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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)

#171

Post by AlwaysRock »

randcraw wrote: post #143
onmobiletemp wrote: post #87

I started paying attention to people and discovered a lot of this on my own over the course of three years. At some point i realized that whenever i talked to someone their eyes would glaze over and their face would go stony. Then theyd talk to someone else and their eyes would become focused and their face alive and animated. Laughter. I figured out this was because they didnt care about what i was saying or about m…

Actually, not only do I agree with your main point, but I think I know why it's a problem. (BTW, it's a problem for me too.) Most people today have the attention span of gnats. They crave talk in small, light, humor-based doses, like TV sitcom dialogue. (And yes, I don't understand what most people want to hear either. Mostly I think they want others to compliment them, ask them to expound on themselves, and laugh at…

This. I prefer discourse but most people just want to have light conversations so I have a slew of stories I can tell that are entertaining.

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

#172

Post by afpx »

AndrewOMartin wrote: post #36

I've been the recipient of active listening on more than one occasion and it's made me want to tear that persons lungs out through their mouth. It feels like you're the victim of a corrupt bureaucrat's evil stalling tactic.

For me, 9 times out of 10, I'm genuinely interested in the other person, and I like to ask questions and actually listen to what they're saying. I find people, even those that some would classify as boring, to be fascinating. Actually, I find that the 'boring' ones can be extra interesting because they usually have some very unusual interests.

For example, I recently met a person who was obsessed with the TV show 'Friends' and spent many hours re-watching episodes. To me, in a world that seems to be becoming increasingly homogenous, it was fascinating. And, even though I'd only seen a few episodes of the show, it was enough for me to latch on and indulge in the pleasure that this person felt about it.

Unfortunately, as time has gone on, I've also sort of lost my interest in many people. Although I can relate to many of their interests and ideas, I have met so many hikers / bikers / runners, cooks / bakers / beer-brewers, foodies, musicians, travelers, photographers, aspiring entrepreneurs lately that I have had a hard time motivating myself to dig any deeper.

Anyway, to your point, I think feigning interest in someone is awful and insincere. And, I refuse to do it. But, if I open myself to actually empathize with them and to indulge in what they're saying, it is very satisfying. Hopefully, I come across as sincere to those people to whom I inquire, because it's genuine curiosity. But, as 'hacking' seems to have gone mainstream, I certainly have seen my share of social pickup artists, and it is irritating.

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

#173

Post by AlwaysRock »

nunez wrote: post #18

Skimming through the article, I observed that they missed the most important step one must do to get better at talking to people: Practice! One doesn't learn how to write code without writing code. One also doesn't learn how to tie their shoes without actually tying shoes. So it follows that one doesn't learn how to become good at people without talking to people. You've gotta go out! And I'm not talking about grabbi…

Yes. Practice is the only way to get better. Unfortunately it's a much more painful practice than most things in life. Code isn't going to get uninterested in you or think you are weird.

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

#174

Post by StavrosK »

wccrawford wrote: post #164
StavrosK wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're staring the point right in the eyes, but are missing it: > was a smooth political operator This is it right there. It doesn't matter so much how attractive he was. If he can do politics, it's game over for everyone who can't.

I think the point of his story is that it's easier to be a smooth political operator if you look good.

The GP presented it as if the entire reason that this person was a smooth political operator was that they were attractive, which is trivially refuted, as I've seen attractive people who were bad at politics.

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

#175

Post by kdamken »

YCode wrote: post #166

Somewhat related... Dale Carnegie, this article, et. al describe various methods to be liked, listened to, etc. that all basically revolve around the idea that you should make the conversation about them and their needs. Even smiling is a small step away from outright saying you like them and are willing to listen. One thing I've found though is that this can be mentally exhausting. It starts to feel like the people…

By focusing on your own needs above all else. Don't worry about befriending everyone. Be authentic and find people who like you for you actually are, not because you manipulated them into it.

I highly recommend checking out "How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World".

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

#176

Post by throwaway382822 »

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…

"men age like wine, women age like milk"

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

#177

Post by coldtea »

pc86 wrote: post #159
coldtea wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: there's tons of office romances, and people fuck like rabbits while working in the same company all the time. Even in puritanical US (or especially there). Heck, millions of people met at work and finally got married. And, no, flirting is not the same as harassment.

My brain wasn't sure how to compute seeing the phrase "fuck like rabbits" right next to use of the work "heck" instead of "hell."

LOL, foreigner, so I just use "heck" as a common idiom -- not because of some puritan upbringing.

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

#178

Post by saiya-jin »

throwayedidqo wrote: post #95
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…

all the girls I had discussion with, strongly abhorred Arnie-types (not even that extreme, just more muscular builds, aka "all are braindead and on steroids and goknowswhat"). yet when approached in a bar/anywhere outside of work, they melt very quickly, even the very clever and successful ones. I am not talking about brainless guys who couldn't do a first-grader math homework now, but a normal common guy, just add some extra muscles on him. been there, still there more or less, but engaged now so this gets kind of annoying if anything. And I am not that muscular anyway.

I can't recommend this enough for any guy looking to step up his game - getting stronger will make you happier about yourself, more confident, your posture gets better and so on. All this adds up, all is visible and communicated non-verbally 24h a day.

main thing is - don't do this to get some specific girl. do it for yourself. girls, and better life will come as a consequence.

and to not be sexist - this is very much true for the girls too, just don't overdo it. fit is sexy.

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

#179

Post by onmobiletemp »

morbidhawk wrote: post #156
onmobiletemp wrote: post #87

I started paying attention to people and discovered a lot of this on my own over the course of three years. At some point i realized that whenever i talked to someone their eyes would glaze over and their face would go stony. Then theyd talk to someone else and their eyes would become focused and their face alive and animated. Laughter. I figured out this was because they didnt care about what i was saying or about m…

> Its verry dificult because you cant verify what people are thinking, you cant debug it and you cant start over -- you have to guess a lot I think there is a way to verify what people are thinking and that would be by asking them questions. As you point out later it has to be genuine and not a clinical encounter, and I'd also add not a self-serving one. If you genuinely want to understand what they are saying you wo…

I agree. Especially about not trying to force meaning and takimg genuine interest in people.

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

#180

Post by goblin89 »

onmobiletemp wrote: post #87

I started paying attention to people and discovered a lot of this on my own over the course of three years. At some point i realized that whenever i talked to someone their eyes would glaze over and their face would go stony. Then theyd talk to someone else and their eyes would become focused and their face alive and animated. Laughter. I figured out this was because they didnt care about what i was saying or about m…

> Humans are machines and the algorithms that they employ for attention and emotion are surprisngly uniform and very unintuitive for autists like me and you.

What do you (or anyone else reading this) think of evolutionary psychology in which context such aspects of human behavior can be somewhat consistently explained?

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