Its the "rogue" part that offends me. As an american living in america I grew up this way, I'm marginally offended that hanging out with me would be considered analogous to traveling to the other side of the planet to the extreme opposite of american lifestyle.

Or a person with reasonably normal empathy (my wife?) seems to be able to figure me out without a PHD and years of study.

Also, like clockwork, right after the "othering" comes the "hate" and I'm not looking forward to that part. (Ah he's different than us... what next? Oh make fun of and bully of course, thats what the majority always does after they define an other!)

You're projecting your insecurities on someone else's attempt to understand.

He is insecure about that for a very good reason, though, considering how media only started positively displaying people with hacker mentality after the last bubble hit (everyone else was getting fired while programmers were still being hired) and the Social Network (again, because of lots of money being talked about).

You are aware that there are lots of anthropology studies on americans living in the United States right? It's just a field of study.

Indeed. I think some people underestimate how much variation there is in culture and lifestyles in this country.