So you choose to strive for poverty? That's unusual. Not good or bad. Just unusual.
Compensatory? Not really. I'm usually only checking the person's qualifications, business plan, trying to grasp his/her expectations in the social setting in question. I see myself as laying a foundation for reasonable interactions. My best guess would be that they see me as somehow challenging their authority when I scrutinize it.
I usually don't actively go looking for vanities to kick. But for some reason I tend to find them all too often.