In the essay “Pass”, Boyer Rickel tells the story of his childhood where he was somewhat of a social recluse. He was the opposite of an exhibitionist, he spent his boyhood watching people, intrigued by the way they interacted with one another. He speaks of how social situations change the way people act and the need to fit in changes people and makes them act like someone they are not. He was never really accepted nor rejected because he never put himself out there enough for any group to take him in. Social culture and the pressures of society do change people and make them act like someone they are not, however, the solution to this issue is to find a group of people you are comfortable with, who you can be yourself around, and stick with them, not hide in the shadows excluding yourself from society as Rickel did. Rickel starts off his essay talking about when he used to go to his favorite barbershop to Rays with his father for a flat top haircut. It seems as though he and his father had a good relationship, during the walk to the barbershop, the two conversed just like normal, however, when they finally swung open the door and set foot inside the shop, things changed. His father became very self-conscious, tiptoeing around conversations making sure not to say the wrong thing, and using his son as a topic of conversation: “my father, stepping through Ray’s door, became someone else; how he suddenly treated me as an other, to be discussed as if not present” (194). Rickel describes that barbershop as “a world of men without women” (193). That means that women didn’t enter the shop and the men inside the shop rarely if ever acknowledged their existence. His father learned to keep mostly to himself, throwing a few words into the conversation now and again to avoid being noticed for not saying anything and therefore seeming awkward. Rickel didn’t particularly like