*I* wonder how her co-workers would have treated her if she hadn't spent so much time pandering to them, and if socialization has no place in the workplace then why is the ability to get along well with coworkers one of the things employees are evaluated for in most companies? The author even mentions in the article her concerns that if employers view her as unable to fit in well with her peers, that may effect her future job prospects. I mean ... did you actually RTFA, or are you just arguing to be arguing?

Did you know that many women women speak an octave above their natural speaking voices? Many don't even do this consciously; it's just something they've picked up. They do it because men tend to feel more comfortable when women speak in high, soft voices, and accordingly they tend to treat women better when they do this. This practice spans many different cultures, and its benefits have been scientifically proven. This is actually just one of a myriad of behaviors women tend to alter around men. The way you act around people tends to have a *huge* effect on the way they treat you. You don't have to believe it, but it's been scientifically proven and I have personally observed this phenomenon at work many times. I do it myself at times. It's a form of manipulation, although many people do it without any intent or awareness, and it works for a reason.

Personally, I find that most people don't like me all that much when I'm myself due to my introversion, above-average intelligence, and mildly autistic tendencies, among other reasons. Luckily, when I have the energy for it I'm *really good* at doing exactly what the author of the article was trying to do. When I really want an interaction to go well I do the following: I give people lots of big, genuine smiles, I show interest in their crap, I mimic some of their speech and behavior patterns, I mimic some of the behaviors people expect *people like me* to engage in (ie stereotypes), I make them laugh their asses off, and I carefully avoid saying anything that could draw a negative response. And then, as soon as I can do so while staying polite, I gtfo, go home, and spend several hours trying to forget how much I hate myself when I spew all that fake bullcrap just to make my interactions go better. But jesus christ, it just works *so freakin well*. *Everyone* likes me when I put the effort in, and I don't even want people to like me that much. I just don't want them to *dislike* me, because that tends to make my interactions more stressful. This woman sounds like she was trying way harder than I ever do, but she probably wasn't half as good at it as I am, plus she's black which makes a lot of white guys kinda uncomfortable from the get-go. It's possible she would have been more successful if it weren't so important to her, since, as I mentioned, that kind of constant anxiety tends to result in sub-par performance.

In any case, I hate to argue and this debate is clearly going nowhere, so I will just say that you depress me sir and I hope you broaden your views in the future.

If you read the article carefully, it describes the author going from workplace to workplace and deliberately changing many of her behaviors just to fit in; that sounds like a lot of effort to me. She talks about pretending to be amused by her co-worders' comments even when she found them distasteful and upsetting, and struggling to find even one person in her workplace she could connect with -- "be herself" around.

Yes, you can't force people to like you, but you can change your behaviors in ways that make people *want* to like you. Often, the best way to do this is simply to act more or less the same way eveyone else is acting. And that kind of sucks. Do you ever find that you feel more isolated in a room full of people than when you're completely alone? It's not a good feeling. I obviously don't know the author personally so I can't say how "annoying" her natural personality may or may not be, but I implore you to open yourself to the idea that other people have many problems and obstacles in their lives that are completely different than yours, yet just as problematic and difficult to overcome (and, in some cases, even more so).

The bare bones of it is, people are basically herd animals and we all want to feel like we're accepted by the herd. You can see the psychology at work in monkeys; the outcasts, the "omega"s that don't fit in are almost constantly anxious and stressed even when the other monkeys aren't actively doing messing with them. Their performance tends to be subpar accross a variety of spheres, and they tend to have much shorter lives. Stress and anxiety are real problems, as are the myriad of things that can cause it.

I really don't see how that follows. Could you extrapolate, perhaps?

But, dude, she *did* try to fit in. It sounds like she tried super hard. She picked up new hobbies that she had no interest in just to fit in. I'm not really sure how much more she could have done.

It's great that you haven't experienced any racism, but you do understand that your limited personal experiences don't prove that no one ever experiences it, right? Personally, I live in an extremely laid back place and I am myself extremely white, but I know many people who frequently make racist comments. They make a lot of broad and unflattering assumptions about the way people of other races behave, and they like to talk about it *a lot*. If I were a person of a less popular race working on a team with any of these people, I imagine the workplace would start to feel hostile very quickly.

Wow. Come on guys, can't we all just open our minds a little and realize that there are genuine negative consequences that usually arise when a person doesn't feel like they fit in? Aren't there any readers here who were outcasts in high school because they weren't attractive enough, well adjusted enough, interested enough in football? Applying the same logic to that geek you're using here, the nerd should be blamed for his unpopularity. He would fit in just fine if only he had a better attitude, right? Nuh-uh. Pretty much all humans want to feel like they're part of a community; it was once a survival mechanism because being ostracized from the group generally meant certain death. It's easier to survive on your own now, but people who feel like they don't belong still tend to experience a great deal of near-constant stress and anxiety. And when a person is genuinely different from the others in the group, it's often the case that the only way to avoid being ostracized is to mimic the behavior of the others like the author of the article did. Pretending to be someone else can make your day-to-day life a lot less stressful, but it's a shitty thing to have to do and there are always consequences down the line.