Is being socially reclusive okay for a graduate student?

Is "OK" good enough?

It's "OK" to be strange and reclusive, but being socially reclusive will stunt your career long term. You will not be considered for projects, not be sought after for collaborations, students who go on to success will not be as likely to reference your papers or publications in informal situations, and you will be less likely to be considered for promotions/tenure/etc. Not maliciously perhaps, but the social recluse just doesn't come to mind as often as more gregarious colleagues do. It essentially closes doors unnecessarily. This isn't to say that you shouldn't be true to your personality, but the fact is that success in any field of endeavor, even academic ones, is as much affected by your social skills as your intellectual skills.

Look at the mid-nineteenth century physician Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, who identified that hand-washing and sterilization of instruments drastically reduced incidence of death from childbed fever. Because of his poor social skills (note that he was actively abrasive and confrontational rather than merely reclusive), he was unable to gain acceptance for his findings, and unsanitary medical practices continued despite his efforts.

There is no universal answer to this.

If "being weird" is okay varies among all places. In some places, you "being weird" would imply that other people would not give you information, not recommend you, avoid you etc., in other places "being weird" is totally okay. Definitely, I've seen weirder (and worse) behaviour between grad students and also higher ranked people.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Are you okay with being seen weird by your collegues? Do you face consequences which seem "bad" to you?

• Is it possible for you to change some of your behaviour and would you feel okay doing this?

• What do people "that matter most" think of you? This definitely includes your supervisor. Who else this involves, depends on your plans.

• What is the norm in your place? If your behaviour is far from the norm (e.g. if whenever someone has a birthday, the whole week the person is celebrated and nobody works this week, then not gratulating would be very far from the norm), you might want to reconsider your behaviour.

A personal remark: I find it strange if one generally never congratulates people for birthdays or New Year. It is nice and does not cost you anything - why not do this?

Something I want to add: You might also want to think about what you want to do after your pHd: In my impression, in the non-academic world, social skills count far more than in the academic world. You might want to train your social skills, your abilities to interact etc

In some places conformity is enforced. Sadly. Sadly. In reality everyone is different and some are a bit "more different" than others. Apple Computer once had an advertising campaign "Think Different", celebrating this idea.

On a universal scale, yes, it is fine to be weird so long as it doesn't impact negatively on others. On a universal scale it is fine, even, to celebrate weirdness. But you "gotta do what you gotta do" in the real world.

You say you have overcome shyness. That is an important skill in the academic world, which tends a bit toward introversion. We think deep (we hope) and that takes effort that we don't like to dissipate with relatively meaningless rituals, such as the Friday on the Cricket Pitch.

However, there are some things you can do to blend in a bit so that the question doesn't arise. The easy ones are to find a way to be reminded to give holiday/birthday greetings. This is pretty painless. It might give you a bit of "space" to be weird in more essential ways - spending time in deep thought without communicating, and seeking quiet times for reflection.

If you practice a few things a few times, then you will probably find that they become more natural and more likely to get done without effort. I suspect that you used something like that as a way to overcome shyness earlier.

But if uniformity is truly enforced, then you need to accommodate it just for your own self preservation.