Talking nerdy

Something that I have become aware of (I've been aware of it before, but have this cycle of forgetting and rediscovering) is that I make a lot of references to social science research in my conversation. And this tends to be fine with my colleagues, since much of our conversation is somewhat homogenized around our theses and clinical work and related shared professional interests.

But then I go to a social gathering in which I am not among my cohort or coworkers. And within a few minutes of discussion I cite a study. Or start a sentence with something akin to, "according to a recent research article". And of course I use words like "homogenized", "qualitatively" and "hypothesize".

A part of me suspects (hypothesizes, if you will) that other people in conversation will assume me to be highly intelligent. But in reality, I feel a bit of a fool for being incapable of a normal conversation (i.e. a social interaction that doesn't draw upon research). Also problematic is when I start coding others' social interaction aloud.

Moral of the study: I talk nerdy, which makes me both awesome and awkward.