Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

improveyoursocialskills.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 440 posts

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#331

Post by hippich »

PakG1 wrote: post #309
hippich wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure it is that simple. When someone vents off to me - I can't ignore it, I am no psychopath. This is especially hard with people whom I am close with. Having a solution is what gives my brain to "check it off", which I equally need as they need to vent. What should I do? To tell fuck off with their complains if they are not seeking a solution? (done that to some, they still do not understand) Just keep soak…

I find that I am like most people in these threads and find it difficult to not provide advice on how to solve unsolved problems in other people's lives. That being said, when more "socially normal" people are the recipients of other people's venting, I don't imagine that they are able to ignore it because they are psychopaths. In fact, I imagine many of them aren't actually ignoring it. I imagine that many of them f…

Sorry for a wrong impression, I am not saying "socially normal" ones are psychopaths. If their natural reaction to someone's suffering is emotional support - it is totally normal in my book to do it. But for me to fake emotional support to support socially accepted norm without feeling bad about it, would be psychopathic behavior - do what others expect from you to not be frown upon.

And I doubt "socially normal" people "understand" such commiseration is helpful (i am sure it is, by the way), but they are genetically or environmentally conditioned to respond like that and it just happened it is majority like that.

Don't get me wrong. I understand it requires effort to be accepted, and i try to fit in. But being constantly under stress during my normal day, adding on top of it someone's else emotions about something they do not want to fix, but rather want to share stress with someone as a social interaction, is no good for me mentally (very different story at parties where I get quickly drunk enough to no pass out, but completelly turn off my internal problem solver btw - I can talk feelings all night long).

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#333

Post by humanrebar »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #285
jimmaswell wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are men expected to be the only ones who have to put in any effort and make any changes in this situation?

Partly because, in that situation, I'm the one who's not upset. I'm not the one who's on the verge of tears. I therefore am probably more able to make the adjustment at that moment.

Eh. Consistently applied, that logic lets some people (maybe not even the most emotional ones involved) overrule the thoughts and feelings of others with their emotions. One person has thoughtful opinions, another has emotional needs.

Who should be considered? Well, both.

At least over time. I'm not saying finding the balance in a relationship is appropriate at the moment when people are emotional, but it is possible to emotionally neglect or bully someone who is fairly even-keeled.

And, of course, I've seen less emotive women bullied by emotionally unstable men. I wouldn't say it's necessarily one gender getting the short end of this dysfunctional communication pattern.

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#334

Post by humanrebar »

starpilot wrote: post #312
wallflower wrote: post #53

While some of you may make light of the fact that I am giving you advice, my single most important piece of advice to people who are highly analytical and/or always solving problems is to not give unsolicited advice to friends, family, acquaintances, or even strangers. People will ask for advice if they really want it. People are not “broken pieces of code” begging to be fixed. I’ve lost friends over this, until one…

Unsolicited advice feels like criticism. It almost never is intended as such, but that's often how it feels. It's also almost always self-serving; the advisor wants to be a hero, and the recipient picks up on this and ends up feeling alone. Really recommend the book Messages: The Communications Skills Book by McKay.

I think that's overgeneralized.

"If you cut across on Maple, you can skip that slow light on Main Street."

"Nice. I'll try that next time."

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#335

Post by humanrebar »

_8j50 wrote: post #202
wallflower wrote: post #53

While some of you may make light of the fact that I am giving you advice, my single most important piece of advice to people who are highly analytical and/or always solving problems is to not give unsolicited advice to friends, family, acquaintances, or even strangers. People will ask for advice if they really want it. People are not “broken pieces of code” begging to be fixed. I’ve lost friends over this, until one…

Not only that,but people take offense at factual analysis. If I present a fact and reasoning on why I consider it a fact, regardless of how unpleasant it might be I expect people to not take it personally and either contest my reasoning or accept/ignore what I said. However, being correct does not mean I shouldn't be sensitive to my audience. For example, if someone is a flat earther and I tell them why I think they…

Most of the hand wringing about advice here is overblown.

Definitely pay attention to the audience. If they're bored or off-put by advice, stop it. Maybe slip an apology in.

But part of being yourself, (generally what people advise!) is being OK with some people not enjoying your approach. Other people will enjoy a nice troubleshooting session and they'll stick around.

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#336

Post by humanrebar »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #229
gherkinnn wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. That’s why I find dev.to and to be a rather uninteresting place. It’s 90% niceties and explaining .map over and over again. Similar things can be observed in many meetups and some companies. Everything is awesome. Everybody is nice. People shy away from deciding anything . Even the simple act of two people wanting to go through the same door at the same time is an impossible conundrum. No matter how important ps…

> Even the simple act of two people wanting to go through the same door at the same time is an impossible conundrum. Tangential, but I hit this issue very often with couple of friends during university years; two of us wanted to go through a door, and get stuck in a "you go", "no, you go", "I insist" loop. At some point I said, "you know what, let's do rock-paper-scissors, if you lose you go first". It immediately ca…

At some point I decided there's generosity in knowing how to gracefully accept a gift. From then on I didn't get caught in these kinds of paradoxes. When the offering party's sincerity is established, I shift into thankfulness and everyone wins.

Rock, paper, scissors might work too. Haven't tried that.

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#337

Post by throwaway211120 »

If someone can help me here, whenever I talk to any females, my eyes inadvertently goes on to the women's breast which makes them uncomfortable which I notice and move my eyes away from their face and start looking somewhere else. Once that female becomes a good friend my eyes no longer goes into that direction and then I can look into the eyes and have the conversations.

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#338

Post by jlawson »

wallflower wrote: post #53

While some of you may make light of the fact that I am giving you advice, my single most important piece of advice to people who are highly analytical and/or always solving problems is to not give unsolicited advice to friends, family, acquaintances, or even strangers. People will ask for advice if they really want it. People are not “broken pieces of code” begging to be fixed. I’ve lost friends over this, until one…

The other side of this is expressed in the classic comedy video, "It's Not About the Nail" (1:41).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4EDhdAHrOg

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#339

Post by humanrebar »

refurb wrote: post #231
spodek wrote: post #44

This community consistently poo-poos MBAs and business people who, it says, don't contribute and just shuffle paper or find ways to lay people off. I felt that way when I started my first company, finishing my physics degree. I figured, I helped launch a satellite, I can do what we needed. A couple patents later, we got our first funding and I knew how to solve what problems came our way. I could break down any probl…

I had a coworker who was a social butterfly. Loved nothing more than talking to customers. She has a huge impact on the business. She had basically developed relationships with customers where she could pick up the phone and call the top physicians in the US and ask a favor - and they would always say yes. Was she good on the technical side? Not really, but she offered incredible value. Same thing with leadership. Ge…

> Get people to buy into your plans in a large organization is not easy.

The trick is usually not to approach it that way. Learn about others' goals and help them out with a step or two in a way that also benefits the goals of others, perhaps your own even. Make sure everyone sees the success when it happens.

Do that over and over and you have a form of leadership.

"Visioncasting" and such can work too, but typically organizational alignment is more organic and ad hoc than hierarchical and executive. There are exceptions in highly structured groups, though.

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#340

Post by bigred100 »

wallflower wrote: post #53

While some of you may make light of the fact that I am giving you advice, my single most important piece of advice to people who are highly analytical and/or always solving problems is to not give unsolicited advice to friends, family, acquaintances, or even strangers. People will ask for advice if they really want it. People are not “broken pieces of code” begging to be fixed. I’ve lost friends over this, until one…

Many people view this as wanting to help solve a problem. Many people it in a much less benign manner, and in fact view it as a possible sign of pride, arrogance, and (past a certain point or in extreme cases) delusion on the part of the speaker if they keep trying to give advice on matters where they aren’t qualified, or without giving the right attention to the context, or taking into account other issues they may not be aware of.
Post reply on HN