I'm a naturally socially awkward person, due partly to personality and partly to social anxiety disorder. I don't think I have the social intelligence/agility to pull off half of these maneuvers. Just reading about the author playing different characters with tables and imagining myself in that position made me want to throw up, I'd fuck it up so badly.
My stages of learning to be a socially normal person
171–180 of 444 posts
Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you think you are a common man? Are you content with it?
Yes and yes. I actually like being part of society and don’t need to feed delusions of grandeur to feel content. Also I want to point out how I referenced his opinion as being like tips on winning the lottery. Getting to a unique position of power like that requires so much luck and other input that you have no control over that I view the “advice” on how to achieve it as useless and just the result of those people g…
I think the whole "everyone's so very special" shtick that is so pervasive in children's stuff didn't do us any good. Being content with being just an normal everyday human is important.
Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
So for the same set of actions, it's fine if you're unaware of the underlying mechanisms, and manipulation if you are aware? If you dig through the weeds of it you can argue just about everything we do socially is manipulation. We are social because we're social animals and will die without help from other humans (well, particularly thousands of years ago). At the end of the day, we are nice to people to get things f…
"we are nice to people to get what we want" is flat out not true. We are nice to people because cooperative societies out performed the non-cooperative ones on the macro level. On a micro level this kind of attitude sometimes/often prevails, we call the people who act like this "jerks", and the people who try to justify it with these kinds of rationale "sociopaths", because to the group as a whole its so incredibly d…
> We are nice to people because cooperative societies out performed the non-cooperative ones on the macro level
I.e. biology gets what it wants... We want to survive, mother nature wants us to survive, society wants to survive.
I am absolutely not suggesting that outright jerkish behaviour is acceptable (although to suggest jerks have no social success is probably untrue; plenty of people who are attracted to jerks). I am arguing that if there was no personal advantage whatsoever to being social and nice to people, we wouldn't do it. We'd be lone animals, spread out across the land rather than concentrated in towns and cities. There's a spectrum of selfish behaviour, right? We are somewhere in the middle because it's advantageous to be.
Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
So for the same set of actions, it's fine if you're unaware of the underlying mechanisms, and manipulation if you are aware? If you dig through the weeds of it you can argue just about everything we do socially is manipulation. We are social because we're social animals and will die without help from other humans (well, particularly thousands of years ago). At the end of the day, we are nice to people to get things f…
You can absolutely be charming towards people and play the "game" of social interaction while being quite aware that this is what you're doing. The point is that this need not involve outright lying or BS at all and that the latter is what such terms as "manipulation" actually imply in a very practical sense; not that it somehow counts against you if you're aware of what's happening at a pure level of social interact…
Fair point about lying. I agree, outright lying is not ethical and would be more manipulative, I agree. Is the author lying?
Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person
#175This sounds like a ton of work to learn and by the end it sounds more like a curse than a super power. To be so above people in terms of social intelligence must be horrible. It sounds like the Author views interactions on a completely different level. I dont have any offensive social strategy so its hard for me to dictate making friends but passively I do quite well by just projecting an authentic version of myself.
I've always hated it when people juggle me and when I notice that I'm getting played. "Normal" people seem to absorb this strategy subconsciously throughout their lives and train themselves to do it too because they notice that it works better. To someone who notices this consciously it seems psychotic because well of course it's always easier to cheat, lie and fake your way to an advantage. You should be choosing not to live this way on purpose. I don't think that the person in the article did it from a bad heart which usually makes all the difference but tons and tons of people do it purely for self gain with no regard for the people getting exploited. Here it was his job to do this and arguably it was for the other person's benefit too to get better service so it was not bad. But we should still be able to name it what it is. This tier of strategy is polluting non-work social environments too. The last thing we need is more people who are getting better at faking being interested or caring.
I'm aware that if such people stop fake caring then they will stop caring altogether. Well good, stop gaming yourself to life advantages please that you shouldn't have. Of course it's harder to actually care about things compared to fake caring. It's harder to be an actually good person vs faking being good and it's probably far less rewarding for most to only be getting what they should be getting in life. Luckily most people are not that good at being fake because like you said, it still takes effort. But people who do it all their life no longer feel that effort and this is how you end up with lifelong fake people.
In general we will never get people to stop faking and lying their way to advantages in life so what decent people are left with is to develop an even harder armor that fake people can't get through with these strategies. It's sad but that's what life seems to be: You have to find people who aren't just here play and beat you like you're a videogame or for a darker analogy play you like you are an asset and they are a CIA agent.
Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person
#176Does this person have some kind of mental issue? I am seriosuly asking this, not mocking him. Because by reading through this post it stands out to me that he doesn't mention or highlights empathy. And that's where his problem stems from
Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person
#177That initial fixation on "position in the [social] hierarchy" in #1 can counterintuitively become self-defeating. Many people look at tricks of "climbing the social ladder" as potential signs of narcissism and instinctively steer clear. Unfortunately, that scoops up a lot of people like the author who just desperately wanted to break through an awkward adolescence!
Also counterintuitively, just giving up on that goal often leads to much more fruitful and lasting friendships. "Hi, I'm author. I'm abrasive and abrupt, excitable and sensitive. Interacting with me could be exhausting. Would you like to try? Please say yes or no."
Seriously, HN: if you saw one guy saying that to people, and another playing a ukelele at you as he "tells dramatics stories" about his life, which one would you choose to interact with?
Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you think you are a common man? Are you content with it?
Yes and yes. I actually like being part of society and don’t need to feed delusions of grandeur to feel content. Also I want to point out how I referenced his opinion as being like tips on winning the lottery. Getting to a unique position of power like that requires so much luck and other input that you have no control over that I view the “advice” on how to achieve it as useless and just the result of those people g…
Arguably, you are the lucky one to be able to be a part of society in a way that you are also content with it.
Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person
#179This post wasn't what I was expecting from the "socially normal" title. While there is a lot of self-reflection and growth in this piece, a lot of the points felt more like learning how to charm, manipulate, and game social interactions. Look at the first two subheadings: > 1: Connecting with people is about being a dazzling person > 2: Connecting with people is about playing their game The post felt like a rollercoa…
> The post felt like a rollercoaster between using tricks to charm and manipulate, and periods of genuinely trying to learn how to be friends with people. That’s all the same thing. What is being friends with people other than essentially manipulating them into liking you by being likable and a good friend? What’s important is why you’re doing it.
What? You look confused. Empathy and constantly having someone's back is not manipulation. It only ever gets manipulative if you pretend to do these things and then let your peers down at critical moments.
Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah. I wonder why that is - is it because it highlights a conflict between our actions and values? If left unexamined, it's a non-issue, so having it spelled out feels like a problem being created?
I would much rather assume the people I'm interacting with are honest and conveying their real feelings, vs playing some (probably) Machiavellian game with N levels of dishonesty and manipulation from what could easily be a malevolent person at the core. At least that tends to be the assumption when you pick up on a lack of authenticity in this way. When you have a real indication of dealing with a master manipulator…
Wouldn't you think it is more important what the goal for the other person is? If their goal is to enrich and make both of your lives better, does it matter whether they consicously use social techniques or have natural automatic ability to do so?
It is also autism vs psychopathy. Patrick Bateman is nowhere close to someone autistic trying to learn those socially successful behaviours. Patrick Bateman is a terrible human being not because they are inauthentic, he is a terrible human being because of the acts he did and wanted to do.