Here is what I didn’t really understand before that first day:

The biggest tomboy alive can suddenly feel like Programmer Barbie if her surrounding context is male enough. Yes, even if she looks as if she allowed a wild animal to chew off her bangs, which by the way is a rude observation of you to make. A bubbly woman in stilettos and lace is likely to suffer even more, no matter how talented or smart she might be. Being different is lonely. Being different is hard. That pain point does not cease to exist even when it’s no one’s fault, and a company seeking to retain a diverse skill set is going to have to mitigate it.

Even if it existed, flawless communal innocence would not eliminate the troubles of homogeneity. In the same way that Ladies’ Night Out might involve 55% more giggling, lamenting about the Great Frenemy that is the carbohydrate, and photo-snapping than the average get-together, men act more male as the ratio tips in their favor. Topics and behaviors that would bore mixed company become more acceptable. Traditionally feminine behaviors feel less acceptable not because anyone is openly disapproving of them, but simply because no one else is engaging in them.

I should know: using merely the theory of relativity, the tech community transmogrified me into a blubbering girlypile of ladyness.

I was just fine before, and I’m exactly the same as I was then. But somehow I now say far too much, far too quickly. I tug at my clothes all the time. I sweep my hair away from my face all day long. I fret over my mistakes. I apologize exactly as often, and yet somehow four thousand times as often, as I used to.

My habitual laughter feels weird. The salad I eat for lunch feels weird. My disinterest in purchasing a nice car or a bleeding-edge smartphone feels weird.

I try to avoid putting on lip gloss in front of anyone. Sometimes I fail. I can’t help it; my lips are high-maintenance that way. They’re like a couple of escaped, frightened aquarium newts, okay? They dry out. It’s serious.

So I turn away and apply the gloss quickly, like it’s the eighties and I need to put a rolled-up dollar in my nostril for just a second.

Not all of this is rational, but being different has made me irrational. My perfectly innocuous Valentine’s Day bouquet of chocolate-covered strawberries arrived while I was in a meeting; the receptionist put it in the break-room fridge, and even if the preference was a mild one, I would still rather leave it there than be the only person displaying a romantic gesture in her cubicle.

Even this paranoia about being feminine seems hopelessly feminine. When I hoped to master recursion, this wasn’t what I had in mind.