I project myself all over the character, so um. Everyone else's mileage will vary! For me, learning a foreign language taught me how to hold social-lubricant superficial conversations, and I memorized those scripts ("Welcome, Mr. Tanaka!") and use them every day. I always pictured that there'd be someone in John's wealthy upbringing, a teacher or relative, who drilled those kinds of scripts into him. Like, when he meets Teyla for the first time, he looks so amazed that Sumner doesn't know what to do, that *now* is the time for charm and tea!