This weekend I’m attending wedding, at which I’ll inevitably be asked, “So… what do you do?”

I’ve determined that most Americans who ask this question are attempting to be polite. It’s the safe icebreaker for simple minds, the new equivalent to “what’s your major?” or “what frat are you in?” in the post-college “real world.”

There is usually some subtle posturing and smugness underlying the “what do you do?” formality. For people whose life’s work is meaningless–i.e., those whose careers fail to contribute to the common good of humanity and in many ways hinder it–the only way to feel relevant and important is to turn their job title into a dollar sign. “I crunch numbers on Wall Street” by itself sounds pretty boring, but “I make six figures” somehow makes people have orgasms in their ears.

In Europe people don’t ask, “What do you do?” Defining a person by his money and/or how he earns it is incredibly rude in the eyes of Europeans. If someone is curious about your line of work, they can make inferences about it by engaging in polite and genuine human conversation. But that requires social skills, and the desire to know more about a person than whether or not he’s better than you.

Why are we all so insecure? Why does everyone need to feel superior to me? Why aren’t I be better at not caring?

This weekend I’ll be the brightest person at my table (or at least the most informed). Yet as always, I fully expect to have the lamest answer to the great American question: “Uh… well, Mr. Lawyer-Engineer-Dickhead, I’m a 26-year-old year old Ph.D. student in a social science discipline that I’ve recently decided is utterly fake and useless.”

Thank you so much for caring enough to give that moment!