Growing up, Lucas was an asshole to his little brother, Seth. Seth was at ease around other kids, unlike his awkward older brother. Lucas saw Seth as a social threat, and apparently bullied his younger, cooler brother quite a bit. Ultimately Lucas tried to pattern himself after Seth, and learned how to interact with others by his example. There was a coercive aspect to this mimicry: Lucas both adapted words and behaviors from Seth, and bullied him to encourage him to "allow him into his world" and help him socially.
[Seth] is 100 times the man I am today, because [he] had to grow up dealing with such an asshole older brother like me. Thank [him] for getting through it. Not a lot of kids [his] age will. Not a lot of kids [his] age did....In a way, Seth taught me how to behave around other kids and he quickly realized when he allowed me into his world, I would stop making fun of him in the areas he was struggling with for some reason and he was able to focus on school much better, over time...
This dynamic is familiar to Wernologists. As an adult, Lucas still seeks entry into other people's "world" by "making fun" of them. He engages in obnoxious behavior with the promise that he will stop once he gets his way. He'll say nigga until you tell him where the party's at; he'll deliver jeremiads against greed, bigotry and promiscuity until ya'll come around.
Let Lucas into your world. Teach him your secret handshakes. Tell him the password!
In his 2010 personal reflection, Lucas gave us an insight into how he learned to behave around other people by imitating them. He had to be study basic conversational skills, and when he learned them, seemed to understand them as rigid formulas. Not unlike a conversation tree in a video game. He's adopted words like "bae," "yeet," and so forth, in a similar fashion: spells that you vocalize to influence people's behavior. You say X, people do Y.
I somehow taught myself the word, "Dude" as a response and not just calling your buddies "Dude". Then another funny one, "Wasuuup?" Then I heard this other dude say "Wassuuuup?" And he followed it by another word, well one of two words, If it was "Bro." (Wasssup, brooo?") I had the urge to say, "Nuttin, maynerd. Suppitchoo?" So I did. This was weird because the other word was always "Bra" Now, if the next guy had said, "Wasssuuuup, braaa?" He'd also say "Wanna smoke some weeeed?" And I would say "Sure" and smoke some weed or I was like "What's weed?" And he'd explain it to me and I smoked some weed with him. The other scenario was followed by "Supitchoo?" It was usually followed by the other guy saying, "Noffin, yao." This usually meant he wanted to buy some weed and I knew this so I said, "Sorry. Don't gots." And walked off, usually into a convenience store and bought something.
He had to consciously study gestures, in addition to words.
I'd usually just walk off again and I'd see a girl I liked. Sit with her. The only thing I could think of to say was, "I love you." but all the guys I talked to about my girl troubles had warned me, "Never tell a girl you love her. She'll think you're weird and she won't like you." "Oh.. uh... okay, I" (I used to be embarrassed to say the world "but" because it sounded like "butt" and made me feel awkward.) "Guess, I'll..." That's where I hit a brick wall. Like I said, no confidence. Bashful. Took me awhile to figure out words like "Later" and "Peace" I think my younger brother taught me "Later" and my older brother taught me the word "Peace" so I frequently exchanged them. I also didn't know that after "Later" I could stand up, brush off my legs and walk away. "Peace" I could follow by a quick raised hand and by bobbing my head a little. It also gave me the liberty to skip my feet and not hear anyone laughing at me. After I learned these gestures and performed them, a quick phrase would enter my mind as clear as a bell. When it was "Later" and the brush off, it was always, "Dude what the fuck was that?" If it was "Peace" and the skip bounce I always thought, "God... found this girl named Gay today. Weird. Wonder what that was all about? Hmm." Apparently I had forgotten what my mom told me and shrugged it off. Sometimes I'd sneeze and say "Blah." In both cases I'd go about my merry way.
What a retard.
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