That's a very strange thing for us Europeans. When I meet a new guy I will scan some cultural fields and see if we have some common ground where we can sit the discussion for a while, it could be post-modernist philosophy, classical music, anime, or porn even, but we need to find place to settle. Younger, I did the same with some people from the US and noticed big "!name dropping!" flags. Right, I was name dropping, just to try to find a common topic. I wasn't trying to shower anyone with "intellectualism", though: it is perfectly ok to not have read Proust. (But it would be weird and a no-go to have familiarity of no parts of cultural life except baseball and "football")