Self Monitoring

I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but I believe that my level of self monitoring is pretty high. For as long as I can remember, I have always felt compelled to fit in with people around me and to not stick out as a weirdo.

When I arrive at a situation that is not hanging out with my family or close friends, I very closely observe the actions of people around me and reactions that they have to me. Based on what I notice from this, I change the way I act and things I say (even the way I say things) so that I appear to be more on that persons level and more relate-able. I am actually very good at quickly changing the way I act if I notice something is amiss about the way someone is interacting with me. It can actually make me very self-conscious in those rare situations where I feel I'm not doing a good job at adapting.

Also, if I expect that I may be interacting with a specific group of people I might even change the way I dress so that I appear to be more "normal" and less standout-ish. Heck, I have even unintentionally changed my accent before. I just overall want people to see me as someone that is like them or relate-able enough so that I don't appear strange.

I don't know if that is normal or not for people to do this like I do, I haven't ever talked about it before! It kind of makes me curious about how much of a self monitor other people are and if they do the same adaption thing that I do when we are interacting.

EDIT:

In retrospect, I believe that being a high self monitor is something that helps me get along with most people. And I really enjoy getting along with people. I think that to be a successful sales person (my current sought after career) I need the ability to adapt to all sorts of people. I believe that people react better to those that they feel are similar to them and this could be a good thing in my case.