Column | The fine line: When cultural fluency transcends social imitation

By Abdulqadir M. Habeeb

A peculiar irony defines how life’s most refined elements often pass unnoticed or meet ridicule from those untouched by exposure. It plays out daily: patrons unknowingly breaching restaurant codes, decorum fraying on conference calls, the quiet war between true poise and performance at social gatherings. To the attentive eye, the line between culture and forming is unmistakable. It is subtle, not overbearing. It is etched into daily gestures, not grand displays.

True culture never arrives in accents worn like costumes or conversations crowded with continents. It cannot be summoned by designer labels or encyclopedic wine trivia. Authenticity, like grace, resists performance. It lives in how one treats others, especially those from whom nothing is needed. It echoes in the timbre of a voice that neither overpowers nor fades. It shows up in the ritual of punctuality, in the room made for dialogue rather than domination. You hear it when a call is answered with warmth or declined out of respect for present company. Culture doesn’t audition. It simply moves, quietly.

There is elegance in the older Kaduna woman who serves fura da nono without a word about her effort. There is grace in the Lagos executive who ensures the driver eats before a late meeting. No one claps. No one needs to. These are acts that arise not from the desire to be seen, but from an inner architecture tuned to human dignity.

“Forming,” by contrast, is performance art on a stage that never empties. Where culture is mastery shaped by time and care, forming is mimicry swaddled in insecurity. It borrows culture like a costume, unaware that the soul cannot be staged. It misses the quiet muscle beneath the gesture. The empathy that asks for no applause. The restraint no one sees. The awareness untethered from validation. Forming gives itself away in the hunger behind the gestures, the name-drops, the practiced worldliness that crumbles on closer look.

It shows up in the person who swears by wine yet stumbles over pinot noir, or critiques etiquette over pounded yam while forgetting to thank the server. This is the uncanniest valley. Surface elegance with something just off. A well-dressed discomfort.

Yet raw unculturedness takes a different shape. It announces itself through loud smirks in quiet rooms, phone calls made mid-flight, public laughter with no sense of shared space. It spreads across queue lines as though others are invisible. It enters restaurants with speakers on loud. It walks into group conversations and interrupts without apology. These are not acts of forming, but ruptures in the silent social contract that allows us to coexist. They are not boldness. They are absence.

Then there is a third camp. Those who scoff at refinement altogether. To them, grammar is pretension, courtesy is colonial, and poise is performance. In their world, rawness signals truth. Grace is foreign. Having armored themselves with survival, they view elegance as betrayal. They roll their eyes at “excuse me,” laugh off “whom,” and see modulating one’s voice in public as selling out.

But the line remains. Seen or unseen, it remains.

Being cultured is not elitism. It is not a show. It is the art of making others comfortable in their skin. It is the instinct to elevate the shared moment, not for applause, but because one knows no other way to be. Cultural fluency is shaped by exposure, deepened by humility, and animated by care. It is a quiet discipline. A respect language learned through awkward stumbles, studied silence, and the slow courage to evolve without shedding one’s roots.

Most of us begin unsure. Fumbling forks at formal lunches. Overdressing. Overcompensating. Many have formed their way through foreign rooms. But growth lies not in the pretense, nor in shame, but in the shedding. Grace begins when the performance ends. When we lower our voice on a crowded train. When we thank the server with sincerity, not ceremony.

A friend once shared his first Abuja business lunch. He was nervous. His eyes darted between cutlery and wine lists. Yet what softened the room wasn’t his order. It was the moment he paused mid-sentence to thank the waiter adjusting the blinds. That unguarded warmth, that reflex of respect, that was remembered. Not the Merlot.

Cultural fluency is like art. At first, bold colors grab you. Later, it is the brushstroke that holds your gaze. We begin with performance. We mature into presence.

The truly cultured do not strive to impress. They listen well. They extend kindness without calculation. They speak with the awareness that silence too communicates. They carry consistency across spaces, not to appear refined, but because their compass no longer tilts toward applause.

Sometimes, it is offering the last piece of suya to a friend. No hashtags. No announcement. Just instinctive generosity.

Meanwhile, those forming recite rules yet miss their rhythm. They study gestures without embodying the spirit. The result is uncanny. An imitation so close, yet hollow.

This is not gatekeeping. It is a plea for authenticity. Because authenticity fosters connection. It frees us from the grind of appearances, replacing anxiety with anchored presence.

And when cultural fluency spreads through kindness, courtesy, quiet attentiveness, it becomes a shared language. A banker who thanks the janitor. A taxi driver who lowers his radio. These are degrees of culture that no credential can confer.

To cultivate this awareness is to be liberated. To move through complexity with grace. To meet tradition with discernment. To make space without shrinking self.

Culture never shouts. It murmurs. And to those who listen, to those who hold the door, yield the seat, or choose silence where noise tempts, it reveals its softest truths.

In the end, the finest culture is refined humanity. Not “How can I appear sophisticated?” but “How can I make this moment more humane?” The answer lives in presence, not performance. In the small, quiet masterpieces we make out of daily grace.

‘Posterity shall vindicate the just’

Habeeb is a Tech, Strategy, and Innovations consultant based in Abuja. He keeps a periodic column here and can be reached via habeebajebor@gmail.com.