The fact that this kind of article needs to be written in the first place seems to confirm that there's so many basic things that people just don't learn how to do anymore, because exponential advances in technology have changed our lives so drastically that we just no longer run into the situations where we would organically learn those things.
Especially with the internet, it's easier than ever to shut yourself in and never go out into the real world and have real meaningful interactions, while still feeling like your online life is full of real, meaningful interactions. Just immerse yourself into a sub-community filled with 2k people, and you feel like a social butterfly.
And it's not just social lives. Things like learning how to interact in basic ways with your cashier at the store, or how to make new friends outside of work, so many of us just don't know how to do this, because our heads were in The Cloud™s while we texted and browsed reddit in line at the grocery store.
Things have even changed profoundly within a single generation. When I was in school, Tamagotchis were the thing. When my little brother was in school, his teacher was using YouTube to teach them. Now my son is in high school and all his classmates have Android phones, which are such a game changer that they aren't even allowed to even have them turned on in school.
And going back a little further, my oldest son and daughter have The Dangerous Book for Boys and The Daring Book for Girls which teach stuff that 100 years ago everyone knew, and now you need to buy novelty books to learn, despite many of the skills and tricks these books teach still being useful.
I think you're projecting and making broad assumptions with no evidence, based on your feel and the ever present "back in my day" syndrome. People have been awkward and people have been sociable before the internet, and people are awkward and sociable after the internet. Today you have people with their heads buried in their phones, 100 years ago it was newspapers. There is no qualitative shift, at least I will not proclaim so without evidence.
And yes, this article is patently ridiculous. Way to overthink something that should be about relaxing and having fun.
>Today you have people with their heads buried in their phones, 100 years ago it was newspapers.
However, there is also no evidence that people 20 years ago were walking around all day with their heads buried in newspapers, reading them in grocery store lines, during walks in the park, and in class when they weren't really supposed to. Maybe on benches and on the bus.
> And yes, this article is patently ridiculous. Way to overthink something that should be about relaxing and having fun.
Well, I found that article incredible useful.
Like, one of the main reasons I'm depressed right now is because I just can't relax. I'm away from family and friends and apparently don't know the basics of human interaction.
I'm just grateful that there are people overthinking simple things out there so I can catch up and fix some of my anxieties.
I'm a senior millennial (mid-80s kid) but I can tell you, anecdotally, that younger generation is more addicted to their phones and devices than my gen ever was. There was a car accident in front of my younger cousins' house where a car hit a fence and literally flipped over. While me and my uncle/aunt and a few others called for help and chatted about the event...my younger cousins were busy texting the event to their friends. It was as if they were there, but not really there.
I agreed with you until the last paragraph. Parties "should" be relaxing and fun, but what if they aren't? Focusing on how you should feel a certain way when you don't isn't helpful, whereas making adjustments to how you act or think about things can be.
One of my favorite "back in my day, grumble grumble" quotes, attributed to Socrates: https://www.bartleby.com/73/195.html
If you sprinkle "cell phone" in, you can't tell that it wasn't written this week.
On the one hand I see where you are going, but on the other hand, 100+ years ago there existed etiquette books and charm schools (aka finishing schools) and so on. In the middle ages noble children were sent off to be raised by allies and relatives where they would be trained in how to do court.
A staple plot of teen movies going back forever (to at least the 80s, but probably longer) is a kid who somehow makes friends with the cool kids and they actively teach the "loser" to be "cool".
Point being, sure there is maybe less chance of learning these skills organically, but I think that intentional learning of these skills is not a new thing that modern life has brought about.
I grew up before the internet and I never learned how to navigate parties. I think it depends more on being able to see somebody close to you to learn from.
This resonates with me. When growing up the 'parties' I went to or heard about were really just excuses to get drunk together, which, when you're not really into drinking culture, isn't very interesting. Actual gatherings where people came to talk and socialize were few and far between.
EDIT: I do have a different expectation for parties, but understand that parties have a spectrum, from people going to a party to drink/smoke/bump what have you to reach a point of near senselessness on one end of the spectrum, to perhaps a gathering of people in the same industry who are trying to "network" at the other. My expectation for informal parties is in the middle of this where people may drink but where it isn't their expectation that they will get drunk, and the discussions will be more intimate and not business related.
Right, seeing by example is how we learn most basic soft skills. But if you're staring at your Nintendo 3DS (or Sega Game Gear like I was gifted as a 5 year old) when your parents drag you along to parties or to the grocery store or wherever, then you're not going to learn anything at all, except maybe how to beat level 2.
How to Win Friends and Influence People was published in 1936, and has a lot of similar advice about how to interact with people. Technology has clearly changed the contours of our interactions but I think it would be a stretch to assert that social awkwardness is a new phenomenon.
I’ve always hated them, even before the Internet was huge. I’m a fairly social person and I’m okay in crowds, but once the number of people I’m trying to interact with exceeds ~10 it’s just too much for me.
The worst are work “parties” and happy hours where everyone feels forced to go, no meaningful team building really happens, and the cliques in a company become more evident and visible.
Plus I’ve lost some hearing due to one too many loud metal shows, so party conversation is pretty stressful.
There are just many different types of party.
The default is just bad, true.
In my youth it was common to drink at a "party", until it was fun.
Then I decided that parties where I need to be drunk to enjoy, are not worth my time.
But trust me, there are different ones ...
i don't genuinely enjoy most parties, but i do very much enjoy small gatherings of close friends. unfortunately, close friends do not grow on trees, and as an adult, i don't actually get that many opportunities to meet a broad range of new people. i find that parties are one of the few places in american society where it is acceptable to just approach people who seem interesting and start talking to them, so i see value in them even if i don't like them, per se.
> Texting is now the preferred form of communication [among teenagers], with 35 percent of teens saying that’s their favorite way to communicate, compared with in-person (32 percent), social media (16 percent) and video chatting (10 percent). In 2012, in-person communication was the most popular. (Emphasis mine)
No. It wasn't the internet or cellphones or gaming. This is a 20th century problem. Previous societies had rigid systems of etiquette. We don't.
One upon a time if someone wanted to start a conversation with a stranger there was a clear and practiced way of doing so. You could easily identify whether a person was of a similar class and background to yourself. Then there were acceptable and unacceptable times and places for such conversations. It was rigid, formal and often evil (racism etc) but it gave everyone guidelines.
Vestiges of this still exist today. Two doctors or lawyers know how to identify and address each other. Certainly the military has formal rules. It isn't about common backgrounds, it is about knowing exactly how the other person expects to be addressed and how they will respond to you. Such knowledge makes starting that first conversation easier.
Side note, if you are interested in skills that "everybody knew 100 years ago", there are much better books to be had. "The American boys Handy book" comes to mind. Popular Mechanic published a bunch of books back then (pre 1920, don't be confused with some of the latter stuff which isn't as good).
Of course those books assume that there are things like a junk model T in the backyard that you are free to take parts from or otherwise destroy. Just to name one change in circumstances.
I fucking hate parties, and never had a "real meaningful connection" at one. But that's not to say I've never had such connections. Attempting to do so just becomes more difficult when you're trying to raise your voice above ambient noise levels and listen to someone trying to do the same.
I certainly lost the illusion of online communities being like real communities. I mean, I certainly don't post to HN to feel socially competent.
"go out into the real world"
screw parties (exchange screw for the f bomb). If you have any kind of convictions not a days its really difficult to go into crowds above 30. One person will be a complete idiot or disgusting and its either being able to enjoy the company of such a person or leave.
Im middle class (bachelors degree, not from a wealthy family) and the "medicore" , "average" person just talks so much shit out of their ass. Its like a public twitter forum where stupid cliches about "Trump is an idiot" or so much drugs and even orgies have become a not too crazy idea.
Can we have the 50s back without the racism. The people are not the same but parties are not the same either.
I wonder if the rich have stayed classy? Parties are like a rap video. Twerking being a phenomena should tell you all you need to know about the "party" culture in America.
It sounds like you have a lasting impression about what a party is like based on movies or TV shows. My experiences at parties are very different from what you've described.
1. People really don't want to get together due to the consequence of callout culture/(PCism/SJWism). This has caused people (I'm seeing the effects with the communities I currently and have previously maintained) to be less likely to share, be willing to meet with people, and even branch out their friend circles. Censorship/Censorship has been the conservative "let's all get along" response.
2. Technology has become a detriment, I'm not sure when we're going to have our WWI for personal technology. (WWI introduced the concept that all of these improvements in technology may also bring death and destruction) Given the hooks of technology, we're going to get to a really nastic predicament here. I'm not sure how to describe what it will be, or how we can fix it. But we're losing valuable communication skills and we're making things worse for society. (That has been an ongoing thing for a while) My theory: We're going to go into a dark age.
----
Lastly: If you found this article somewhat helpful, I would suggest reading Captivate by Vanessa Williams/Edwards?
For some counter perspective to point 1, I'm a white male in the Bay Area whose interests often place me in diverse groups, some of whom advocate social justice policies. I haven't noticed SJW/PC culture as an actual barrier to socializing and no one I maintain contact with has ever mentioned it as a problem.
Anecdotally, SJW/PC call-out culture appears to have a much more depressing effect on public discourse over the internet where posting opens you to criticism from anyone on the internet.
re: 1 -- i've yet to see this ever happen to anyone I know. In fact, i've seen a handful of sketchy situations where it might even be warranted, and it still hasn't happened.
The thing I see all the time, online and off? Comments like yours where people (mostly guys) self censor out of fear of this hypothetical life catastrophy.
I think we dudes are hurting ourselves here. Far more than PC culture wants to harm us (which seems on the internet like a lot, but in reality, is effectively nil)
ITT: People who don’t understand that other people are socially awkward and actually need to be taught skills like this (ranging from regular nerds to those on the spectrum), who don’t realize that “just be yourself” is terrible advice to anyone asking questions on how to be social.
It’s not just a modern problem caused by phones.
Maybe if you think about this in context of tech conferences, that will help you get more use out of it.
> who don’t realize that “just be yourself” is terrible advice to anyone asking questions on how to be social.
To me that sounds like - "how do I learn to drive?" - "Just be yourself!" or "how do I train to run a marathon?" - "Just be yourself!". Yeah, thanks for the advice.
I mean, the weirdest thing for me is that these types of articles have been written forever. I remember being a kid 20 years ago and reading articles about how to be charming and make friends. I'm sure they were written 20 years before that as well.
If it takes many years to understand the point being expressed by some words, then those words aren’t being very effective at teaching the point to begin with. One might say that’s a pretty clear criteria for evaluating whether some advice is “the best” or not.
The best way to learn this stuff is to travel alone. When you travel, you have to learn to be that weirdly gregarious person who introduces themselves to random people. You'll also learn that if people think you're weird for doing exactly that, well that's their problem. Unless you're trying to befriend a bunch of middle schoolers, you're not going to get ganged up on by a group of people for smiling and making small talk.
I don’t know; I have traveled alone and end up going the whole trip without talking to anyone, so I don’t think it forces you to be social if you aren’t trying.
>> The best way to learn this stuff is to travel alone.
Doing this helped me so so much. The only issue I had is it gets very difficult to form long lasting relationships when you're on the road all the time. But it worked on getting my "foot in the door" so to speak at parties or whatnot now
Personally I detest people who interact with others in a programatic way. Not perhaps the people themselves, but this kind of behavior. I feel compelled to snap my fingers in their face and say "WAKEUP! We're right here talking, stop performing!"
Please, please, please stop trying to be pleasing to other people. Just relax and be yourself. Performed, goal oriented, behavior at parties is hugely off-putting to me and most people I know (although I don't live in New York, so ymmv).
You may say something that's upsetting to someone, or is brilliantly insightful, or in retrospect obviously silly. So fucking what!? IT'S A PARTY, not a convention. It's this kind of attitude that there is a "right" way to be social that contributes to social anxiety. Fucking stop it!
> You may say something that's upsetting to someone, or is brilliantly insightful, or in retrospect obviously silly. So fucking what!?
It seems like you mean well, but as a person with generalized anxiety disorder, telling someone who is anxious about parties that they shouldn't be anxious about parties probably isn't going to be very helpful.
> Personally I detest people who interact with others in a programatic way. Not perhaps the people themselves, but this kind of behavior. I feel compelled to snap my fingers in their face and say "WAKEUP! We're right here talking, stop performing!"
If a person who is anxious about parties tries to socialize at a party using some sort of system in order to reduce their anxiety, and you call them out for how they are socializing, that person is now going to be more anxious at parties.
You seem like a person who isn't anxious about social situations, which is good, but understand that some people are anxious about social situations, and articles like these can possibly help those people.
Telling people you have an anxiety disorder is exactly the kind of genuineness that is preferred by most people (in my experience), over ticking off boxes in a proscribed social interaction check list, or having a performative affect.
I did not say, and would not say, that you should not feel the way you feel. Advice on how not to behave does not speak to how one feels.
My advice does not apply to you if you have a disorder that requires you to handle social situations in a particular way. However, you should be aware that regardless of the reason why you must not be genuine in social situations you will be perceived as disingenuous.
On the other hand for those without a disorder, if you can tolerate being genuine or at least not intentionally fake about yourself and your interests you will have a better chance to connect with people.
> You seem like a person who isn't anxious about social situations...
You'd be right that I seem that way, you'd be wrong that I am that way.
"being myself" would entail picking apart people when they say silly/ignorant things regarding religion, science, etc. it'd be interrupting people and explaining how their favorite TV shows are full of holes. how their prattle about celebrities speaks to the emptiness of their heads. it'd be playing the devil's advocate when nobody is looking for a balanced discussion. it'd be going on long monologues on various topics. these are not endearing traits to have. i know that i wouldn't want to be around such a person for long.
maybe this is why social interactions can't be relaxing for some people. once you know that being yourself and "relaxing" is extremely grating on other people, you know to keep it tightly under wraps, which circumvents any relaxation in social situations.
You are correct, but conflating two issues. The issue at hand is goal oriented social behavior, which is one end of a spectrum. At the other end of the spectrum is what you accurately describe, differentiating private and public self.
Another helpful tip along these lines is don't arrive at parties nude
...well at least not unless that is explicitly required.
> i know that i wouldn't want to be around such a person for long.
I dunno. I don't mind picking apart holes in a show or two (I watch a bunch of shows and most of them are full of silly holes, that's par for the course) and having some balanced discussion. Long monologues though are probably not good at parties, and definitely no celebrity talk.
For a lot of people, having a script allows them to relax and be themselves. I don't see whats wrong with them interacting the way they want to interact, rather than the way you want them to.
I don't think this takes into account how helpful an action plan can be.
I would never, ever go to a gathering without forthought, self coaching, and some tips for myself lined up. There's way too much social pressure and too much of my self-esteem on the line to skip it.
And if I'm not afforded that, or it's a surprise, I'll just go to wherever with my laptop and browse HN or work on my projects instead.
People are really, really hard, especially for us with social anxiety.
"There's no right or wrong way to party...just be yourself!"
"There's no right or wrong way to dance...just be yourself!"
"There's no right or wrong way to paint...just be yourself!"
"There's no right or wrong way to play the drums...just be yourself!"
I don't buy it.
If a thing can be done at all, it can be done better or worse. Even if my perception is the only thing that matters, things can still be done better or worse by the yardstick.
> Please, please, please stop trying to be pleasing to other people.
It's not just about pleasing other people. It's about pleasing myself. And I'm pleased when I have a good relationship and a good conversation.
> Just relax and be yourself.
Advice typically given to people whose "selves" are naturally anxious, i.e. the opposite of relaxed. Being able to follow an outline can make such people considerable more relaxed.
I simply ask people what led them to the party in the first place.
This normally leads to converstaions about their friends, then hobbies and lastly jobs.
Either I have (had) some similar interests/frieds/job or I just show general interest for parts of their lifes.
The main point that helped me in such coversations simply was: Not having a goal.
I don't care if I just have one conversation, find new friends, a hookup, business contacts or whatnot. I simply try to learn about peoples lifes and appreciate the conversation.
Somehow this elevates one already above 90% of dudes who talk to someone at parties...
This reads like it was written by someone terrified of even potentially offending others.
A good trick if you have trouble striking up conversation or finding what to talk about: FORD - Family, Occupation, Recreation, Dreams. Once you have a conversation going, just let it flow of course - but it's a trick to get past the initial "hello" stage.
>A good trick if you have trouble striking up conversation or finding what to talk about: FORD - Family, Occupation, Recreation, Dreams.
These are bad conversation topics if you don't have a similar background as most of the other people at the party. The point is to connect with people. Highlighting your differences is not the way to do this.
>These are bad conversation topics if you don't have a similar background as most of the other people at the party.
That's a fairly narrow way of looking at it, and having a differing background actually benefits, instead of hurts. If there are differences, there is more for you to talk about so you can both explore each other's perspectives. If you're not interested in their perspective, don't ask the question. However, I'll warn you that if you are not interested in their perspective, they likely will not want to talk to you - why should they?
I think you're viewing FORD as a hack to get the communication going. That's a self defeating mentality.
>The point is to connect with people. Highlighting your differences is not the way to do this.
I and many others read this as "I want to connect with people. But I really don't want to understand why someone is different from me." I don't know if that's what you meant, but that's the signal people will get from you.
FORD is heavy and personal. The point of small talk is that it's small and light. You have to make sure you trust a person before you start talking about personal stuff.
Small talk is about progressive disclosure. You make the conversation a little bit more personal and see if the other person reciprocates--but you have to start small, that's the whole point. If someone started out asking me about FORD I'd think they were odd/awkward or maybe snobby.
Seriously. The answers "minimal contact, creative work, talking to animal people, being transformed into an animal person" only work at specific kinds of parties. Definitely not the ones full of people with healthy families, ordinary jobs, common hobbies, and normal dreams.
Wow, good acronym. Now if only I had a good way to remember names, it's something I'm really bad at. Somehow when somebody tells me their name my brain goes on holiday, even after I purposefully repeat it, like 'Hi Luke, nice to meet you..'. Five minutes later I'll be struggling to remember it.
That's even worse at a party full of people I've never met before.
You have to do this discretely, but I keep a notebook in my pocket and I will (sometimes) write the person's name down when I get a chance along with a note about who they are. This is even easier in smartphone age as everyone is checking their phones all the time anyway, just note the name there.
So? Gee. Where is it written that you have to remember everyone's name? It's normal to forget, everyone's brain goes on holiday. It's not so important, is it. It's just a name. If later you want to know, say 'Sorry, I've forgotten your name' or something and smile, they've probably forgotten yours too. No need to stress out about that.
When you get into the mindset that asking about precisely those kinds of things is potentially offensive - at the least, relatively nosey and prying - then that's when the real fun starts, or rather (that statement was sarcastic), ends.
i typically cut the F and R and stick to the O and D. i can sometimes make myself interested in relatively boring occupations by learning more, and people's dreams are at minimum instructive for the purposes of building my own.
Readit News
Especially with the internet, it's easier than ever to shut yourself in and never go out into the real world and have real meaningful interactions, while still feeling like your online life is full of real, meaningful interactions. Just immerse yourself into a sub-community filled with 2k people, and you feel like a social butterfly.
And it's not just social lives. Things like learning how to interact in basic ways with your cashier at the store, or how to make new friends outside of work, so many of us just don't know how to do this, because our heads were in The Cloud™s while we texted and browsed reddit in line at the grocery store.
Things have even changed profoundly within a single generation. When I was in school, Tamagotchis were the thing. When my little brother was in school, his teacher was using YouTube to teach them. Now my son is in high school and all his classmates have Android phones, which are such a game changer that they aren't even allowed to even have them turned on in school.
And going back a little further, my oldest son and daughter have The Dangerous Book for Boys and The Daring Book for Girls which teach stuff that 100 years ago everyone knew, and now you need to buy novelty books to learn, despite many of the skills and tricks these books teach still being useful.
And yes, this article is patently ridiculous. Way to overthink something that should be about relaxing and having fun.
However, there is also no evidence that people 20 years ago were walking around all day with their heads buried in newspapers, reading them in grocery store lines, during walks in the park, and in class when they weren't really supposed to. Maybe on benches and on the bus.
Well, I found that article incredible useful.
Like, one of the main reasons I'm depressed right now is because I just can't relax. I'm away from family and friends and apparently don't know the basics of human interaction.
I'm just grateful that there are people overthinking simple things out there so I can catch up and fix some of my anxieties.
Yep. "How to Win Friends and Influence People" was published in 1937.
these things have been going on a while
What social consequences (specifically pertaining to human behavior) do you concede computing has had, if any?
A staple plot of teen movies going back forever (to at least the 80s, but probably longer) is a kid who somehow makes friends with the cool kids and they actively teach the "loser" to be "cool".
Point being, sure there is maybe less chance of learning these skills organically, but I think that intentional learning of these skills is not a new thing that modern life has brought about.
EDIT: I do have a different expectation for parties, but understand that parties have a spectrum, from people going to a party to drink/smoke/bump what have you to reach a point of near senselessness on one end of the spectrum, to perhaps a gathering of people in the same industry who are trying to "network" at the other. My expectation for informal parties is in the middle of this where people may drink but where it isn't their expectation that they will get drunk, and the discussions will be more intimate and not business related.
The worst are work “parties” and happy hours where everyone feels forced to go, no meaningful team building really happens, and the cliques in a company become more evident and visible.
Plus I’ve lost some hearing due to one too many loud metal shows, so party conversation is pretty stressful.
In my youth it was common to drink at a "party", until it was fun. Then I decided that parties where I need to be drunk to enjoy, are not worth my time. But trust me, there are different ones ...
> Texting is now the preferred form of communication [among teenagers], with 35 percent of teens saying that’s their favorite way to communicate, compared with in-person (32 percent), social media (16 percent) and video chatting (10 percent). In 2012, in-person communication was the most popular. (Emphasis mine)
Source: https://www.recode.net/2018/9/10/17826810/social-media-use-t...
One upon a time if someone wanted to start a conversation with a stranger there was a clear and practiced way of doing so. You could easily identify whether a person was of a similar class and background to yourself. Then there were acceptable and unacceptable times and places for such conversations. It was rigid, formal and often evil (racism etc) but it gave everyone guidelines.
Vestiges of this still exist today. Two doctors or lawyers know how to identify and address each other. Certainly the military has formal rules. It isn't about common backgrounds, it is about knowing exactly how the other person expects to be addressed and how they will respond to you. Such knowledge makes starting that first conversation easier.
Of course those books assume that there are things like a junk model T in the backyard that you are free to take parts from or otherwise destroy. Just to name one change in circumstances.
I certainly lost the illusion of online communities being like real communities. I mean, I certainly don't post to HN to feel socially competent.
this was a really sad part of growing up for me.
Deleted Comment
I.E. Standard/Manual Transmissions
Socially, maybe not, but my example still stands.
Im middle class (bachelors degree, not from a wealthy family) and the "medicore" , "average" person just talks so much shit out of their ass. Its like a public twitter forum where stupid cliches about "Trump is an idiot" or so much drugs and even orgies have become a not too crazy idea.
Can we have the 50s back without the racism. The people are not the same but parties are not the same either.
I wonder if the rich have stayed classy? Parties are like a rap video. Twerking being a phenomena should tell you all you need to know about the "party" culture in America.
I think we're seeing 2 problems:
1. People really don't want to get together due to the consequence of callout culture/(PCism/SJWism). This has caused people (I'm seeing the effects with the communities I currently and have previously maintained) to be less likely to share, be willing to meet with people, and even branch out their friend circles. Censorship/Censorship has been the conservative "let's all get along" response.
2. Technology has become a detriment, I'm not sure when we're going to have our WWI for personal technology. (WWI introduced the concept that all of these improvements in technology may also bring death and destruction) Given the hooks of technology, we're going to get to a really nastic predicament here. I'm not sure how to describe what it will be, or how we can fix it. But we're losing valuable communication skills and we're making things worse for society. (That has been an ongoing thing for a while) My theory: We're going to go into a dark age.
----
Lastly: If you found this article somewhat helpful, I would suggest reading Captivate by Vanessa Williams/Edwards?
Anecdotally, SJW/PC call-out culture appears to have a much more depressing effect on public discourse over the internet where posting opens you to criticism from anyone on the internet.
The thing I see all the time, online and off? Comments like yours where people (mostly guys) self censor out of fear of this hypothetical life catastrophy.
I think we dudes are hurting ourselves here. Far more than PC culture wants to harm us (which seems on the internet like a lot, but in reality, is effectively nil)
It’s not just a modern problem caused by phones.
Maybe if you think about this in context of tech conferences, that will help you get more use out of it.
To me that sounds like - "how do I learn to drive?" - "Just be yourself!" or "how do I train to run a marathon?" - "Just be yourself!". Yeah, thanks for the advice.
"Just be yourself."
Great advice, thanks! (-:
It's kinda weird all the judgement.
Coming from Eastern Europe, I was really clumsy socially during my first visits to the US because I didn't recognize the boundaries of small talk.
Extroverts become more so. Introverts become more so.
Doing this helped me so so much. The only issue I had is it gets very difficult to form long lasting relationships when you're on the road all the time. But it worked on getting my "foot in the door" so to speak at parties or whatnot now
Please, please, please stop trying to be pleasing to other people. Just relax and be yourself. Performed, goal oriented, behavior at parties is hugely off-putting to me and most people I know (although I don't live in New York, so ymmv).
You may say something that's upsetting to someone, or is brilliantly insightful, or in retrospect obviously silly. So fucking what!? IT'S A PARTY, not a convention. It's this kind of attitude that there is a "right" way to be social that contributes to social anxiety. Fucking stop it!
It seems like you mean well, but as a person with generalized anxiety disorder, telling someone who is anxious about parties that they shouldn't be anxious about parties probably isn't going to be very helpful.
> Personally I detest people who interact with others in a programatic way. Not perhaps the people themselves, but this kind of behavior. I feel compelled to snap my fingers in their face and say "WAKEUP! We're right here talking, stop performing!"
If a person who is anxious about parties tries to socialize at a party using some sort of system in order to reduce their anxiety, and you call them out for how they are socializing, that person is now going to be more anxious at parties.
You seem like a person who isn't anxious about social situations, which is good, but understand that some people are anxious about social situations, and articles like these can possibly help those people.
I did not say, and would not say, that you should not feel the way you feel. Advice on how not to behave does not speak to how one feels.
My advice does not apply to you if you have a disorder that requires you to handle social situations in a particular way. However, you should be aware that regardless of the reason why you must not be genuine in social situations you will be perceived as disingenuous.
On the other hand for those without a disorder, if you can tolerate being genuine or at least not intentionally fake about yourself and your interests you will have a better chance to connect with people.
> You seem like a person who isn't anxious about social situations...
You'd be right that I seem that way, you'd be wrong that I am that way.
Yes, there's something demonic about intentionally rule-based behaviour.
>It's this kind of attitude that there is a "right" way to be social that contributes to social anxiety. Fucking stop it!
Here's the problem. You're claiming both that it's wrong to interact like this and that there's no right or wrong in social interaction.
I'm saying that though failure is unavoidable, a performance of social correctness is more failure prone then being genuine.
nah. socializing is performing by necessity.
"being myself" would entail picking apart people when they say silly/ignorant things regarding religion, science, etc. it'd be interrupting people and explaining how their favorite TV shows are full of holes. how their prattle about celebrities speaks to the emptiness of their heads. it'd be playing the devil's advocate when nobody is looking for a balanced discussion. it'd be going on long monologues on various topics. these are not endearing traits to have. i know that i wouldn't want to be around such a person for long.
maybe this is why social interactions can't be relaxing for some people. once you know that being yourself and "relaxing" is extremely grating on other people, you know to keep it tightly under wraps, which circumvents any relaxation in social situations.
That may be a good thing.
Most people would feel discomfort [from your attempt to pick them apart]. In this case you would learn not to speak with them.
Some other people would enjoy thoughtful discussion with you. These would be your new friends.
But if you try to put your polite mask on - it would be hard for you to find new friends, even if there are matching people at that party.
Another helpful tip along these lines is don't arrive at parties nude
...well at least not unless that is explicitly required.
I dunno. I don't mind picking apart holes in a show or two (I watch a bunch of shows and most of them are full of silly holes, that's par for the course) and having some balanced discussion. Long monologues though are probably not good at parties, and definitely no celebrity talk.
For a lot of people, having a script allows them to relax and be themselves. I don't see whats wrong with them interacting the way they want to interact, rather than the way you want them to.
I would never, ever go to a gathering without forthought, self coaching, and some tips for myself lined up. There's way too much social pressure and too much of my self-esteem on the line to skip it.
And if I'm not afforded that, or it's a surprise, I'll just go to wherever with my laptop and browse HN or work on my projects instead.
People are really, really hard, especially for us with social anxiety.
"There's no right or wrong way to dance...just be yourself!"
"There's no right or wrong way to paint...just be yourself!"
"There's no right or wrong way to play the drums...just be yourself!"
I don't buy it.
If a thing can be done at all, it can be done better or worse. Even if my perception is the only thing that matters, things can still be done better or worse by the yardstick.
> Please, please, please stop trying to be pleasing to other people.
It's not just about pleasing other people. It's about pleasing myself. And I'm pleased when I have a good relationship and a good conversation.
> Just relax and be yourself.
Advice typically given to people whose "selves" are naturally anxious, i.e. the opposite of relaxed. Being able to follow an outline can make such people considerable more relaxed.
(My comment is neither a joke nor sarcasm).
This normally leads to converstaions about their friends, then hobbies and lastly jobs.
Either I have (had) some similar interests/frieds/job or I just show general interest for parts of their lifes.
The main point that helped me in such coversations simply was: Not having a goal.
I don't care if I just have one conversation, find new friends, a hookup, business contacts or whatnot. I simply try to learn about peoples lifes and appreciate the conversation.
Somehow this elevates one already above 90% of dudes who talk to someone at parties...
A good trick if you have trouble striking up conversation or finding what to talk about: FORD - Family, Occupation, Recreation, Dreams. Once you have a conversation going, just let it flow of course - but it's a trick to get past the initial "hello" stage.
These are bad conversation topics if you don't have a similar background as most of the other people at the party. The point is to connect with people. Highlighting your differences is not the way to do this.
That's a fairly narrow way of looking at it, and having a differing background actually benefits, instead of hurts. If there are differences, there is more for you to talk about so you can both explore each other's perspectives. If you're not interested in their perspective, don't ask the question. However, I'll warn you that if you are not interested in their perspective, they likely will not want to talk to you - why should they?
I think you're viewing FORD as a hack to get the communication going. That's a self defeating mentality.
>The point is to connect with people. Highlighting your differences is not the way to do this.
I and many others read this as "I want to connect with people. But I really don't want to understand why someone is different from me." I don't know if that's what you meant, but that's the signal people will get from you.
FORD is heavy and personal. The point of small talk is that it's small and light. You have to make sure you trust a person before you start talking about personal stuff.
Small talk is about progressive disclosure. You make the conversation a little bit more personal and see if the other person reciprocates--but you have to start small, that's the whole point. If someone started out asking me about FORD I'd think they were odd/awkward or maybe snobby.
That's even worse at a party full of people I've never met before.