How "siloed" are you?

[elly63]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Suddenly what always made me so uncomfortable at my previous dentist's, a much younger guy, came into clear focus, namely the insincere and obsequious show of attentiveness, the seeming hypersensitivity to current niceties.

Exact same "treatment" happened to me. I started calling the place "The Hollywood Dental Clinic" and now I've ignored the calls for appointments even though I need some work. I always get the feeling they're trying to "sell" me something to help pay for their new grand building. I'm going to transfer to a guy who is closer and whose office is above a Thai restaurant.

Originally Posted by rousseau

After years of getting my hair cut by conversationally inept drones at those discount places, I accidentally walked into a men's barbershop run by a lone guy in his late sixties, and now I'm hooked. The talk, the jokes and the camaraderie are free-flowing. Why had I never thought about trying one of these places before?

I've always preferred barbers because they actually cut, not style, hair. They can style and give you the "blowjob" treatment because many now have to be licensed as hair stylists but I believe the old timers have been grandfathered in.

I had a spell where I went to a hair stylist (because I knew the owner) and they were across the street but I had to "train" the girl to not bother putting up the mirror at the end because I didn't need a show, just wanted a cut.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN

I just like to sit back and chuckle at how you under 30's have it all figured out.

They are f'ed, the next gen is worse than the millennials.

Jonathan Haidt The Coddling of the American Mind

[elly63]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Me being highly perplexed by Canadians whose blood gets boiling over Donald Trump and who as a result post dozens of memes about him every day, is likely the best example of my predicament.

We have a guy at work who feels the same way, his wife watches CNN and gets all up in arms and the guy at work says "it's not even her President or country".

[SpongeG]

there is a customer who comes into work that sometimes wears his pro-Trump shirts and is quite the douche. I think he is from Quebec he has a strong accent.

[GlassCity]

With regards to siloing, I guess it depends. There's a difference between my social life and the businesses I frequent and that kinda thing.

With friends, I think I do the opposite of siloing. I've struggled to find friends I'm totally in tune with so I have different groups serving different purposes. Together, I think there's enough political and character diversity among these groups that I'm open to perspectives and personalities different from my own. One group has interests closest to my own, namely cities and politics. But they're not as outgoing as I am and a little on the SJW side of life, which keep me from getting messed up on the weekends as I like to and keep me from engaging deeper into our conversations respectively. This group thinks i'm crazy.

My other group is nice because I don't have to filter myself and they're more into going out, but I find our conversation topics get stale frequently. Politically, this group is more mixed. This group thinks I'm boring.

In terms of services and all that, I can't say I notice demographics as much as character. I'm pretty low-maintenance or whatever you wanna call it and I'm shy with new people. This means I don't like barbers that try to talk to me, I don't like places with loud music, and I don't like places that don't offer a simple lager. That might be getting a bit off-topic, but I suppose in this sense I am siloed in that I seldom venture outside my comfort zone.

[ssiguy]

I must confess that I really don`t understand the term. Can someone give me the basic Cole`s Notes version?

[Architype]

Most of us live in cities which are a bunch of separate communities, both ethnic and demographic, in a sense parallel universes co-existing. Breaking the barriers is not always easy, and after trying every Asian and ethnic restaurant on the street, you may eventually need a little fish and chips as comfort food.

[Doug]

I’m usually oblivious to demographics and hostile to concepts like identity and nationalism. When I seek services from others, the only metrics are price, quality and convenience. I could care less about the provider’s backstory except in rare instances of particular red flags (ex. I’ll swim across an ocean before I’ll ever fly Air Canada and I’d rather starve than work in the public sector). So I have no idea if I’m siloed but would likely self loathe if I ever became aware.

[Proof Sheet]

Originally Posted by elly63

I'm going to transfer to a guy who is closer and whose office is above a Thai restaurant.

What about a dentist whose office/place of residence is in a small closet at the back of a nail salon in a strip plaza?. S'all Good.

[acottawa]

My doctor is an old Jewish Zionist. My dentist is an old Muslim guy from Bangladesh. My real estate agent is a German immigrant. My favourite bakery is run by white millennial hipsters. My barber is a young woman of Ethiopian ancestry. I don’t think for service industry I care much about identity.

What I have found however is I have way less interest in new “culture”. I want to watch movies I have already seen or on a topic I am familiar with, listen to music I’m familiar with (or sounds very familiar). Services like Netflix have probably amplified this tendency because it makes it so easy to stick to the familiar.

[Acajack]

I find that socially my entourage is extremely siloed on a socio-economic level.

My neighbourhood is upper middle class. All of our are friends are upper middle class. There isn't anyone out the whole bunch who is working class, and obviously no one is on welfare. There are some immigrants and minorities in my circle of friends including some who haven't lost their accents, but they're all extremely well integrated nonetheless.

My kids go to private schools so this also skews things to upper middle class. They also do extra-curricular activities which are fairly expensive. So upper middle class again.

And in my extended family I was thinking that out of my 15 first cousins (and their significant others, so about 30 people), there isn't a single one that is on the lower socio-economic rung. Probably the least well paid person is like a dental hygienist who probably makes at least 50-60k a year.

[Razor]

You can fight it all you want, but as you get older you become more set in your ways and those older grumpy people that you used to dismiss when you were younger all of a sudden make sense and you can have more stimulating convos with them.The generation gap with them shrinks, and you slowly become them. (yikes?) .I never thought that this would happen, but I really enjoy having a beer with my dad's buddies now and can relate to them more. They all seem to not suffer fools gladly, and I'm getting that concept more and more as time goes on. I'm trying to be careful as to not generalize an entire generation of millennials, but just as one example,a few years ago I brought my then 27 year old niece and her fiancée out to my friend's place in the country for a bbq and, my niece's fiancée was crazy annoying after a few drinks..Just real immature that whole day..I'll take that grumpy old barber anyday.I'm a Gen X, and I doubt that we behaved at 27 that way Or did we?..I think we Xers have more in common with the baby boomers before us then the millenials after us truth be told..Now having said all of that that, I met some real grounded millenials through work, so I shouldn't generalize..Maybe they are getting a bad rap, and as I'm getting aging I'm becoming less patient and more intolerant of younger people myself. It doesn't help that my wife and I never had kids. I also find that your circle becomes larger and maybe not as tight as you get older. I personally don't roll with a set "crew"..Anymore..My wife and I socialize with people we haven't seen in awhile ..Usually in rotation.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Acajack

My kids go to private schools so this also skews things to upper middle class. They also do extra-curricular activities which are fairly expensive. So upper middle class again.

It seems like people with kids tend to hang out with other people with kids and schooling along with a desire to keep up an ideal peer group tends to sort people into socio-economic silos.

If you are gay there's a whole other set of factors. Most gay male couples do not have kids, and many spend less time around couples with kids or around straight couples. In a larger city it's easy to get siloed off and be around ~90% gay people (or some more specific subgroup) even though they are a small percentage of the overall population. The cultural norms in the gay community are also pretty different (e.g. 2 males much more affectionate with each other, even if it's not sexual, more like 2 females might be in wider society) so once you get used to them it's easy to feel like you cannot be "yourself" in other social settings.

On top of this when you're gay there's a bigger risk some people will be judgemental or even outwardly hostile so interacting closely with random others is higher risk. It's much lower risk than it used to be but it doesn't take much to push people away. As an anecdote that illustrates this, a gay friend told me a story about how some neighbours moved into his building from another country recently. They asked him to come over and answer questions about some basics in terms of getting settled in the city. Everything was 100% friendly but they kept asking him about his wife and they had a giant crucifix up on the wall. He eventually felt uncomfortable and didn't explain that he actually has a husband (well, sort of tried, but they didn't get it or didn't want to get it). If he were straight, he would have integrated more easily into that situation.

Cultural background has an impact on this too. The Canadian-born gay guys with Canadian parents tend to have few family issues and just go do whatever. Europeans are similar. Chinese often have somewhat clueless or judgemental parents (similar to 1980's North America, but maybe with more you-have-to-uphold-your-family-duties type stuff) but not very hostile. Indian and Middle Eastern gay guys are unfortunately more likely to have hostile parents and are often completely closeted, so they can be relatively underrepresented in public social settings.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I find that socially my entourage is extremely siloed on a socio-economic level.

My neighbourhood is upper middle class. All of our are friends are upper middle class. There isn't anyone out the whole bunch who is working class, and obviously no one is on welfare. There are some immigrants and minorities in my circle of friends including some who haven't lost their accents, but they're all extremely well integrated nonetheless.

My kids go to private schools so this also skews things to upper middle class. They also do extra-curricular activities which are fairly expensive. So upper middle class again.

Probably doesn't hurt that you also live in one of the most upper-middle class parts of the most upper-middle class metro in the country!

[MonkeyRonin]

I guess I could say I'm pretty geographically siloed. Outside of traveling and stuff, probably 90% of my life these days happens within the red circle. And like 60% still (if I had to put a number to it) within the smaller orange circle.

The red area is about 40 sqkm and home to maybe 400-450,000 or so people. The orange area is about 5 sqkm with a population of around 50,000 people (though, as the cultural & commercial heart of the city a whole lot more than that pass through on a daily basis of course). I grew up in North York and used to travel pretty extensively through the GTA so I still have an idea of the goings-on "out there", but my current experiences & mental map of the city are predominantly shaped by this admittedly unrepresentative slice of the city:

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

I guess I could say I'm pretty geographically siloed. Outside of traveling and stuff, probably 90% of my life these days happens within the red circle. And like 60% still (if I had to put a number to it) within the smaller orange circle.

The red area is about 40 sqkm and home to maybe 400-450,000 or so people. The orange area is about 5 sqkm with a population of around 50,000 people (though, as the cultural & commercial heart of the city a whole lot more than that pass through on a daily basis of course). I grew up in North York and used to travel pretty extensively through the GTA so I still have an idea of the goings-on "out there", but my current experiences & mental map of the city are predominantly shaped by this admittedly unrepresentative slice of the city:

I grew up in the suburbs and used to judge city people for being so ignorant of areas even just beyond the urban core, but after moving into the inner city in Winnipeg, I get it. When everything is within walking distance why would you go anywhere else? And if you don't go there, how are you supposed to know anything about it? Aside from the university which is ~8km away, my "90% of life" radius is like 1km.

[Dr Awesomesauce]

Originally Posted by acottawa

My doctor is an old Jewish Zionist. My dentist is an old Muslim guy from Bangladesh. My real estate agent is a German immigrant. My favourite bakery is run by white millennial hipsters. My barber is a young woman of Ethiopian ancestry. I don’t think for service industry I care much about identity.

What I have found however is I have way less interest in new “culture”. I want to watch movies I have already seen or on a topic I am familiar with, listen to music I’m familiar with (or sounds very familiar). Services like Netflix have probably amplified this tendency because it makes it so easy to stick to the familiar.

'My barber is a young woman of Ethiopian ancestry.'
I had to read that twice. Not something you hear everyday.

'What I have found however is I have way less interest in new “culture”.'
I suspect that's because, upon closer investigation, you see that there's nothing to it. It's paper thin, something a stiff breeze could blow away, so certainly not something you want as a foundation for living.

[GeneralLeeTPHLS]

In the sense of "siloed", I'm not very diverse. A lot of my friends are working or middle class, or have that sort of upbringing, and the same would apply for my work-friends. My family is comfortably working to middle class, and this is reflected by where they live, in Southern to Central Ontario. I used to be more diverse in where I went across the GTA, but I rarely go past the Toronto border anymore, I find more comfort being with folks who share my interests and have ambitions, and I don't mind where they came from, although most of my friends are Caucasian like myself.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by rousseau

The last one. I always used to see myself as a cosmopolitan renaissance man (don't laugh), able and willing to take all comers, but lately I've taken comfort/refuge in my own demographic (or thereabouts) when it comes to choosing how to spend money and/or time.

I think a lot of people do that. I was at the Toronto Eaton Centre yesterday and it struck me how the vast majority of people were from the same demographic. There was a complete absence of socially upper middle class/upper class people. They avoid this place like the plague.

It's well known amongst downtown folk that the demographic changes considerably around the Eaton Centre and north to about College. I only go down there when I have to; they're not people I have much in common with. In contrast, I feel instantly at ease when I'm on Bayview Avenue, bits of King West, and the Distillery (preferably week days).

As with the Eaton Centre I find the people at Yorkdale off putting. Most are monied but with few social graces to speak of. Crude, uncultured, aggressive people in expensive clothes ....to put it politely. You'd think that being exposed to people like this the last 15-20 years would make me accustomed to them but I find myself even more uncomfortable around that demographic than I was when I was a kid. In other words, the circles I travel in are becoming more rigid and narrow the older I get.

I should add one point. I've always found that adage that the social classes don't mix repugnant; it's not how I was raised. I'm kind, respectful, and courteous to everyone and open to befriending anyone regardless of how much money they have or where they come from. To my dismay I just don't have much common ground with these people. It's not like I didn't try. My last 2 boyfriends were working class but both relationships ran there predictable course. I'm definitely 'siloed'.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by Acajack

So, thinking about this OP.

Based on what he's said in his posts over the years, Rousseau and I are virtually the same age.

One of the main differences between us is that I have kids (now teenagers) and he does not.

Now, getting to his question about "services", I can't say that I am feeling the same thing. Or if I am, it's happening very very subtly and I am not noticing it.

My health care and personal care providers tend to be millenials (doctor and dentist) or people my age (hairdresser - the aunt of one my kids' friends).

Obviously due to my kids I have lots of teenagers around all the time. My kids are also heavily involved in activities and I interact with their instructors quite a bit - these are generally people in their 20s.

I think the people I gravitate to in general are more similar to me in terms of social class and demeanour than anything that has to do with age.

What prompted this thread was the sudden realization that I've sort of done what I've always found frivolous or amusing in others: consciously choosing a service due to feeling more comfortable with the provider.

A long time ago I recall an aunt complaining vociferously about how off-putting her dentist's personality was because he didn't engage in social niceties like asking about how her day. He made the interaction seem like a "conveyor belt." To me, I thought this was funny. If he does a good job, then who cares?

Well, it turns out that I seem to care. At least a bit.

My doctor is a millennial, and I'm happier with her than with the older doctor that she replaced when he retired. Even so, I think there is something about the age thing going on with me. It has to do with my "station in life," I guess. I'm in a gentrified downtown neighbourhood without too many kids around. Kids naturally take up a lot of time and headspace, so it's probably not as likely for a quick hello on the street to turn into a half-hour conversation on the porch when you're coming home from soccer practice.

But that happens regularly here, where the neighbours are in their fifties, sixties and seventies. We really let loose with the jokes, the innuendo and the teasing. Good "craic," as the Irish say. I'm now fifty-two, and I've noticed how incredibly easy my interactions are with older folks. The general lack of pretension once you get past your forties, the lack of insecurity about how you measure up in society or make your place, comes as a relief. You have to accept who you are and who you've become, because otherwise the bitterness and regret would be toxic.

Which is not to say that I avoid people below me in age. I like playing basketball with high school kids at the Y. It's great fun. I do care about the young folks. It's just that I care about the old folks, too. Maybe even a bit more.

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