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

Talking to strangers at the gym

thienantran.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 810 posts

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#381

Post by xp84 »

et-al wrote: post #341
xp84 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re for sure right about the name thing. It’s so hard to resist commenting on names for a lot of people, I think, due to the extreme asymmetry of novelty. When you meet someone named Michael Jackson, that’s such novel information to you: “there’s a guy right here in front of me who is named the same thing as a famous musician!” Meanwhile, from Michael’s perspective, they’ve been named Michael Jackson and getting c…

Michael... Bolton? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhxRAsnizbk

This is 100% what I was thinking of, I considered using that name in my comment actually!!

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#382

Post by CaptWillard »

alexmuresan wrote: post #98
mtlynch wrote: post #80

One of the things I like about this is that OP is giving people genuine compliments without any particular agenda. It reminds me of one of my favorite parts of How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, where he tells a story about complimenting someone, and a student asks what he was hoping to gain from offering the compliment. Carnegie is incensed: > I was waiting in line to register a letter in the…

I avoided this book for a long time. for some reason I got it in my head that it's a sort of red pilled book that teaches you how to manipulate people. I know it's very shallow on my side, but I somehow crystallized this opinion based on a few acquaintances that claimed to read it and instead that they include the name of a person they just met in every sentence because it made that person like them more. Your commen…

I'm curious what "red pilled" means to you.

I would think a "red pilled" book would focus on resisting manipulation, specifically emotional manipulation.

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#383

Post by soopypoos »

nathanielks wrote: post #376
subscribed wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe they have one of the millions of reason to not want to talk with the strangers. World is not your amusement park, people are entitle to NOT wanting to talk to you as much as you feel entitled to talk with everyone.

> World is not your amusement park That's literally what the world is. It's the amusement park for all of us. Some of us like sharing our joy with others. It's up to you whether you are open to receiving it.

the flasher's fallacy

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#384

Post by GolfPopper »

helterskelter wrote: post #354
planet36 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And "Remember their name".

Hah. I'm ADHD and I used to be terrible about remembering people's names -- like, their names didn't even register and I couldn't tell you what it was 30 seconds later. It wasn't that I didn't care about the person, it was just that their name would never stick. Anyway, I finally made enough people feel bad and embarrassed myself enough that I started compensating and made a point to remember basically everybody's na…

As someone with very similar issues with names, how did you start remembering names?

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#385

Post by gjulianm »

cruffle_duffle wrote: post #164
yakkomajuri wrote: post #137

I can definitely relate. What's funny is I've always been really social and open to talking to strangers, plus I come from a culture where this is accepted and encouraged (Brazil). However, I've been working remotely for 7 years now and recently became a solo founder, and I realized I'm having a fair amount of social anxiety. At the previous two companies, I was working remotely but still had people online to chat to…

Remote work is absolutely brutal to a cohesive functioning society. I know people are going to slam me for saying it but is honestly true. People forgot how to interact with each other because the forcing function that gets everybody mixed together into the same pot got taken away. And if you don’t take some fairly extreme steps to counter it, you’ll be completely alone and isolated, subject to algorithmically chosen…

> People forgot how to interact with each other because the forcing function that gets everybody mixed together into the same pot got taken away.

A lot of offices don't force you to interact with each other, much less in meaningful ways.

> And if you don’t take some fairly extreme steps to counter it, you’ll be completely alone and isolated

Are "having more time to meet with friends and family" or "having time to do hobbies with other people" extreme steps?

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#386

Post by StevePerkins »

axus wrote: post #319
nozzlegear wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I avoided this book for a long time. for some reason I got it in my head that it's a sort of red pilled book that teaches you how to manipulate people. FWIW this book came out in the 1930s, long before "red pilling" was a thing. I've read it before and it's not about manipulating people unless you consider being a genuinely sincere person to be manipulative in some way. It's a good book, if a little outdated, and,…

Mr. Carnegie should update his book with a few sentences about how using LLMs to flatter people is not being genuine.

That would be quite a feat, given that Mr. Carnegie was born in the 1800's and died over 70 years ago.

I'm convinced that 99% of the people who criticize or even just talk about that book have never actually read it, and have zero idea what they're talking about. It's just in that Ayn Rand bucket of books that people talk about, because they see other people getting likes and upvotes for it.

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#387

Post by azan_ »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #371
jackp96 wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take your point, but aren't most social interactions technically manipulative through this lens? If you wear nice clothes and exercise, then are you just trying to manipulate people into thinking you have taste and are attractive? If you work hard at your job and are responsive to your boss's requests, then are you just manipulating them into thinking you're a good worker and giving you a raise? These tools can cer…

[flagged]

Maybe you should've kept reading, your reply makes zero sense.

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#388

Post by KellyCriterion »

al_borland wrote: post #89
Foivos wrote: post #39

"Guy who was doing exercise where you pick up barbell and lift it above your head." For anyone curious it is called snatch

It could have also been an overhead press or a clean and press.

....or you could put whatever silly wording onto it, like some of the Gym-influencers are doing, like "do the Bear of X exercise...." - there are no defined/coined terms for exercises globally.

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#389

Post by sanswork »

GolfPopper wrote: post #384
helterskelter wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah. I'm ADHD and I used to be terrible about remembering people's names -- like, their names didn't even register and I couldn't tell you what it was 30 seconds later. It wasn't that I didn't care about the person, it was just that their name would never stick. Anyway, I finally made enough people feel bad and embarrassed myself enough that I started compensating and made a point to remember basically everybody's na…

As someone with very similar issues with names, how did you start remembering names?

I have a list in reminders called names so when someone tells me their name as soon as I can use my phone without it being impolite I open it up and add a quick note with the names.

- neighbour watering lawn Jack, wife Gemma, daughter Jane

Then I try to remember it later in the day and confirm with the note. I do that the next couple days and it's locked in and I can delete the note.

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#390

Post by komali2 »

chistev wrote: post #372
nozzlegear wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I avoided this book for a long time. for some reason I got it in my head that it's a sort of red pilled book that teaches you how to manipulate people. FWIW this book came out in the 1930s, long before "red pilling" was a thing. I've read it before and it's not about manipulating people unless you consider being a genuinely sincere person to be manipulative in some way. It's a good book, if a little outdated, and,…

I've not read the book, but how can a book about talking to people (if that's what it is) be a "little outdated"?

Some of the stories / aphorisms refer to things that just like, don't exist anymore.
Post reply on HN