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Ask HN: What breakthrough helped you build and maintain better relationships?

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Re: Ask HN: What breakthrough helped you build and maintain better relationships?

#81

Post by rpmisms »

afro88 wrote: post #79
rpmisms wrote: post #56

Be resilient. Be able to bounce back from pain or discomfort. Be interested. Be helpful. Be willing to be honest in a kind way.

> Be resilient. Be able to bounce back from pain or discomfort. That's kinda like saying "be rich". Resilience takes a lot of time and effort, and only really builds after going through adversity, with healing and processing on the other side. Perhaps better advice: be vulnerable, and prepared to deal with some pain and discomfort as a result. Identify people in your life who can help support you through painful inte…

Being vulnerable builds trauma, not resilience. You could say "open yourself to discomfort", but you're actually saying "open yourself up to damage", which is only correct when you intend to be very close with the other party.

Resilience is a frame of mind and an acquired skillset. Resilience is learned, developed, and taught.

Re: Ask HN: What breakthrough helped you build and maintain better relationships?

#82

Post by jimkleiber »

Lately I've just been seeing life and relationships as emotional combat.

Some don't like the framing, but for me it helps me realize so many things, especially that we are all going through so many conflicts at the same time and we always will be.

Maybe it's a combination of the person feeling bored and feeling a bit scared of how forward you are, or scared of getting too close. Or it could be they're super busy with work, that they are thinking of you but are afraid to ask and be rejected, they have a medical issue, or a family member does and they're treading water to stay afloat, etc.

Most likely, a combination of so many conflicting contexts and feelings going on with them and also with you.

I don't know if we can fix all the things, as new conflicts will arise, and yet for me, trying to be aware of those conflicts helps me give myself and the other person more grace.

Re: Ask HN: What breakthrough helped you build and maintain better relationships?

#83

Post by [deleted] »

purple-leafy wrote: post #43
_yb2s wrote: post #36

Doing hobbies that involve other people has helped me make a lot of friends- for a lot of men in particular, this is often really the only way to build friendships. Learning how to be emotionally vulnerable is key to actually connecting with people. The book "Models" by Mark Manson is a pretty good primer on the importance of emotional vulnerability to connect with people. It is sort-of a dating advice book, but I've…

This is really well said. I think the key parts you’ve identified are: - being emotionally vulnerable (but not an emotional doormat!) - not being desperate I really struggled with emotional vulnerability, and this took time to get comfortable with, with many fails. Being desperate is also tricky, because when you’re lonely you yearn to make contacts. I won’t lie, this part is hard, but working on yourself FIRST seems…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What breakthrough helped you build and maintain better relationships?

#84

Post by forgotmypw17 »

I scooped this idea from a book on relationships, but I don't remember which one:

When we think about relationships and who is responsible for what, we may think something like this: In a two-person relationship, each person is responsible for 50% of maintaining the relationship. Together, this adds up to 100%.

However, in this scenario, if one person is not able to live up to this, and only does 49%, and the other person is doing their share of 50%, the relationship maintenance is now at only 99% of the requirement, 1% short.

So the solution to this vulnerability, is at least one (or, ideally, both) people to assume responsibility for all 100% of the relationship maintenance. This way, if you are aiming for 100%, and you fall short, you are still likely to end up with at least 100% or more.

Re: Ask HN: What breakthrough helped you build and maintain better relationships?

#85

Post by lostmyotheracct »

_yb2s wrote: post #36

Doing hobbies that involve other people has helped me make a lot of friends- for a lot of men in particular, this is often really the only way to build friendships. Learning how to be emotionally vulnerable is key to actually connecting with people. The book "Models" by Mark Manson is a pretty good primer on the importance of emotional vulnerability to connect with people. It is sort-of a dating advice book, but I've…

Could you suggest some hobbies? I grew up an only child without any close friends so I learned to do everything solo at an early age.

Re: Ask HN: What breakthrough helped you build and maintain better relationships?

#86

Post by drakonka »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #51
_yb2s wrote: post #36

Doing hobbies that involve other people has helped me make a lot of friends- for a lot of men in particular, this is often really the only way to build friendships. Learning how to be emotionally vulnerable is key to actually connecting with people. The book "Models" by Mark Manson is a pretty good primer on the importance of emotional vulnerability to connect with people. It is sort-of a dating advice book, but I've…

"Models" by Mark Manson was my bible in college, and I swear by it. I especially swear by the summary at https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2018/05/25/models-a-summ... , which I printed out and read basically every morning for a couple of months until it felt like a part of me. Changed my life, vastly for the better.

This part really resonated with me:

> Someone rejected you for not wanting kids? Imagine five years from now when they’ve worn you down and you have to wake up six times a night to feed a child you never wanted.

Someone rejected me for his _perception_ that I do not want kids. In reality, this could have been a 15-minute conversation in which we'd find out we were on the same page. But the fact that he was unwilling to bring up that concern and instead worried about it in silence, culminating in a middle-of-the-night decision to end things, is in itself evidence that he was not an appropriate person to have kids with in the first place.

It still is really sad and unfortunate to "lose" something over what feels like a miscommunication, but ultimately a favor - because with the right person, the miscommunication would have been resolved.

Re: Ask HN: What breakthrough helped you build and maintain better relationships?

#87

Post by mleonhard »

Friendships can form when people have repeated un-planned meetings. Put yourself into such situations regularly: work at a co-working space, keep a consistent gym schedule, regularly attend several meetups, regularly attend a volunteering group, visit a coffee shop on a schedule, take public transit at the same time each day, etc. Don't let your headphones prevent random conversations with strangers.

The biggest cause of loneliness today is loss of the third-place [0] in modern communities. Suburbia is soulless and isolating because there are few third places where people can socialize and meet others.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place

Re: Ask HN: What breakthrough helped you build and maintain better relationships?

#88

Post by afro88 »

rpmisms wrote: post #81
afro88 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Be resilient. Be able to bounce back from pain or discomfort. That's kinda like saying "be rich". Resilience takes a lot of time and effort, and only really builds after going through adversity, with healing and processing on the other side. Perhaps better advice: be vulnerable, and prepared to deal with some pain and discomfort as a result. Identify people in your life who can help support you through painful inte…

Being vulnerable builds trauma, not resilience. You could say "open yourself to discomfort", but you're actually saying "open yourself up to damage", which is only correct when you intend to be very close with the other party. Resilience is a frame of mind and an acquired skillset. Resilience is learned, developed, and taught.

Being vulnerable only builds trauma if you're being vulnerable to damage that you aren't prepared to handle. Otherwise it's "just" adversity that you can overcome with support from close friends, family and/or a therapist, as well as what you have learned (books, courses, podcasts, lived experience etc). The former being the healing, the latter being the processing. The more adversity you overcome, the more resilient you become.

I would also say, don't rule out being a little vulnerable with people before you intend to become very close to them. Firtly, doing it in small doses at first and overcoming the damage will build some resilience before you meet someone new that you intend to be very close to. And secondly, often you won't know you want to be very close to someone until your connection with them is stronger and you know them well, and this can't happen without some vulnerability shown by both sides.

Re: Ask HN: What breakthrough helped you build and maintain better relationships?

#89

Post by dogdutyascetic »

purple-leafy wrote: post #43
_yb2s wrote: post #36

Doing hobbies that involve other people has helped me make a lot of friends- for a lot of men in particular, this is often really the only way to build friendships. Learning how to be emotionally vulnerable is key to actually connecting with people. The book "Models" by Mark Manson is a pretty good primer on the importance of emotional vulnerability to connect with people. It is sort-of a dating advice book, but I've…

This is really well said. I think the key parts you’ve identified are: - being emotionally vulnerable (but not an emotional doormat!) - not being desperate I really struggled with emotional vulnerability, and this took time to get comfortable with, with many fails. Being desperate is also tricky, because when you’re lonely you yearn to make contacts. I won’t lie, this part is hard, but working on yourself FIRST seems…

Check out Michael Puett’s The Path.

Re: Ask HN: What breakthrough helped you build and maintain better relationships?

#90

Post by j_crick »

galfarragem wrote: post #55
j_crick wrote: post #27

> How do you fix something like this if you can’t diagnose what’s wrong? You don't "fix" it, you just fine-tune your behavior models. Make of yourself something that people need and/or want (which is often something they'll eventually outright signal that they're missing). Don't make yourself dependable, but desirable. Empathy and compassion are fickle resources because if you are superficial about expressing them, p…

Congratulations, new skill unlocked: master manipulator. /s

The way I see it, engineering obedience or coercion is another, much wider skillset, of which engineering attention and interest is only a part. But you gotta start somewhere! :wink: /s
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