Being understood: I'm pretty flexible, and try to meet people on their own level, as HK described. But at the same time, I refuse to masquerade as someone I'm not, so while I typically use vocabulary and grammatical constructs that anyone with a high school diploma could follow, there is still a significant difference between that and common usage. I also tend to get excited to share knowledge about some subjects (and hope that the person I'm talking to can add to it), which can lead me to sounding like a college lecturer at times.
I would not expect anyone to see anything strange in this, and nobody talks to me about it, but DW reports she's often pulled aside and asked, "Does he always talk like this?" Sometimes people misread it as trying too hard to impress, or just being a demeaning jerk. But DW assures them that, with an eyeroll and a sympathetic smirk, yes, that's how I always talk.
so much of what you wrote is familiar; esp this last bit. Describes my ds13 to a tee.
