says confidence as GUN..
n'fact, he might just let you have the thing you were trying to buy for free if he sees you got a nice gun.
hahahahhaa.. jkjkjk
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I avoid local forums. It's like every 3 times I get into a local transaction, I get cheated. In our local parlance Singlish, 'mint' means 'used for more than one year, with missing parts, no box, dust packed under keycaps'. I keep forgetting, and using the American definition of 'mint', except when I meet somebody and his 'mint' is not the American English 'mint', and he shamelessly assures me that it is 'mint', I wind up going along just because I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. Then I go home and under better lighting, I find that something is clearly 3 years or older. IE significantly not as described.
The strange thing is that I wind up in these kinds of deals when buying from people up front! But not when buying online (since I can file paypal complaint). In other words, I am screwed during the times when NOBODY should ever be screwed.
Feeling frustrated and depressed. How can I get rid of the bad habits of a lifetime? How can I stop impulse purchases, bad purchases, back out of dubious deals, become more assertive as a person, etc?
I'm from Singapore too. People always rate things as 10/10 even if the item ia used for 1 year. That's why I always post a photo of the item's current condition before selling, photos don't lie.
You need to start turning people down if the item is not up to your expectations.. Maybe start small, like getting your order redone at McDonalds if they screw up?
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I know that the Japanese have an aversion to overt social conflict. I was not aware the Chinese had a similar cultural trait. The way you talk about America, I first assumed you were an ex-pat afraid to be a rude foreigner to native Singaporeans. Now, I’m guessing you are American but with a strongly Chinese cultural upbringing (or Chinese who attended university in America). Regardless, I agree with Nubbinator. You need to practice the behaviors you want to cultivate in yourself. Telling you to just stop doing what you’re doing now is not helpful advice. If this was something you could just stop doing, you wouldn’t be posting here. But the fact that you are able to articulate your problem, your displeasure with it, and the root causes makes me confident that you are ready to put in the effort to make a change.
I’m not a therapist and I don’t know the particulars of your life, nor do I need to know them, but I would suggest starting with some more self-reflection. You’ve already identified cultural forces that make it difficult for you to be more assertive and situations where you find this problem arises (face to face social interactions). Ask yourself if there are any other circumstances in your life that you think make it difficult to be assertive – events from your childhood, for example. Again, I don’t need to know details nor am I suggesting that there is anything more to your situation other than what you’ve told us. But asking yourself why and what and how may help you better understand why you have that problem and may give you some insight on how to address it. “Why do I feel this way?” or “Why do I do this?” or “What is it about this event that caused me to feel this way?” or “How did this affect me?” or are some examples of questions you can ask yourself. I’ve gone through periods where I’ve asked myself these questions and, for me, it was mentally exhausting but worth it. Try keeping a journal about this process. The act of writing down your thoughts has a powerful effect on the process and, as you make revelations about yourself, you can review your past entries to refresh your memory or get meta and see how accurate your assessment was at that time (examining your examination, as it were).
If you’re pretty sure you’ve got a good understanding of your problem, you can skip the self-examination and take Nubbinator’s advice. Practice being more assertive. Find people who will help you role play situations where you wish you could be more assertive. Also, try some visualization on your own. Imagine yourself standing face to face with someone for an exchange. Imagine that there is some very minor issue with the item that you don’t like, such as the color is just a slight shade different than it was in the photo. It would be too easy to walk away from a major issue such as missing pieces. In your mind, make that slight difference important enough to you to decline the deal. Imagine yourself telling the seller that it’s not quite what you were looking for (or something like that). Then, imagine yourself in a situation where there is nothing wrong with the item you are looking to buy but that you simply changed your mind by the time you got to the location of the exchange. Again, imagine yourself telling the seller that it’s not what you are looking for or that something’s come up and you have to pass. You do not need to be specific about why you are backing out; you are not obligated to give the seller the personal details of your life. Try imagining situations where the seller is understanding and you part ways amicably. Try imagining situations where the seller is irate and demands you buy the item. Don’t imagine yourself buying the item, though. Whatever the circumstance, end the transaction on your terms. Once you successfully incorporate that behavior in your real life, don’t be afraid to negotiate the price if you feel the seller misrepresented the item but you still want it.
I’m a believer in the power of writing. I would suggest writing down some of these situations as if you were recalling something that actually happened to you. I would also suggest writing down real-life situations where you were not satisfied because you were not assertive. When recalling real-life situations, I would suggest engaging in a deeper self-examination and asking yourself how you felt at that time, what made you feel that way, why you didn’t do something to change the situation, and what could you have done to make it so you did not regret what happened. Maybe try writing the down how events of the transaction actually occurred, then write down an account of how the transaction would have occurred if you had behaved more assertively.
I wish you success in changing your behavior. If this doesn’t work, you can practice pretending you are Luke Skywalker using the Jedi mind trick on Bib Fortuna in Jabba’s palace —“You will take me to Jabba now.” I hope this helps. If not, you can always practice being assertive now and tell me I’m full of s**t and to f*** off.
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chinese people being polite in a business transaction...? we're talking about mainlanders? wat. like wtfzorzBBQ!!!!111! wat. first time i've ever heard anyone even suggest that.
proper negotiation requires being able to read the other person's expectations. although, this is really just the fundamental basis of social interactions in general.
a 'grand theory' is rather difficult to express (if it exists). learning business and specifically how to negotiate (and how to spot a scam) involves learning one 'trick' per occasion. you need to PRACTICE to get good at it.
when people first start learning to be more aggressive, they tend to overdo it. they should rather just split the difference between the sticker price and their target price. that's a much more conservative goal that will likely have the other party staying invested in the negotiation for a longer period of time (this is good for the learner - simply saying words enough times will help you get over your nerves). yes, you likely WILL lose potential savings, but learning isn't necessarily free.
also, please don't try to negotiate with a multinational company...not going to work; not the time and place for it.
talking more in general now:
negotiating is a competition and fun for quite a few people. the time spent is time spent entertained. this entertainment value gets added to the value of the product and the negotiated price reductions.
EDIT:
tip #2: don't think that you ALWAYS have to negotiate down a price. negotiation takes energy and if you do it for pennies at a time, you're really losing money in they end if you don't happen to personally enjoy the process.
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Open a bank account with an old school style bank
Put your money there
Leave it unlinked from Paypal / Google Wallet
Get a bank pass book
If you *really* want or need something, you will go thru the effort to get what you want, as getting to your money will be harder.
If you do not *really* want or need it, you won't bother with it.
I went from burning tons of income to saving almost instantly.
It will help a lot more if you direct your income to that bank and make a weekly withdrawl for cash to keep you going.
Personally it took this barrier to end impulse purchases and made me re-evaluate my spending in such a way as to actually make me do *more* research into the things i wanted to get for myself to make sure it was exactly what i wanted.
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Enjoy your hard earned depression :p .
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Hello all
Thank you for your responses.
I haven’t read more than half. I’m emotionally drained right now. The issues go deeper than that, as you may have figured by now. Call it mid life crisis if you want, but I’m very unhappy that many issues in my life were never resolved, and that while when working a normal routine these issues are hidden, they pop up when there is a change to my routine – such as when I have an exchange with someone outside the workplace and family, where I am confronted with facts that are not what I expected, and where I am led about by the nose by someone who isn’t even some kind of master liar/ manipulator/ psychopath dominator.
You can guess some of the personal issues. Such as confidence, personal interactions, etc. Obviously I don’t want to air all my personal feelings in public, but it’s obvious to me that I am still far from being wise and cautious and patient and savvy and disciplined and all the other things I like to talk about in theory (and which I do manage to practice occasionally online).
I think I need a break from geekhack. The problem is not the people here (you’re wonderful, or at least many of you). It’s with the Geek mindset. I’m not an investment banker, a lawyer or a military guy – but I need their type of mental training to avoid being a pushover!
Maybe I ought to be hanging around in some shark forums. Then I'll pick up some shark skills and instincts and habits and ways of thinking, instead of being that easily bullied geek who'd give in to other people's aggressive hard sell.
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Thank you (and intelli78) for having the courage to talk about your problems. Before I elaborate, let me say that I have not been active here very long and I may not have a good understanding of the community. I certainly don't have a complete understanding. Having said that, I like GeekHack but it's had this odd sort of feeling for me. Someone (or some people) is always buying something or telling someone else to buy something. It seems like some specific people are constantly buying things. I couldn't really identify what felt odd about GeekHack, but now that you and intelli78 have shared your problems, it's shed some light on my feelings. GeekHack can have something of a reality distortion field at times. Not like Apple's RDF, GeekHack sometimes feels like a fantasy land, with people posting new keyboards, new keycaps, new PCBs all the time. Now, I see how GeekHack can support the type of environment where compulsive shoppers can attempt to fill their needs or even enable each other. I'm not a compulsive shopper but I am a tech fiend and I can hear the sweet siren song of new keyboards, Korean keyboards, custom keyboards waiting to be assembled by my own hands, custom keycap sets, split-layouts, Topre, Alps, Ergo Clears, and capacitive buckling springs. Just typing out those words is enough to make me feel like this guy.
[attach=1]
For someone who loves keyboards and has a compulsive need to shop for a constantly changing selection of novel stuff, GeekHack must be heaven (Type Heaven?). It's easy for me to avoid falling into that trap because my funds are limited (stupid vehicle expenses hacked my wallet) but, given a different set of circumstances, I can't say I wouldn't go on a keyboard shopping binge. You and intelli78 have encouraged me to approach my future binge with much introspection (oh, who the hell am I kidding? I'm going to buy at least 4 more keyboards when I can afford it). I'm not attacking GeekHack; it's a wonderful place with wonderful people that do and produce many wonderful things. But there is an aspect to it that can enable some less-than-desirable behaviors in people who are prone to those behaviors. Guns don't kill people. People kill people (but they use guns to do it). GeekHack doesn't hack wallets. People hack wallets (but they use GeekHack to do it).
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when I have an exchange with someone outside the workplace and family, where I am confronted with facts that are not what I expected, and where I am led about by the nose by someone who isn�t even some kind of master liar/ manipulator/ psychopath dominator.
I think I need a break from geekhack. The problem is not the people here (you�re wonderful, or at least many of you). It�s with the Geek mindset. I�m not an investment banker, a lawyer or a military guy � but I need their type of mental training to avoid being a pushover!
I'm surprised you don't have any master liar/ manipulator/ psychopath dominator at your workplace or in your family.
If you are getting scammed all the time in local trades, stop dealing locally. If you want to avoid conflict, avoid getting into these situations altogether.
If you want to curb your spending, like many others have said, don't by what you don't need. I mean who really *NEEDS* a mechanical keyboard right? :))
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i see "feeling depressed" in the subject line please accept this hug from me
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I don't know where to begin, frankly.
At the root of the problem is that I keep making silly purchases that are impulse, or plain unnecessary.
I keep overspending and getting into bad transactions. Such as getting scammed.
And I also am too soft. I'm the type of guy who finds it hard to say no to people, or find it hard to accuse people of telling lies even when it is so obvious that I am being cheated.
I avoid local forums. It's like every 3 times I get into a local transaction, I get cheated. In our local parlance Singlish, 'mint' means 'used for more than one year, with missing parts, no box, dust packed under keycaps'. I keep forgetting, and using the American definition of 'mint', except when I meet somebody and his 'mint' is not the American English 'mint', and he shamelessly assures me that it is 'mint', I wind up going along just because I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. Then I go home and under better lighting, I find that something is clearly 3 years or older. IE significantly not as described.
The strange thing is that I wind up in these kinds of deals when buying from people up front! But not when buying online (since I can file paypal complaint). In other words, I am screwed during the times when NOBODY should ever be screwed.
Feeling frustrated and depressed. How can I get rid of the bad habits of a lifetime? How can I stop impulse purchases, bad purchases, back out of dubious deals, become more assertive as a person, etc?
isn't it because of the chinese culture of not saying no?
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We're gonna need to start like a Geekhack therapy/financial advice forum or something. Gosh.
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yeah guys, you are so damaged.
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yeah guys, you are so damaged.
The years of therapy haven't helped.
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yeah guys, you are so damaged.
Snow tha Product is awesome.
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We're gonna need to start like a Geekhack therapy/financial advice forum or something. Gosh.
The Way-of-the-Ramen.. (http://s4.postimage.org/1gbhy4x2c/th_22.gif)
Solves both problems..
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yeah guys, you are so damaged.
The years of therapy haven't helped.
You've had YEARS of therapy ? Rich-bastard... the rest of us just inebriate and eat junk food.
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yeah guys, you are so damaged.
The years of therapy haven't helped.
You've had YEARS of therapy ? Rich-bastard... the rest of us just inebriate and eat junk food.
[attachimg=1]
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It is my belief that "price negotiation" is a mechanism by which dishonest people are able to do business together. I believe that the entire process is founded on, and carried out in dishonesty. Let's look at an example where I have an item for sale.
[haggling example, where supposedly both parties are "lying" and think the other is also "lying"]
To me, this was not an honorable transaction and neither party is truly happy.
This is purely a matter of your cultural expectations, and the set of values you were raised with. If you spend some time in other parts of the world, and keep an open mind, you’ll see that other people think of haggling in a dramatically different way.
To many, haggling is a fun game, and is undertaken with no ill intent and no hard feelings. It’s a fairly natural outcome when you have a small scale market with no great source of information about universal prices or what each side is actually willing to put up with, and no large operators backed up by economies of scale that small-timers can’t match. In the US, most small purchases are made at retail stores, where the sales clerks have no personal stake in the transaction, there is a clear sticker price on every item, the prices are generally small enough to not bankrupt a middle-class person, and it is easy to compare prices across stores.
As a result, middle-class Americans have a set of cultural norms/values that see negotiations as distasteful.
(Instead of negotiating prices individually, the way large American corporations eke out extra profit is by constantly changing their prices, figuring out how to make slightly different products at different price points to draw different customers, sticking weird items in the small print of contracts, tacking on lots of extra hidden fees, making it difficult for people to cancel recurring payments, or at a less personal scale figuring out how to do arbitrage of supply costs, taxes, various financial instruments, etc.)
It’s only when you get to big-ticket negotiations like furniture, car, or house purchases, or salary negotiations, business deals, political compromises, etc. where you start getting real negotiations. Suddenly, people with middle-class American values are at a huge disadvantage and end up getting screwed over because they don’t have any idea how to negotiate and they think the whole thing seems sleazy.
The way I see it, the set of American middle-class values that see negotiation as wrong is basically a way of smoothing and simplifying many types of transactions, at the expense of never really figuring out the best deal for either side. We make prices a more rigid abstraction than they necessarily have to be, because it’s then easier for us to reason about individual transactions, saving effort. It’s a strategy that only works for middle-class people, because they have enough extra income cushion that losing the deal won’t be catastrophic, and they aren’t very commonly purchasing expensive items that might break the bank. This set of values is a sort of cushion or bubble. It breaks down fast for very poor people who can’t afford it, or for anyone in institutional leadership roles where negotiations really matter. As a result, all the “fair-dealing” folks get squashed out of such roles, and the people left tend to not only be better at negotiation, but also have a much looser set of moral principles overall and less empathy, and at the top levels of business and politics &c. we get a lot of sociopaths. I don’t have great evidence about this, but I have a hunch that the distaste for negotiation among middle-class Americans actually leads us to have worse leaders than we would have if more people had experience and understanding of how to negotiate, because there would be more people who were both good negotiators and had strong moral principles.
I have an Iranian friend who is one of the most upright, loyal, straight-shooting guys I know, but who is a masterful negotiator, because in Iran the custom is to haggle for sport. He constantly gets all kinds of amazing deals on stuff that I would never even try to negotiate for, just by going and asking and being persistent about it. The folks on the other side of his negotiation never obviously end up feeling scammed as far as I can tell, though they might get tired of it if everyone tried to do the same thing.
In particular, it’s not at all necessary for negotiations to be adversarial, aggressive, or underhanded. All the best negotiators I know drive a hard bargain, but are also looking to make deals where the other side ends up happy, not resentful, and are creative about offering up “out of the box” solutions to negotiation problems.
My final advice is to try to mentally prepare yourself to walk away from any deal, any time.
This is good advice for anyone. If anyone wants to read more complete theoretical work about this, the term to look up is best alternative to a negotiated agreement, BATNA.
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yeah guys, you are so damaged.
The years of therapy haven't helped.
You've had YEARS of therapy ? Rich-bastard... the rest of us just inebriate and eat junk food.
I consider alcoholism to be a form of therapy.
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yeah guys, you are so damaged.
The years of therapy haven't helped.
You've had YEARS of therapy ? Rich-bastard... the rest of us just inebriate and eat junk food.
I consider alcoholism to be a form of therapy.
Absolutely.
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Jacobolus -
I thought through my response to your post, but then recognized that I cannot quote you.
When things are not "fun" to me, I avoid them if possible. Life is simply too short.
And I do not have any respect for the sort of persons who consider "haggling over money" to be "fun"
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If you spend some time in other parts of the world, and keep an open mind, you’ll see that other people think of haggling in a dramatically different way.
Granted, the time I have spent outside of the US would total only about 4 months, but I consider myself to be an exceptionally open-minded person. In fact, I consider myself to pretty much be the equivalent of an ageing, unreconstructed hippie.
And thus, I perceive emotions such as greed, power-lust, and materialism to be ugly and evil, representing some of the very worst aspects of human behavior.
So, bottom line, to me, people who think of haggling in a dramatically different way are simply **** people, little better than animals.
And as to your political analogy, as horrific and unconscionable as the recent US elections turned out to be, the Chinese, who might be considered the "best negotiators" in the world, certainly have one of the the worst political structures. But would that be because the "good negotiators" have utterly squashed the "bad negotiators?" You may be right, and I fear that is where we are headed, if we are not buried first.
Just my opinion, of course.
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people realize that when they say they are something...doesn't actually mke it true right?
for example, an iranian spy can say 'i am an american citizen' and that doesn't actually make him an american citizen.
or an axe murderer on cctv can just plead 'not guilty' and walk away an innocent man. reality be damned amirite.
not my opinion. just reality.
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And I do not have any respect for the sort of persons who consider "haggling over money" to be "fun"
And thus, I perceive emotions such as greed, power-lust, and materialism to be ugly and evil, representing some of the very worst aspects of human behavior.
So, bottom line, to me, people who think of haggling in a dramatically different way are simply **** people, little better than animals.
I also personally don’t like doing intense negotiation, I find it very mentally taxing and stressful, and I have a hard time in places where it’s expected/required to do lots of negotiation for stuff that seems routine or trivial. It makes me feel very much like an outsider.
But that’s because I was also raised with middle-class American values, and never really had to do much explicit negotiation in my day-to-day life.
What I’m trying to tell you is that people who enjoy haggling aren’t necessarily greedy, power-hungry, or even especially materialistic. They just do it as a game, and what I find stressful and annoying they find to be an interesting and engaging set of challenges.
I think it’s very unproductive to label people as “****” or “animals” just because they have a different set of cultural norms. In particular, the biggest problem isn’t usually people in their own societies interacting with their own cultural norms and values. The biggest problem is when people of differing cultural expectations interact with each-other and end up with severe misunderstandings of each-other.
There are plenty of aspects of American middle-class culture that people from Japan, or the Middle East, or West Africa, or even England, find to be unusual, confusing, distasteful, or in some cases morally reprehensible, “ugly and evil”.
If making a ranking of ugly/evil things in the world, haggling over prices when buying fruit or artisan goods (or keyboards, cars, salaries or even congressional votes [I mean via political compromise, not personal bribes]) is pretty far down my list of things to worry about. Much worse is when there’s actual explicit lying, extortion, fraud, broken contractual promises, or real corruption like political votes being bought off by campaign donations, executive appointees retiring and being given plum jobs in the industries they were regulating, or obvious injustice like people being denied jobs/housing/etc. because of their gender or skin color. Not to even mention civilians being bombed, slavery, people being jailed without fair trial, torture, collective punishment, etc. etc.
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I used to be a pushover in much the same way as you are. I had a hard time saying no, I had a hard time calling anyone out, and I even sometimes had a hard time disagreeing with people. For me, the issue has gotten better with time and practice. I don't know if it will be the same for you, but I can say that practice is something you should consider. Start online, say no to people, call people out on stuff; it's just easier here. Then transition into real life and do the same things you've done on here. Say no, and say it with confidence. Your issue is totally solvable. Just gotta work at it, and you'll get the hang of it before too long.
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I used to be a pushover in much the same way as you are. I had a hard time saying no, I had a hard time calling anyone out, and I even sometimes had a hard time disagreeing with people. For me, the issue has gotten better with time and practice. I don't know if it will be the same for you, but I can say that practice is something you should consider. Start online, say no to people, call people out on stuff; it's just easier here. Then transition into real life and do the same things you've done on here. Say no, and say it with confidence. Your issue is totally solvable. Just gotta work at it, and you'll get the hang of it before too long.
^This is more to the point and probably addresses the underlying issue beserk has.
One part of is you probably just aren't confident in yourself for one reason or another.
The other part is just you don't know how to negotiate and deal with high-paced pressure sales (let's say hustlers) in a swap/meet environment.
The rest of you guys are just ****ting out of your ass with this bull**** ridiculous cultural stuff.
You guys are mixing things up and giving examples that don't even make sense.
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You guys are mixing things up and giving examples that don't even make sense.
Well our conversation is off topic for sure.
Berserkfan’s specific issue seems to be buying from people who misrepresent what they have and are trying to cheat him. Whereas what fohat and I are talking about is something quite different.
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And as to your political analogy, as horrific and unconscionable as the recent US elections turned out to be, the Chinese, who might be considered the "best negotiators" in the world, certainly have one of the the worst political structures. But would that be because the "good negotiators" have utterly squashed the "bad negotiators?" You may be right, and I fear that is where we are headed, if we are not buried first.
Just my opinion, of course.
Just to nit pick a little.
This is what I mean by cultural bull****.
China is the best negotiator because they're a new rising power.
They hold most of our debt and they can use that to leverage concessions out of us.
The US on the other hand can't get it's **** together so the EU, which is in financial shambles, is looking to China to borrow some moolah.
China is also trying to soft power Africa as the cherry on top.
This has nothing to do with culture. China wants to explain its influence and is more willingly to lend out money. The USA on the other hand
It's more like we're entering the game with our hands tied behind our back and China just has a better hand right now.
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Discipline Daniel san!
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China is the best negotiator because they're a new rising power.
They hold most of our debt and they can use that to leverage concessions out of us.
The US on the other hand can't get it's **** together so the EU, which is in financial shambles, is looking to China to borrow some moolah.
China is also trying to soft power Africa as the cherry on top.
You’re talking about different things, but this is also pretty wrong. China doesn’t have nearly as much leverage over the US as you are claiming here. Indeed, China’s economy is hopelessly dependent on foreign demand for Chinese products, and the Chinese government buying up US debt mostly implies greater faith in US bonds than other places they could park their money instead plus Chinese interest in keeping pressure on currency exchange rates to benefit their exporters, and doesn’t give them particularly much leverage. China absolutely does not “hold most of our debt” (They own about 10% of total U.S. public debt). Most US bonds are owned by Americans, and there are also substantial amounts owned by people all around the world. Recently, China has been trying to reduce the amount of US bonds they own, in an effort to diversify their holdings.
If you think China has more influence in the world overall than the US does, you’re delusional. (At least currently... I have no idea what the story will be like in 20 or 50 years.) Anyway, that’s mostly unrelated to what fohat is talking about.
Fohat: I don’t think the rise of Chinese ruling business/political class has much to do with negotiating prowess or cultural attitudes toward negotiation per se as much as just inheriting a very centralized and undemocratic state, where the folks in charge figured out a couple decades ago that by privatizing national industry they could turn political connections into private fortunes. This is less about negotiating skill and more about being in the right place at the right time, and having little organized effective opposition. I think the Chinese governing style is mostly about hard material realities of political power, wealth, and ownership of capital.
People try to do the same **** in the US (some very successfully), but on the whole there’s much less of this than in China because in the US economic and political power is more broadly distributed, the US is overall richer, regulatory and political institutions which try to curb abuses are much better developed, and there’s much better press freedom, freedom of association, etc. in the US. Unfortunately, in my opinion the US is moving in the wrong direction on a lot of this stuff, and our society is becoming more politically and economically unequal and power is becoming more centralized. I don’t have any idea how to reverse these trends, and I find them very scary. I think if we don’t see a big correction life could get really really hard for a large number of Americans in another 15 or 20 years, much harder than today.
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(At least currently... I have no idea what the story will be like in 20 or 50 years.)
Well, that booming economy of theirs should slow down now that their workers are actually demanding (and starting to get) liveable wages, which will hurt factories abilities to shovel junk out the door for next-o-nothing
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Jacobolus -
I very much agree with you on the macro level. Ever-increasing concentration of wealth and power has never been successfully sustained in the long-term, and the short-term consequences can be devastating, especially as the back side of the curve slides down.
On the personal level, as a 10th-generation middle-class American myself, your observation:
The biggest problem is when people of differing cultural expectations interact with each-other and end up with severe misunderstandings of each-other.
There are plenty of aspects of American middle-class culture that people from Japan, or the Middle East, or West Africa, or even England, find to be unusual, confusing, distasteful, or in some cases morally reprehensible, “ugly and evil”.
is absolutely true.
I am generally "soft" on immigration and do not have much problem with people coming to America with the intention of becoming Americans. Until recently, assimilation was usually looked upon as an ideal to be accomplished swiftly and efficiently.
But even as a proud "bleeding-heart liberal" I am disturbed when I see immigrants bring their (mostly primitive, ignorant, in my opinion) third-world values here and wear them on their sleeves for generations.
And if I feel this way, it comes as no surprise that the "white backlash" of the real haters is 2+ orders of magnitude worse.
But the real poison that escalates something like this from being a socio-political debate is the injection of religion, which each faction uses to legitimize their own attitudes, and sometimes even empower them to go to any lengths, up to and including murder, to assert their worldview and "cleanse" society of people who are different.
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Here are some aspects of mainstream middle-class American culture that I think various other cultural groups find odd/distasteful/ugly (all of these are huge generalizations/stereotypes which obviously don’t apply to everyone, and also can be said about other places):
* We work ourselves to death, even those who make all the money they need. There’s a pervasive cultural idea that “any time I’m not working is being wasted”, and so Americans work longer hours and take fewer vacation days than anyone, and when they do vacation, they bring their work along. We have the least parental leave of anyone in the developed world.
* We buy all kinds of **** we can’t afford. We buy houses that are too big, cars that are too big, all kinds of furniture and clothing and gadgets that we don’t need. We take debt we can’t afford and pay for everything with credit cards. We’re terrible at financial planning and saving money.
* We have a very weak concept of family, especially extended family. Many families hardly spend time together except to watch TV, or hang out in the same space working or playing on their own screens. Kids are sent to daycare from a very young age or in rich families are cared for by nannies because parents don’t have the time to raise them. Our families disperse widely around the country, rarely to come together. We leave our elderly relatives to rot away first in lonely houses and later in retirement homes / assisted living communities / hospitals. Many of them barely get visited.
* All of our infrastructure is designed around the automobile. We never walk anywhere, because it’s almost impossible in many places. Owning a car in most of the US is an economic necessity, and people without cars (kids, old people, poor people, disabled people, visiting foreigners, etc.) are screwed. We have almost no real transit infrastructure, and our cities are seas of parking lots and highways.
* We sexualize young children, especially young girls, starting from when they’re toddlers. All of our toys are gendered and many are designed to reflect and perpetuate harmful stereotypes. We have sexualized beauty pageants for children. Even very young girls get their ears pierced, and have their hair and makeup done, and wear clothing designed to be sexy. In a broader way, we sexualize women’s bodies and fetishize a very particular body type, and constantly bombard everyone with images of sexualized women’s bodies in our media and advertising. The great majority of women feel like they are required to wear makeup daily, often to wear high heels, etc. Many women, especially young women, suffer low self esteem or sometimes severe depression based on their bodies, sometimes resulting in eating disorders.
* All of our cultural traditions are either designed as marketing tools, or have been coöpted by marketers, and are now crassly commercial. Every American holiday is now at heart a celebration of consumerism, shopping, and eating piles of candy.
* We eat an incredibly unhealthy diet, with ridiculous portion sizes, to the point that a huge percentage of people are obese.
* We have a broken healthcare system (yes, even after ACA) which is simultaneously the most expensive in the world, and one of the least effective in a developed country. People who get sick or injured can easily bankrupt themselves and their families.
* We make people pay ridiculous amounts for higher education, and as a result a large number of young people have crippling debt which they can’t ever erase.
I could keep going, but you get the idea...
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I agree with everything you said there, 100%
But those are all the things that we do to ourselves.
The off-topic / topic that was running before concerned how we treat strangers in business confrontations.
And whether it is more virtuous to strive for fairness and transparency or to gain maximum benefit to self (at the probable expense of others).
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The off-topic / topic that was running before concerned how we treat strangers in business confrontations.
You started talking about how “immigrants bring their (mostly primitive, ignorant, in my opinion) third-world values here and wear them on their sleeves for generations” and then about how they use religion to “empower them to go to any lengths, up to and including murder, to assert their worldview and "cleanse" society of people who are different”, neither of which has anything to do with business dealings with strangers. I think (a) you’re really mischaracterizing most, nearly all, all immigrants in the US in a very offensive way, and (b) calling people “primitive” because their value system differs is totally unhelpful. I was just trying to point out that there are some aspects of US culture that other people find similarly ugly.
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I think (a) you’re really mischaracterizing most
This really needs to stop. Your points have been well taken and I have been courteous, but I do not appreciate the way you surgically transformed your last two quotations to remove my carefully-placed qualifiers.
Leaving out my "I am disturbed when I see" condition made it sound like I was making a very general statement rather than a very specific one.
And to replace "and sometimes even empower them" with "to empower them" is more egregious.
* * * * *
And why is it that you can quote me, but I can't quote you, anyway?
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“I am disturbed when I see immigrants bring their (mostly primitive, ignorant, in my opinion) third-world values here and wear them on their sleeves for generations.” isn’t a narrowly qualified statement. I suppose in a logical sense, this means that there is one immigrant somewhere who meets these criteria and you are disturbed about it. But in regular plain conversation, this implies a sweeping generalization about some substantial portion of immigrants, something caused by their immigrant-ness that causes them to be disturbing. I am not trying to twist you words or misquote you, I was just shortening to fit it into the grammatical structure of my sentence.
I think first-generation immigrants, or later-generation immigrants, for the most part share similar flaws and foibles to everyone else. There are some unique things about them (for instance, immigrants tend to work really hard, are often a bit more materialistic, and often put greater pressure their children because “we came to give you a better future”, etc. etc.), but “primitive ignorance” isn’t in any of my experience more common among immigrants than among folks whose families came to the US in the mid-19th century.
Anyway, this is all neither here nor there.
As for why you can’t quote me, perhaps it’s some kind of bug in your web browser? Or it could just be that the forum software is broken.
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(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_fLG34tnw-QE/ShWGya6EwvI/AAAAAAAAAjY/M8WGIxx6VZM/s400/MJZ598.gif)
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isn’t a narrowly qualified statement.
this implies a sweeping generalization
This conversation is making me feel the way I do when I am haggling over a price against my will.
I used the word "when" to narrowly define my feeling - when I see a certain thing, I feel one way, and when I am not seeing that thing, I am not feeling that way.
My problem is trying to understand [existentially, mind you], why a person would immigrate to a country but try to bring the "old country" there with them. I know that there are strong memories and emotional ties that take a couple of generations to fade away, and that is fine, but, to quote Edison: "tradition is the greatest obstacle to progress"
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This conversation is making me feel the way I do when I am haggling over a price against my will.
Heh, fair enough. The internet is pretty bad for conversations. Sitting over a table with a couple of beers works much better.
My problem is trying to understand [existentially, mind you], why a person would immigrate to a country but try to bring the "old country" there with them. I know that there are strong memories and emotional ties that take a couple of generations to fade away, and that is fine, but, to quote Edison: "tradition is the greatest obstacle to progress"
There are as many reasons to immigrate as their are immigrants. Many are trying to escape the “old country” for one reason or another: for example because they can’t find a job, can’t support a family, don’t like the political system, don’t like the city organization, etc. But others just go traveling for the experience and fall in love with the new place or fall in love with a person, prefer the food/music, feel like the new place is somewhere they can do the most good, etc. etc.
The American expats that I know (who live in Japan, Mexico, France, Hong Kong, Germany, England, ...) are there either because they prefer the way cities and society is organized, or they moved to follow a boyfriend/girlfriend, or they found a good job located overseas (often a foreign branch of a company they started working at in the US), or are just abroad temporarily for a few years, because they’re still in their 20s/early 30s and don’t yet know what they want or where they want to end up.
The immigrants to the US that I know are mostly here for economic opportunity: undocumented Mexican migrants fleeing an economy there that has been in shambles for decades, and various other folks from all over the world I’ve talked to now and then, like West African taxi drivers, Egyptian and Lebanese restaurant owners, a Russian guy who owned a laundromat, a French dance teacher, etc. I know a whole bunch of Indian, Chinese, and European programmers and IT guys who are here because the Bay Area is where the computer jobs are. I also know a few folks who fled as refugees, because they felt their lives threatened in their home countries.
In general, I don’t think very many immigrants are trying to turn the US into their own countries or bring the old country with them, exactly. But people’s cultural expectations are hard to change. I know that as an American kid in Mexico, I often found parts of the culture there to be uncomfortable. To take a trivial example, every middle-aged female stranger wanted to kiss me and pinch my cheeks &c. in a way that I found very invasive, because the US has a lot less cultural expectation of physical touching than mainstream in Mexico. (By contrast, in East Asia, there’s very little touching at all, much less hugging or handshakes than in the US, either among acquaintances or family..) When I would push those women away and offer a handshake instead, I wasn’t trying to bring the old country along, but just enforcing my own conception of my personal space, which differed from the norm there. There are all kinds of other differences from place to place, such as when you should offer gifts, whether it’s acceptable to turn down invitations, how to signal that you want to stop eating or whether it’s acceptable to not eat something you find unpalatable, how much you should smile and in which situations, etc., which seem like relatively trivial things but end up causing big misunderstandings.
Or if by bringing the old country along you mean immigrants moving to neighborhoods with people who speak their language, eat their food, know their customs, etc., that’s just an entirely natural thing: people have been settling in foreign enclaves of cosmopolitan cities for thousands of years. (For instance if you look at the ruins of Maya cities from 900 AD you can find neighborhoods full of architecture and artifacts that are similar to the style found 1000 miles away. Or I’m sure you could find similar in ancient cities in Italy, Turkey, or China.)
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This conversation is making me feel the way I do when I am haggling over a price against my will.
Heh, fair enough. The internet is pretty bad for conversations. Sitting over a table with a couple of beers works much better.
My problem is trying to understand [existentially, mind you], why a person would immigrate to a country but try to bring the "old country" there with them. I know that there are strong memories and emotional ties that take a couple of generations to fade away, and that is fine, but, to quote Edison: "tradition is the greatest obstacle to progress"
There are as many reasons to immigrate as their are immigrants. Many are trying to escape the “old country” for one reason or another: for example because they can’t find a job, can’t support a family, don’t like the political system, don’t like the city organization, etc. But others just go traveling for the experience and fall in love with the new place or fall in love with a person, prefer the food/music, feel like the new place is somewhere they can do the most good, etc. etc.
The American expats that I know (who live in Japan, Mexico, France, Hong Kong, Germany, England, ...) are there either because they prefer the way cities and society is organized, or they moved to follow a boyfriend/girlfriend, or they found a good job located overseas (often a foreign branch of a company they started working at in the US), or are just abroad temporarily for a few years, because they’re still in their 20s/early 30s and don’t yet know what they want or where they want to end up.
The immigrants to the US that I know are mostly here for economic opportunity: undocumented Mexican migrants fleeing an economy there that has been in shambles for decades, and various other folks from all over the world I’ve talked to now and then, like West African taxi drivers, Egyptian and Lebanese restaurant owners, a Russian guy who owned a laundromat, a French dance teacher, etc. I know a whole bunch of Indian, Chinese, and European programmers and IT guys who are here because the Bay Area is where the computer jobs are. I also know a few folks who fled as refugees, because they felt their lives threatened in their home countries.
In general, I don’t think very many immigrants are trying to turn the US into their own countries or bring the old country with them, exactly. But people’s cultural expectations are hard to change. I know that as an American kid in Mexico, I often found parts of the culture there to be uncomfortable. To take a trivial example, every middle-aged female stranger wanted to kiss me and pinch my cheeks &c. in a way that I found very invasive, because the US has a lot less cultural expectation of physical touching than mainstream in Mexico. (By contrast, in East Asia, there’s very little touching at all, much less hugging or handshakes than in the US, either among acquaintances or family..) When I would push those women away and offer a handshake instead, I wasn’t trying to bring the old country along, but just enforcing my own conception of my personal space, which differed from the norm there. There are all kinds of other differences from place to place, such as when you should offer gifts, whether it’s acceptable to turn down invitations, how to signal that you want to stop eating or whether it’s acceptable to not eat something you find unpalatable, how much you should smile and in which situations, etc., which seem like relatively trivial things but end up causing big misunderstandings.
Or if by bringing the old country along you mean immigrants moving to neighborhoods with people who speak their language, eat their food, know their customs, etc., that’s just an entirely natural thing: people have been settling in foreign enclaves of cosmopolitan cities for thousands of years. (For instance if you look at the ruins of Maya cities from 900 AD you can find neighborhoods full of architecture and artifacts that are similar to the style found 1000 miles away. Or I’m sure you could find similar in ancient cities in Italy, Turkey, or China.)
We are more alike than we are different.
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To ignore all that's been said before your self-description sounds very much like that of an Enneagram type 9, perhaps it would help to have a read about the recommendations made for people who identify with that type (if you're against pseudo scientific pop psychology feel free to ignore me, but reading about such things has helped me grow so it's worth a go)