How We Change In Different Groups of Friends – This Will Resonate

I remember watching an interview of Amitabh Bachchan once where he said we Indians tend to adapt to the regional accent of the person we are speaking to. And I realised that this is a little true for me as well as a lot of people out there. Some may call it cultural appropriation, but I think this is because we all contain multitudes and have many aspects to our personalities. For instance, we adapt to different social situations: family, kids, school friends, colleagues. Like this tweet featuring various images of Snoop Dogg looking and behaving differently:

Here Snoop Dogg is seen in a Bollywood film with Akshay Kumar, with Hulk Hogan in a wrestling ring, being an academic, etc.

He is also a part of recording label Def Jam, reminded this commentator. Similarly, we all have various roles that we play – professional, social, personal.

Snoop is seen here with Psy, the man who brought K pop to the world.  Though principally a rap artiste, he has worked with artistes of various genres including bhangra.

Is this adaptability or faking?

Some of us are more versatile than others; this doesn’t mean we’re faking. It simply means we are interested in more things.

We behave differently with them not because we’re faking it, but because each group has different interests, commonalities and reference points.

We can be different with different people and still be happy; still be ourselves.

Some of us are the quiet ones in our groups – after all, not all of us can be the life of the party... nor do we want to be.

Adaptability is really a part of being human, which is why so many people relate to this.

We adapt not only to different groups but also to adverse conditions and difficult situations. Our survival instinct kicks in.

The ability to adapt comes naturally to some of us. For others it is a conscious effort and could be quite stressful.

By doing different things with different groups of people, in a sense one manages to live many lives all at once.

A really versatile person is like a multipurpose friend.

This is true – most suspicion and hatred and prejudice come from ignorance. If only we took the trouble to know ‘other’ people, the world would be a better, more peaceful and loving place.