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How to Be Someone People Love to Talk To (2015)

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Re: How to Be Someone People Love to Talk To (2015)

#91

Post by onmobiletemp »

throwayedidqo wrote: post #68
onmobiletemp wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop, you are wrong. Im attractive and people hate me. Have you ever considered whats its like to be attractive? People are instantly jealous of you and hate you. And they make sure to lay judgement into you -- if you arent whip smart they will tear you down just like anyone else. I know ugly, average looking and good looking people who all do very well with people and in life. It comes down to your intelligen…

Are you female? Most of my attractive male friends are surrounded by both sexes but being an attractive female seems to make you a pariah.

Im a guy

Re: How to Be Someone People Love to Talk To (2015)

#92

Post by xor1 »

im3w1l wrote: post #81
onmobiletemp wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop, you are wrong. Im attractive and people hate me. Have you ever considered whats its like to be attractive? People are instantly jealous of you and hate you. And they make sure to lay judgement into you -- if you arent whip smart they will tear you down just like anyone else. I know ugly, average looking and good looking people who all do very well with people and in life. It comes down to your intelligen…

Question for you and xor1. Are you talking about going from a 1 to a 5, from a 5 to an 8 or from an 8 to a 10? My intuition is that at the deformed end of the spectrum, any improvement is going to be 99% positive and that it starts to become more of a mixed blessing as you approach perfection.

I don't like using a 10-point system because it's so ambiguous, but I guess I'm talking about going from 5-8 to 8-10. The way I mentally do rankings is Ugly - Acceptable - Exceptional, so going from Acceptable to Exceptional.

(For the record, I try very, very hard to treat everyone equally, since the influence that attractiveness has on human behavior is something that I'm aware of and think about constantly. Hence this discussion.)

Re: How to Be Someone People Love to Talk To (2015)

#93

Post by onmobiletemp »

im3w1l wrote: post #81
onmobiletemp wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop, you are wrong. Im attractive and people hate me. Have you ever considered whats its like to be attractive? People are instantly jealous of you and hate you. And they make sure to lay judgement into you -- if you arent whip smart they will tear you down just like anyone else. I know ugly, average looking and good looking people who all do very well with people and in life. It comes down to your intelligen…

Question for you and xor1. Are you talking about going from a 1 to a 5, from a 5 to an 8 or from an 8 to a 10? My intuition is that at the deformed end of the spectrum, any improvement is going to be 99% positive and that it starts to become more of a mixed blessing as you approach perfection.

I thought of this too. Im not talking about deformities.

Re: How to Be Someone People Love to Talk To (2015)

#94

Post by mercer »

xor1 wrote: post #56

I think the article severely downplays the importance of attractiveness. If the other party finds you attractive, the bar is lowered to the point of you simply being normal/average in terms of intelligence, wit, and whatever else you want to include in your definition of what makes a person "interesting". You basically need to be a vapid idiot to give anyone a bad impression as an attractive person. It's a huge facto…

On the whole you're correct and there are many studies that confirm that attractiveness is a big advantage in countless ways. However:

1. attractive is relative. Many, of not most people who are not considered attractive are also not considered unattractive. Just average, like most other people. Being average in looks can be compensated for in many other ways. I know many people who think they're unattractive when they're perfectly average. 2. I believe a strong confounding (or mediating?) variable is confidence and 'niceness'. Pretty people experience less bullying, more positive interactions, etc., which in turn makes them more confident and 'nice' (no need to hate the world, so to speak), which then makes them more attractive. Some of the most popular, nice, successful people I've known were far from attractive, but they were confident and nice. Or even just confident.

Re: How to Be Someone People Love to Talk To (2015)

#95

Post by throwayedidqo »

xor1 wrote: post #56

I think the article severely downplays the importance of attractiveness. If the other party finds you attractive, the bar is lowered to the point of you simply being normal/average in terms of intelligence, wit, and whatever else you want to include in your definition of what makes a person "interesting". You basically need to be a vapid idiot to give anyone a bad impression as an attractive person. It's a huge facto…

Thank God I'm not the only guy that wears sunscreen! I've shared the same opinion as you for most of my life.

I really got a strong dose of truth in highschool. I got tired of getting picked on and being out of shape in freshman year. I was a loner and a punching bag for kids having a bad day.

I started exercising to stop people from bothering me. I still kept to myself and maintained my outsider status at first, but it didn't last long. The swimming and wrestling coaches wouldn't leave me alone by junior year, and soon after they noticed everyone else did to.

The attention I got from being in shape and attractive was extreme and foreign to me. There was maybe a year lag time that I associate with everyone consciously forgetting who I used to to be. After that, shit got real.

I started getting attention from the popular kids even though I maintained my "loner" friends. I suddenly had several groups of friends that didn't want to be seen around each other.

I was asked to join several sports, and in my senior year I gave in. Once I broke through to sports my popularity was official, and I started getting invites to the richest most popular people's parties.

The craziest part of the attention was the girls. I got groped by women all the time. Women would openly comment on how attractive I was fairly often. Sometimes women in public would catcall me. My mom's friends would openly try to set me up with their daughters. On more than one occasion while drinking, girls I knew but had never touched would literally jump on me and start making out.

And before you think I'm too much of a douchebag, I'm overweight and rather old now. A lot of people will say "it's all confidence" but I'm just as confident as I ever was. Now that I'm not attractive and older it's just called "disgruntled".

It's hard to tell anyone that has been attractive that attractiveness is not important. I've seen it for myself.

Re: How to Be Someone People Love to Talk To (2015)

#96

Post by m_fayer »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #71
xor1 wrote: post #56

I think the article severely downplays the importance of attractiveness. If the other party finds you attractive, the bar is lowered to the point of you simply being normal/average in terms of intelligence, wit, and whatever else you want to include in your definition of what makes a person "interesting". You basically need to be a vapid idiot to give anyone a bad impression as an attractive person. It's a huge facto…

Attractive is not physical appearance or good looks. Attractive is a culmination of all the factors that can be observed or known that will give a positive impression. It is usually much more important to carry yourself as attractive than to be beautiful. Confidence, honesty, friendliness, integrity, etc all can be assumed by a picture of a beautiful person, but in practice it's body language that portrays these qual…

Absolutely. A face will change in subjective attractiveness depending on the mental temperature of it's owner. Benevolence, tranquility, conspiratorial crackling wit, real empathy - seeing these on people's faces makes them immensely attractive.

And both your personality and your face get used to these mental dispositions and settle into them. So eventually we all get the face we deserve.

Re: How to Be Someone People Love to Talk To (2015)

#97

Post by watwut »

aryehof wrote: post #51
rrherr wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! My favorite tactic to get people talking about themselves comes from Paul Ford: Just ask the other person what they do, and right after they tell you, say: “Wow. That sounds hard.” Because nearly everyone in the world believes their job to be difficult. I once went to a party and met a very beautiful woman whose job was to help celebrities wear Harry Winston jewelry. I could tell that she was disappointed to be…

So in return for being "liked" by that woman, the listener had to pretend to be interested in her talk entirely about herself for half an hour? Where she wasn't interested enough to even ask the listeners name? Sounds like a way to raise her self-esteem at the expense of yours.

I would guess that she was likely to be lonely. Lonely people tend to react that way - show a bit of interest and they can talk for hours. If you have good friends or family around, you already said all of that to them at one point or another - there will be no unburdening. Alternatively she might be female equivalent of an obsessive geek. The constantly touching thing sounds like one of those awkward uncomfortable things.

In any case, she did not said he is the only person in the world she likes nor that this is the only way for someone to make her like him. She just said that she liked him.

Re: How to Be Someone People Love to Talk To (2015)

#98

Post by scrollaway »

xor1 wrote: post #76
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attractive is not physical appearance or good looks. Attractive is a culmination of all the factors that can be observed or known that will give a positive impression. It is usually much more important to carry yourself as attractive than to be beautiful. Confidence, honesty, friendliness, integrity, etc all can be assumed by a picture of a beautiful person, but in practice it's body language that portrays these qual…

>But if you're still insecure or unhappy inside, it's going to come off as unattractive. What makes you think that I'm insecure or unhappy to begin with? I see this as an investment in myself.

I certainly didn't think you were either, but now you took what was pretty clearly a generic statement as a personal one and I can't help but rethink that.

Re: How to Be Someone People Love to Talk To (2015)

#99

Post by hamandcheese »

xor1 wrote: post #89
hamandcheese wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- If it's a very attractive girl I am talking to/hitting on, I am generally more self conscious about my appearance, making it harder to relax during the conversation. I feel that any misstep in my talking will immediately make them disinterested in me. - There's the stereotype that attractive people are boring/dumb/narcissistic since they can use their attractiveness as a crutch. I am definitely guilty of passing th…

>- If it's a very attractive girl I am talking to/hitting on, I am generally more self conscious about my appearance, making it harder to relax during the conversation. I feel that any misstep in my talking will immediately make them disinterested in me. See you in HR's office.

Fun fact: there's a whole world beyond work, full of people to talk to.

Re: How to Be Someone People Love to Talk To (2015)

#100

Post by xor1 »

hamandcheese wrote: post #99
xor1 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>- If it's a very attractive girl I am talking to/hitting on, I am generally more self conscious about my appearance, making it harder to relax during the conversation. I feel that any misstep in my talking will immediately make them disinterested in me. See you in HR's office.

Fun fact: there's a whole world beyond work, full of people to talk to.

I've heard, but that's not what this discussion is about.
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