[anal_reactor]

Honestly I do the reverse of that. I dress like shit and when introducing myself I specifically use the word "immigrant" rather than "expat" because signalling high social position attracts people who want something from me but don't offer anything in return.

[NathanielK]

Not surprised to hear this from anal_reactor.

[DiggyJohnson]

I don’t see how this isn’t a massive net negative to you personally other than avoiding occasional odd conversation. You can have genuine conversations both personally and professionally with all sorts of people even if you don’t “dress like shit”. The expat versus immigrant thing is interesting but I assume most can see through that. Sorry to sound critical not really my intention but this is a very interesting approach. It makes the most sense if you’re already set in a great gig or already made your money, no?

[anal_reactor]

Programming used to be attractive career exactly because you'd get a good job based on skills alone. There was no "you need to wear a suit to impress the client" bullshit: just show up, do a good day of honest work, go home with a fat paycheck. When you look at things from this perspective, signaling low-status also signals "I'm here because I can program", while signaling high-status also signals "I'm here to play office politics". So effectively, signaling low-status is a hidden signal that only other high-status people will recognize, while signaling high-status is a bluff that low-status people do.

It seems a little complicated but the idea itself is nothing new. When you go to a ghetto you'll see golden chains, expensive cars and other shiny shit. Go to a upper-middle-class neighborhood and you'll see things that look ordinary but are expensive on closer inspection.

Of course things have changed since then, but that's the gist.

[yieldcrv]

Not to this extreme but most people around me don’t know what I do for money or explore in unallocated time

I’m fashionable and have a nice place but nothing says “software engineer that earns more than most doctors”

People that wake up next to me think I earn about 1/3rd to 1/5th of what I earn, I don’t correct them

But at the same time I do want just a little bit of the hypergamy. Unfortunately, broadcasting to that sentiment seems incompatible with staying low key and attracting more collaborative people, but it could be fun which is my goal. I’ve seen how doctors are treated in the attraction game, its strange and downright scary to see some people code switch around them to be seen as eligible mates, I could have that. I’ve been analyzing it and it has very little to do with perceived utility, and almost solely to do with perceived earning potential combined with the idea of other people wanting them.

When I’ve spent extended time in small towns I inherit that treatment. In small towns across the US, you have people aspiring to hook up with entry level military conscripts because “they make so much money”. When you earn an entire order of magnitude more than that, it’s almost impossible to blend in and people can tell, so you get the code switching hypergamy sentiment.

This is the closest parallel to what people are talking about in this thread, because I’m rarely networking. Recruiters reach out to me over email and linkedin and thats it. Do work, get paid, sign off.

[anal_reactor]

I'm gay so I have easy access to sex and TBH I don't really have much sex, almost nothing at all, because sex with most people just isn't pleasant. I cannot derive pleasure from it if there's no connection, and "wow I love your car" isn't connection.

[yieldcrv]

I enjoy the challenge and the sex. I think the speed limits in the hetero space to be with attractive women keep it interesting for nearly a lifetime. Things devalue when abundant, but it takes a lot for it to become abundant.

But even then, it's not disinteresting instantly, I'm around a lot of people with similar libidos and interest in sustained variety, who have achieved that, and brought similar people together. So I could really only say thank you for your personal account, it's a very individual journey not reflective of everyone else's experience with abundance.

I haven't really done much with material things, I live in and buy what's comfortable for me. But I know there is a large crowd that finds shiny material things attractive and its always an option when I want to optimize for that.

[yieldcrv]

emphasis on attractive, read as in-demand, difficult to stand out amongst

[chadgpt3]

if you're thinking of banging ugly women just so you can bang - that's not how any of this works

[DiggyJohnson]

As a straight male that does well with dating and relationships I am quietly fascinated by this aspect of gay culture and relationships. It changes so many dynamics.

Thankful for the group of guys at our neighborhood bar where we play gays vs straights pool and rib about this stuff. Lol, just wanted to share that anecdote tbh

[mc32]

immigrants are people who tend to stay and don’t have plans to return to their home countries. Expats are temporary immigrants typically paid by their company to move and intend to move back to their home countries once the assignment is over.

[anal_reactor]

Ain't nobody calling seasonal minimum-wage workers "expats".

[mc32]

True, but I'm talking about native English speakers. Those people likely have their own terminology in their own language to describe themselves.

Also an ex-patriate is typically in the professional class. So those "English" teachers who teach in Japan, etc., may think of themselves as ex-pats or try to frequent "ex-pat" hangouts but they aren't necessarily because of two things: one, they have not been working at their home office and then transferred and typically they do not hold prelesional degrees -though they may hold "certificates" or whatever. They are in effect temporary workers on a limited stay visa, often needing annual renewal by hopping to a third country to have it renewed themselves. For ex-pats all this or arranged by their employers.

[anal_reactor]

"expat" is rich, "immigrant" is poor. People use the word "expat" to signal they're rich, or at least they want to be.

Here, your theory goes out of the window.

[mc32]

Someone from the US who moves to France for good is not an expat.

[freehorse]

Looking at online dictionaries there is no hint of temporariness [0], [1]. Wikipedia refers to it as "a person who resides outside their native country" and often referring to "a professional, skilled worker or artist from a wealthy country" [2], which matches exactly the way I see it used. Similar to other commenters here, I also mostly encounter it being used by skilled, first world professionals to separate themselves "from the plebs" of poorer immigrants.

PS I do not disagree that some use cases could include temporariness (wikipedia mentions academic discourse and something about some british civil workers a few decades ago) but this is by far neither the unique nor the most common way it is used nowadays, nor how historically it has often been used long before.

[0] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/expat...

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/expatriate

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expatriate

[varjag]

Expat is an Anglo work migrant, they insist on the distinction as it's in their titular language.

[mmarq]

“Expat” is how white well-off immigrants expect to be addressed to differentiate themselves from other immigrants.

[deterministic]

> people who want something from me but don't offer anything in return

I see that as an opportunity to negotiate something in return from them. And if they refuse I simply move on.

[Der_Einzige]

There's a reason it's called being "Anal Retentive"