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People Like You More Than You Know

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Re: People Like You More Than You Know

#51

Post by DoreenMichele »

davemp wrote: post #28
sureaboutthis wrote: post #23

These are true stories. I don't wish to come across as bragging. The last day of a job I had for seven years, the director of engineering told me I was the best engineer he ever knew. And he worked for some pretty well known engineering firms. If he had told me that before, I might not have left. A woman came into my office--someone who didn't seem to want to give me the time of day--and the conversation got around t…

This is why you shouldn't be afraid to give out (truthful) compliments folks. For a small communication effort, you may make a big enough impact for your compliment to be remembered for years. Maybe the person will even smile to themselves and write a nice HN comment about it! (or not quit your company)...

This is why you shouldn't be afraid to give out (truthful) compliments folks

I've been seriously and repeatedly burned for doing that. I then spent years dialing it back. I'm 53 and only just now working on figuring out how to do that again without letting it turn into some shit show where everyone treats me like I'm their bitch.

Every single guy I have ever gushed at about how keen he is has, without fail, promptly turned into a psycho asshole monster and made me wish I never met him.

Maybe I'm just doing it wrong. But my feeling is there are reasons most people don't gush at you until your last day in their life as you leave: Because so many people promptly act like monkeys do if humans make the mistake of feeding them and just make your life a living hell over the crime of trying to be nice.

Re: People Like You More Than You Know

#52

Post by jacobolus »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #51
davemp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why you shouldn't be afraid to give out (truthful) compliments folks. For a small communication effort, you may make a big enough impact for your compliment to be remembered for years. Maybe the person will even smile to themselves and write a nice HN comment about it! (or not quit your company)...

This is why you shouldn't be afraid to give out (truthful) compliments folks I've been seriously and repeatedly burned for doing that. I then spent years dialing it back. I'm 53 and only just now working on figuring out how to do that again without letting it turn into some shit show where everyone treats me like I'm their bitch. Every single guy I have ever gushed at about how keen he is has, without fail, promptly…

> Every single guy I have ever gushed at about how keen he is has, without fail, promptly turned into a psycho asshole monster and made me wish I never met him.

I have seen / heard of many guys getting complimented over the years (including myself a few times), and never heard of one of them turning into a “psycho”, “asshole”, or ”monster”. A couple times I saw a guy get complimented out of the blue and then kind of stammer something and hurry away looking embarrassed, because he didn’t have any idea how to respond. A couple times I have seen men brush off / refuse compliments it looked like because they wanted to seem modest (e.g. “oh it was really no big deal, please don’t think anything of it...” after someone had just directly said their action was very helpful/meaningful). Once I saw a guy get complimented and respond “yeah, everyone says the same thing”, which I admit is a pretty obnoxious response.

I have also heard plenty of stories of guys who were monsters (physical abusers, stalkers, spreaders of nasty rumors ...), but to my knowledge none of those came out of a compliment.

I believe you, but I’m having trouble imagining quite what happened. Maybe you can elaborate a bit? Do you mean that those men turned around and demanded something more from you? Stopped treating you with basic respect? Wouldn’t talk to you anymore? Chased you around? ...

Re: People Like You More Than You Know

#54

Post by theoh »

nazka wrote: post #48
theoh wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the spirit that got Linus Torvalds where he is now — "Be abrasive, don't pull punches, be a 'git'. People don't care about you, so you can't really hurt them anyway"

He started to change a while back and now even more. I am sure you missed this that happened recently. https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CA+55aFy+Hv9O5citAawS+mVZO+ywCK...

Have you seen that his statement was a reaction to a New Yorker investigation about how his attitude had discouraged women from contributing to the kernel?

"Torvalds’s decision to step aside came after The New Yorker asked him a series of questions about his conduct for a story on complaints about his abusive behavior discouraging women from working as Linux-kernel programmers."

He is in disgrace.

Re: People Like You More Than You Know

#55

Post by nineteen999 »

oatsandsugar wrote: post #17
sharkweek wrote: post #12

I'm sure this is true. Another thing I'm sure of is how little time most people spend thinking about other people. Even the people in my life I don't care for, I rarely spend more than a passing moment thinking about them, even if they're in the same room. The ones I do think about a lot are the ones I love (wife, children, closest friends). Despite knowing this, though, I'll admit that I can spend a lot of time thin…

This reminds me of a fortune cookie I once had, that I first thought was aggressive, and then I found liberating: "You'd care less about what people think about you if you realized how little they do"

"Most people are too worried about what you think of them to have to time to worry about what to think about you".

Re: People Like You More Than You Know

#56

Post by [deleted] »

munchbunny wrote: post #11
noobiemcfoob wrote: post #2

Yeah, but none of that helps with me not liking them

If you listed and categorized the people you dislike, what would the breakdown look like? I personally found as I got older (not implying that you're young, just that I changed over time) that many people I previously disliked were now just people I felt neutral about. More specifically, I thought they were well intentioned but flawed as all humans are, and their flaws just happen to be the ones that bug me but not o…

[deleted]

Re: People Like You More Than You Know

#57

Post by theoh »

coldtea wrote: post #42
theoh wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the spirit that got Linus Torvalds where he is now — "Be abrasive, don't pull punches, be a 'git'. People don't care about you, so you can't really hurt them anyway"

> where he is now A celebrated 100x programmer at the top of the software engineering hierarchy, whose work helped span a trillion dollar industry? He might have regretted being so abrasive as of late, but let's not paint things as if he failed to accomplish much because of that. In fact it might have helped solidify a more cautious approach around kernel development and keep possible detractors at bay, in the early…

Well, we're all saddled with git's total disregard for the user experience.

We'd still be struggling with the positive and negative aspects of open source software if Linus hadn't existed, just as the first world war would probably have happened anyway if Gavrilo Princip hadn't precipitated it. Bear in mind that however good a coder Linus might be, RMS is still an influential figure for political reasons despite checking out of the coding business years ago. Politics, charisma of one sort or another, celebrity...

Re: People Like You More Than You Know

#58

Post by ianai »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #51
davemp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why you shouldn't be afraid to give out (truthful) compliments folks. For a small communication effort, you may make a big enough impact for your compliment to be remembered for years. Maybe the person will even smile to themselves and write a nice HN comment about it! (or not quit your company)...

This is why you shouldn't be afraid to give out (truthful) compliments folks I've been seriously and repeatedly burned for doing that. I then spent years dialing it back. I'm 53 and only just now working on figuring out how to do that again without letting it turn into some shit show where everyone treats me like I'm their bitch. Every single guy I have ever gushed at about how keen he is has, without fail, promptly…

People also readily undervalue things that come to them easily - relationships, friendships, money, power, etc. I work at a multi billion dollar facility that is routinely taken for granted by workers. “Oh it’s just this place” sort of thing. I’ve known men and women to undervalue relationships that came to them easily. That exact concept was on display in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. I think the “struggle” really does make people value things and others more highly and the lack thereof less.

My working hypothesis is our brains are always learning - literally everything. We learn our concept of time from our experience with it. We learn our concept of a relationship with another person from our experience with them. If someone comes into our life easily - relative to other relationships - our brain associates them with less value. It’s also horrible logic.

Edit- as for whether someone likes you: people accept, overlook, and tolerate more aberrations from normal/good treatment from people they value or like. If they’ll accept little of your aberrations then they’re unlikely to ever like you - run for the hills. That’s one of my tricks for likeness.

Re: People Like You More Than You Know

#59

Post by DoreenMichele »

jacobolus wrote: post #52
DoreenMichele wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why you shouldn't be afraid to give out (truthful) compliments folks I've been seriously and repeatedly burned for doing that. I then spent years dialing it back. I'm 53 and only just now working on figuring out how to do that again without letting it turn into some shit show where everyone treats me like I'm their bitch. Every single guy I have ever gushed at about how keen he is has, without fail, promptly…

> Every single guy I have ever gushed at about how keen he is has, without fail, promptly turned into a psycho asshole monster and made me wish I never met him. I have seen / heard of many guys getting complimented over the years (including myself a few times), and never heard of one of them turning into a “psycho”, “asshole”, or ”monster”. A couple times I saw a guy get complimented out of the blue and then kind of…

I don't want to get into a lot of details, but I will give one example.

I had an affair in my twenties with a man whose life could have been absolutely ruined because of it. He wasn't especially good looking, but he had beautiful blue eyes and I had a thing for blue eyes and told him how much I liked his blue eyes. We were not sleeping together at the time and it wasn't an unreasonable thing to say, given circumstances. This was a huge turning point in the relationship and he ended up nutcase levels of obsessed with me.

This man is the reason I did not use my first and last name online for many years -- because it is a fairly unique combination and I didn't want to be easily and readily found by him. Five years after I ditched him, he hired a fucking detective to track me down and called my house where I answered the goddamned phone in front of my children, like that isn't awkward as all hell.

No, he hadn't filed for divorce from his alcoholic wife. No, he hadn't left his incredibly conservative career. No, he absolutely was not in any position whatsoever to say "Oops, sorry. You can move in with me." if his phone call outed me to my husband and resulted in a divorce.

I'm not exaggerating when I say psycho asshole monster. It's only not been more of a debacle because avoiding drama is one of my skills, thankfully.

Re: People Like You More Than You Know

#60

Post by jacobolus »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #59
jacobolus wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every single guy I have ever gushed at about how keen he is has, without fail, promptly turned into a psycho asshole monster and made me wish I never met him. I have seen / heard of many guys getting complimented over the years (including myself a few times), and never heard of one of them turning into a “psycho”, “asshole”, or ”monster”. A couple times I saw a guy get complimented out of the blue and then kind of…

I don't want to get into a lot of details, but I will give one example. I had an affair in my twenties with a man whose life could have been absolutely ruined because of it. He wasn't especially good looking, but he had beautiful blue eyes and I had a thing for blue eyes and told him how much I liked his blue eyes. We were not sleeping together at the time and it wasn't an unreasonable thing to say, given circumstanc…

Sorry you had to go through such a shitty aftermath. That sounds terrifying.

It sounds like he took the compliment as a sign that you were really serious about him and the relationship, whereas you intended it just as a statement about his eyes.

The “nutcase levels of obsessed” part sounds like a pre-existing problem / part of this guy’s temperament, rather than a normal response to receiving compliments. The people I know who attracted stalkers didn’t so far as I know trigger them with any particular action.

Dunno, I’m not a psychologist. I would be interested to hear more about this kind of compliment-as-behavior-switch in other kinds of circumstances.

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