R15 I was born in 1978 and although I am more clearly defined as an Xer, I am in the same boat you are by life circumstances.

When I was in high school, my sister, who is two years older, was clearly generation X. She was the Mallrats/Reality Bites, Nirvana/Hole grunge generation.

I was something a little different...more pop, less rage. Never for a moment did I consider myself to be generation X until the millennials began to take shape.

My sensibility is gen X without question: I am self-motivated, self-managed, like to be left alone, am a little bit melancholy and cynical by nature but definitely a doer. I get to work, do my work without complaining, don't like to be managed closely, check my work, and then I'm done with work. That's all gen X. Being collaborative about everything drives me fucking crazy. I hate it. What a freaking time suck, and from my vantage point, everything-by-committee has the same effect focus groups have on TV and movies: it waters everything down to the least common denominator, in addition to delaying everything, and the end product always ends up lesser as a result.

At the same time, I communicate more like a Millennial. I work in communications, and I avoid talking on the phone at all costs. I hate the phone. I hate, hate, hate the phone. I prefer to do almost everything in writing. (Editing and writing are the primary duties of my comms job, so that works out well for me.) I'm not a digital native because of my age, but I am sort of a naturalized citizen because I grew up gay in Virginia, and I was an early mid-90s Internet adopter because it was the only way to find and to befriend other gay people. So I cultivate and maintain digital relationships.

Attitude and perspective wise and in terms of work habits, I'm gen X, but socially I am more of a millennial.

Still, I belong to gen X. My father and mother are both baby boomers, but because of the time during which their four-year age difference occurred, they are practically from different generations. My dad likes doo wop and some generally older-fashioned elements of pop culture, and my mom loved Led Zeppelin, Joni Mitchell, the Doors. They both love/loved Bob Dylan and some singer-songwriters, but overall, my father has always seemed like he came from a much older generation than my mom did, and he's only four years older. So there's always a lot of variability within generations.