Ludwig,
If you truly are 19, it might help explain your perception and statement of your opinion as fact. The experience I've had is that as a 40 year old engineer, working in a fairly laid back but professional environment, I've had several people startled by me using a knife. I don't really think about whether I'm impressing someone -- a knife is a tool that I use when I need to. I've had two women sort of gasp when I quietly used my Manix to slice open the tough coffee packets we have while refilling the coffee pots in the kitchen. One lady (who is from England) backed away in fear, and the other one said "I didn't know switchblades were legal in Washington!"
As others have said, it's best to be very circumspect in our use of knives, because you don't know when someone is going to react strongly, for whatever reason. I've also had a number of people ask me about knives, because they know that I believe in having an appropriate tool with me when the need arises.
Best not to generalise -- it will come back to bite you over and over.
I do agree with you about the appropriate tool, and I guess that could mean that my Manix wasn't the right choice to use in the kitchen. I suppose a tiny Swiss Army knife would have been less startling to someone unacustomed to seeing people use something sharp. I just don't understand why people use their keys/teeth/scissors or whatever to try to rip into something -- knives really work pretty well for that! I haven't even convinced my wife of that yet, so maybe you just have to have knife genes.......
