See, in the lab, we don't just look at the chart in the book; we watch how the reaction *behaves*. If it's sensitive to sterics and goes faster with good nucleophiles, it's marching like an SN2 soldier. If it's happy in polar protic solvents and gives a carbocation scramble, it's that lazy SN1 uncle lounging in the chair.
For me, it's like my bitter gourd vines—some need perfect support to climb (SN2), others will sprawl and root wherever they touch the ground (SN1).
In our synthesis of a drug intermediate, a pesky secondary alkyl chloride gave only elimination with strong base—classic steric hindrance, so we switched to a milder, more selective nucleophile to gently guide it down the SN2 path.
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