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How to make a friend fast

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Re: How to make a friend fast

#5
post #3

Hmm, I guess 'extrovert' is an acceptable spelling nowadays, even though it's the wrong Latin root.

What is the correct spelling?

Eventually the correct spelling is driven by usage, and 'extrovert' is currently listed in dictionaries so... it's correct.

Historically the term was 'extravert' in psych literature. I feel like more technical usage probably still leans that way.

Re: How to make a friend fast

#7

Hmm, I guess 'extrovert' is an acceptable spelling nowadays, even though it's the wrong Latin root.

Both "extrovert" and "extravert" are correct. Contemporary language use does not always care about latin, however sorry I am for that.

But the author of this post goes even further, and uses both spellings in the same sentence!

In extravert-introvert pairs, extroverts report on greater closeness than introverts

That can't be right...

Re: How to make a friend fast

#8
After a two year period of watching my boss interact with people, I can confirm that this method works extremely well.

He is a "natural", in the sense that he can form close bonds with people incredibly quickly. At first I thought he was using some sort of secret strategy, but after a while I noticed that he was simply sharing personal details about himself (which the article refers to as "self-disclosure") without being prompted, which encourages, and in fact compels, the other side to reciprocate.

Here is an example conference call conversation from two weeks ago, in fact, in which we were chatting with a potential client to schedule a meeting. Bob is my boss:

--

Bob: Okay. Let's have an in-person meeting next week. What day works best for you?

Client: How about Thursday at 2?

Bob: Sounds great. You know, I'm glad you didn't say Wednesday because I have to be with my two little girls that day, and I definitely could not miss that. They mean the world to me.

Client: Oh yeah, I understand. In fact I can relate... I have a daughter myself!

--

And then when we actually met in person this past Thursday, the topic of their daughters was a natural conversation point.

In contrast, I tend to be fairly reserved when it comes to sharing personal info. I like to stay on topic and dislike what I perceive as derails. The above conversation for me would have gone like this:

--

Me: Okay. Let's have an in-person meeting next week. What day works best for you?

Client: How about Thursday?

Me: Sounds great. See you on Thursday at 2 PM.

--

Similar, but also very different.

Re: How to make a friend fast

#9
post #7

Hmm, I guess 'extrovert' is an acceptable spelling nowadays, even though it's the wrong Latin root.

Both "extrovert" and "extravert" are correct. Contemporary language use does not always care about latin, however sorry I am for that. But the author of this post goes even further, and uses both spellings in the same sentence! In extravert-introvert pairs, extroverts report on greater closeness than introverts That can't be right...

Okay I did some digging

Google n-grams isn't all that sympathetic to my account, in showing a long history for 'extrovert' and suggests 'extravert' is actively dying out.

But the history may not go back far enough: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-dif...

'Folklore has it that when Carl Jung was once asked which was the correct spelling—ExtrAvert or ExtrOvert—Jung's secretary wrote back something like, "Dr. Jung says it's ExtrAverted, because ExtrOverted is just bad latin."'

[...]

'According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "The original spelling 'Extravert' is now rare in general use but is found in technical use in psychology." That's correct. If you look at scientific journal articles, virtually every paper uses the spelling ExtrAvert.'

Re: How to make a friend fast

#10

After a two year period of watching my boss interact with people, I can confirm that this method works extremely well. He is a "natural", in the sense that he can form close bonds with people incredibly quickly. At first I thought he was using some sort of secret strategy, but after a while I noticed that he was simply sharing personal details about himself (which the article refers to as "self-disclosure") without b…

After having read about self-disclosure I started doing this and never looked back. Also I forgot that I had it from reading a psychology experiment.

I've learned that it mostly works. In some cases though people see you as someone who doesn't always say something relevant.

What also works (more specifically) is: you share a certain secret about you, and if that person has a similar secret you get to hear it as well. At one night, I was with a traveler and we were both in a country we both didn't live in. We self-disclosed quite a bit and then agreed to tell each other every juicy detail of our lives without ever seeing each other again. We poured our hearts out to each other and we told each other all kinds of secrets that we told no one else. I learned a lot about life that night :)

Self-disclosure is awesome. You give people the opportunity to relate back. And people, in general, are nice.

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