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How to talk to anyone and why you should

theguardian.com

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Re: How to talk to anyone and why you should

#171

Post by jackvalentine »

consp wrote: post #109

Why does the majority of people just assume people want to communicate... I have not read the article and never am going to. This headline premise alone of doing that will destroy any sanity I have. I do not, ever, want to talk you as a standard and you should never force that to me.

You should really read the article rather than judging it based on the title. The author establishes several reasons you might want to speak to others and highlights cultural phenomena where people seem to be yearning for more connection with strangers.

If after reading it you decide it’s not for you then that’s fine, it is as they say bean soup.

Re: How to talk to anyone and why you should

#172

Post by socalgal2 »

SequoiaHope wrote: post #11

After a bad breakup in 2015, I followed some advice from the socialskills subreddit to “talk to everyone” so that you get better at talking to women you might want to date. The advice was not to only talk to attractive people but everyone. The old man reading a Russian newspaper, the kid on bike doing tricks, people in the elevator. I do that now and it brings me a lot of joy. Recently while leaving a botanical garde…

An old guy sat at the table next to mine at an outdoor cafe. I don't remember what I said to start the conversation but he told me he'd lived in Japan for 3yrs in the 50s, married a Japanese woman, they moved to Redondo Beach and she convinced him to buy a house more than they could afford. He said it was the best decision of their lives. He then said she'd past away a few years ago and they had no kids.

I ask him what he thought of the population crisis Japan is facing. He said said that was bullshit and that 8 billion people in the world are way too many.

And that was when I stopped talking to him.

Re: How to talk to anyone and why you should

#173

Post by maplethorpe »

I used to talk to strangers a lot when I was younger. But then I started getting older and more scary looking. I developed memories of older men making unwanted advances towards me. I became horribly afraid of making anyone else feel that way, so I stopped.

I know the article's advice is to take a chance, and if I scare someone else so be it. But something about that feels wrong to me.

Re: How to talk to anyone and why you should

#174

Post by perching_aix »

DiskoHexyl wrote: post #101
vedaba wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until you run into an A-hole whose response ruins the rest of your day when you were just trying to be sociable. I could even see getting physically assaulted for trying to talk to the wrong stranger. I like where your heart is at, unfortunately many people out there are not deserving of it.

The idea of practicing these random interactions is also to get accustomed to rejections from the assholes. After all, they aren’t the majority- most people are actually quite nice and often appreciate a company (or will politely tell you they don’t need one)

This made me reflect on online interactions.

Agreeable comments will draw comparatively fewer replies, while disagreeable ones achieve the opposite.

But this then results in a "false experience" for the individual, where unlike in real life, the bad exchanges do not end up outweighed by the good ones, as you simply don't go on to have those. You just upvote and move on (often to avoid redundancy).

Maybe if the two were tied together (voting either up / down & sending a reply), communities would work healthier? I don't know. Not like it's easy to have this tried out.

I could definitely see challenges to this though, the aforementioned redundancy being one. I have some countermeasure ideas, but then I wonder if that would make the UX complicated enough to drive people away instead, which is a lose-lose.

Re: How to talk to anyone and why you should

#175

Post by hippich »

SequoiaHope wrote: post #11

After a bad breakup in 2015, I followed some advice from the socialskills subreddit to “talk to everyone” so that you get better at talking to women you might want to date. The advice was not to only talk to attractive people but everyone. The old man reading a Russian newspaper, the kid on bike doing tricks, people in the elevator. I do that now and it brings me a lot of joy. Recently while leaving a botanical garde…

Please also recognize when others don't really want to talk. Not everybody want to go beyond cultural niceties of a smile and "hi, how you doing". I don't want to be a jerk, but I also don't like to talk to random strangers.

Re: How to talk to anyone and why you should

#177

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

socalgal2 wrote: post #172
SequoiaHope wrote: post #11

After a bad breakup in 2015, I followed some advice from the socialskills subreddit to “talk to everyone” so that you get better at talking to women you might want to date. The advice was not to only talk to attractive people but everyone. The old man reading a Russian newspaper, the kid on bike doing tricks, people in the elevator. I do that now and it brings me a lot of joy. Recently while leaving a botanical garde…

An old guy sat at the table next to mine at an outdoor cafe. I don't remember what I said to start the conversation but he told me he'd lived in Japan for 3yrs in the 50s, married a Japanese woman, they moved to Redondo Beach and she convinced him to buy a house more than they could afford. He said it was the best decision of their lives. He then said she'd past away a few years ago and they had no kids. I ask him wh…

I mean, I can certainly appreciate this man's perspective even if I don't agree with it. The global population has more than tripled in his life.

That's a pretty extreme change!

Re: How to talk to anyone and why you should

#178

Post by cal_dent »

>"the biggest excuse"

Most important line in this article. People will always find an excuse (and i'm including myself in this at times) but that is all it is, an excuse. Talking to people is what makes us human and its innate. You might not be the best conversationalist or whatever but you can still talk to people, no need to put any pressure on it.

Re: How to talk to anyone and why you should

#179

Post by fuzzfactor »

jibal wrote: post #114
dmd wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See my answer to that question is “er, yes, obviously??!” and so I assume, apparently incorrectly, that everyone is like me.

If it's obvious to you that everyone should be bothered by people being friendly then there's an error in your reasoning process.

Good point, maybe things would be more friendly if the prevailing reasoning were not as isolating.

I think the default is sociability too, but for reasons it does seem to be on the retreat.

> Would you be bothered

>basically anywhere there are other people,

Seems like a perfectly legitimate prerogative to me anyway. Actually more "popular" than ever from some of the comments.

>They just can't understand that people wouldn't want to talk to them.

This however does not follow completely logically.

More like "They just can't realize that of all the people who would want to talk to them, you aren't one of them."

No harm done regardless.

Re: How to talk to anyone and why you should

#180

Post by cal_dent »

grayhatter wrote: post #124
r17n wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this. I know I struggle with "I don't want to bother this person". How do you deal with that?

> "I don't want to bother this person". > How do you deal with that? You teach yourself to say no, to the things you don't want to do. I considered leaving just that pithy reply, because that's really it. But some of the extra context; It's not a bother to ask someone to hold the door they're already going through because your hands are full. Starting a conversation is about as intrusive as that. The vast majority of…

I echo this so much.

I'd add also that learning to hear someone tell you no and not taking it to heart and getting on with your life. So many people walk through life being afraid of hearing someone reply "no" to them, like its some existential rejection of them and that stops them from doing many things.

I'll make chit chat with anyone, and people who dont want to chat with are generally pretty explicit about saying they dont want to chat or don't have time, or pretty obviously implicit about it by not engaging or looking for ways out.

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