[sidlls]

My wife couldn't have more different academic and work interests than me, and I think that's great. It provides trivial conversation starters for both of us and makes us both more well rounded. I specifically sought dates with women who had interests distinct from my own for this reason.

Having someone around with a disinterest in it helps me view my own relationship with the community in a less biased way.

Consequently over the last year or two I've come to associate "the tech mindset" with increasingly negative terms. I have come to think our community is often not a high quality one. It's often judgemental, insular, and unjustifiably arrogant beyond even the worst I saw in academia. I wouldn't have recognized some of these things if I were in an echo chamber that was simply reinforced by my SO.