I personally do not find this dynamic confusing at all. Seeing as this is not obvious to other people I’ll try to explain how I understand it to work (and because I like the idea of cats and pineapples I’ll stick to those):
1. You need to start with cats, and the right cats: Two people who have each other’s undivided attention makes for a much better conversation than starting in a group. And obviously these two cats need to have something both of them have common knowledge about in order to have a conversation.
2. Soon you’ll start to form a pineapple: The conversation of two cats usually works by each cat adding information the other doesn’t know and find interesting. You’re sooner or later bound to find some other people walking by at your party who also want to add in on the conversation. The amount of these people determines the “size” of your pineapple aka group.
3. The choice: Now, you could start pushing other people away when they want to turn your pair of cats into a pineapple, and that may be a reasonable thing to do if people in your pineapple are just pretending to know things or aren’t interested. However, if this is not the case it is a plus to be in a pineapple.
In general this dynamic from cats to pineapples is what creates things like special interest groups and in general how communities form. The internet is simply making step 2 easier than ever.
I personally do not find this dynamic confusing at all. Seeing as this is not obvious to other people I’ll try to explain how I understand it to work (and because I like the idea of cats and pineapples I’ll stick to those):
1. You need to start with cats, and the right cats: Two people who have each other’s undivided attention makes for a much better conversation than starting in a group. And obviously these two cats need to have something both of them have common knowledge about in order to have a conversation.
2. Soon you’ll start to form a pineapple: The conversation of two cats usually works by each cat adding information the other doesn’t know and find interesting. You’re sooner or later bound to find some other people walking by at your party who also want to add in on the conversation. The amount of these people determines the “size” of your pineapple aka group.
3. The choice: Now, you could start pushing other people away when they want to turn your pair of cats into a pineapple, and that may be a reasonable thing to do if people in your pineapple are just pretending to know things or aren’t interested. However, if this is not the case it is a plus to be in a pineapple.
In general this dynamic from cats to pineapples is what creates things like special interest groups and in general how communities form. The internet is simply making step 2 easier than ever.