Bad Culture Fit – Can You Be Born Into One?

A good sense of wellbeing is a curious thing, it doesn’t come naturally to all of us and can be more fragile to some than others and sometimes this can be influenced by location. There is this sensation that most people have at some stage in their lives; the feeling that they don’t belong. Usually, this is a wellbeing thing. It’s caused by bad life situations, stress or mental health problems. Hard times lead to self-doubt, distance and anxiety. It’s an overwhelming human sensation and it is a sign that something is wrong at that moment in time. Usually it passes as your situation changes but what about when you’re born with it? When it is a lifelong battle. Can your place of birth be a bad culture fit?

What is a Bad Culture Fit?

Often used in reference to the workplace and not meshing in with the environment. Bad culture fit is another way of saying your ‘face doesn’t fit’. It’s a term I don’t like but I’ve seen it, it can be real, particularly if the place in question has expectations that don’t meet your own personal sensibilities. In the employment context, I get that it is a thing; but when it becomes a problem is when employers highlight and push this. We aren’t talking about that though.

In the context I am using it, I’m proposing that it is possible to be born in the wrong place. Places (like people) have personalities. You might find the local politics don’t land, that your birth town lacks the facilities you need, the entertainment doesn’t land, maybe there’s too much emphasis on car travel and that doesn’t work for you or maybe there just isn’t the type of work you need.

That is what I mean by a bad culture fit.

Can You Be Born Into a Bad Culture Fit?

When I ask this then, I am asking whether the place you are born and raised can be a bad fit for you. To answer this question, I’ll start by looking at my own experiences. People who know me well, will know as a child that I’ve never identified with a home. I moved from place-to-place never quite fitting in and never quite feeling settled or always being perceived as the weird one. I didn’t grow out of this.

To look at this through a more ‘zoomed-in’ lens; despite trying I’ve struggled to find that sense of belonging in my birthtown. The place did not sit right, I felt like a guest in someone else’s home my whole life and certain streets, scenes and locations would immediately put me on edge or trigger my anxiety to a heightened degree. In other words; the geography itself would feed my anxiety. Nurture a feeling of isolation that persisted in a room with one person or thirty. I always felt like my face never fit, which inevitably meant that my face never fit; leaving me unable to connect with the locations and find what I needed and never finding my community there.

It wasn’t the place or the people that was the trigger for this particular feeling though, it was me. I hadn’t found my community.

How Some Find a ‘Better’ Culture Fit

Let’s detach from me for a moment and look at this from another point-of-view.

It isn’t uncommon for students to leave home for Uni, find new places or people from other places and then find home lacking when they return. It happens all the time. Usually, this leads to them moving to the place they found better suited their sensibilities.

A similar common pattern is in working away from home, sometimes better work opportunities are found elsewhere and a more suited community with like-minded people too. Another common scenario.

In these scenarios what is essentially happening is that rather than identifying themselves as a bad culture fit in their hometown, people realise in visiting new places (either where they studying/working or with people they met on that journey) that they find themselves a better fit somewhere else. Finding a better sense of wellbeing along the way.

On Finding My Good Culture Fit

I no longer have a sense of not belonging.

My reasons for leaving my birth town of Ashford are more complicated that just being a bad culture fit. I’ve known I needed to leave for years.

In doing so, I found a community filled geek-culture events, with passionate love and appreciation of music (in all its forms), strong communities of similar minded people that support each other and a wide-variety of locations and events that I hope to share with the Papalites when with me.

Now, that feeling of displacement is gone and instead I have a sense of wonder and excitement. I have pride when I see conservation groups or when I see local green efforts. I feel calm, belonging and happy. For someone who hasn’t had that, this is a massive thing for me, life changing and what I’m saying is that finding that place you belong, that works for you, it can make a massive difference to your wellbeing.

Home is what works for you.

You Can Be Born Into a Bad Culture Fit

Your wellbeing is influenced by many factors. What I’ve wrote here is one of a few that has been a constant struggle for me. Truthfully, there are many reasons why you might be left feeling this way and it takes a lot of reflection, honesty, exploration and bravery to resolve. It is worth it though.

Speak to friends, speak to family and if you need to; speak to a doctor but don’t discard your personal wellbeing. You deserve to be happy.