There should be a community to help us lurkers stop lurking.
Always Talk to Strangers
21–30 of 35 posts
Re: Always Talk to Strangers
#22There should be a community to help us lurkers stop lurking.
[deleted]
Re: Always Talk to Strangers
#23Sounds good. Step 0: overcome social anxiety and general awkwardness. Edit: to make this comment a little less pithy, I will say that I've ordered 'What to Talk About', and it has lessened the looming daemon of small talk...somewhat. ( http://www.amazon.com/What-Talk-About-Cocktail-Elevator/dp/1... )
Check out some books on NLP.
Fun. Systematic. And others can be better just by being around you.
I recommend Sleight of Mouth to start. You can skip Mindlines, I can't tell if sections in that book are bad writing or not.
Re: Always Talk to Strangers
#24The game Rejection Therapy[1] has lots of challenges for interacting with strangers, like ask a stranger to have your photo taken with them and sit beside a stranger, strike up a conversation and so on.
They sound easy to do, but I found out they are anything but.
Re: Always Talk to Strangers
#25Yet another article trending on Hacker News about loneliness, social anxiety, and community. Man, we really must be a bunch of introverted shut-ins!
Machines sure can be funner than humans, but the ammount of trending articles around this theme reveals a few uncomfortable truths about this community. Yikes!
Re: Always Talk to Strangers
#26Yet another article trending on Hacker News about loneliness, social anxiety, and community. Man, we really must be a bunch of introverted shut-ins! Machines sure can be funner than humans, but the ammount of trending articles around this theme reveals a few uncomfortable truths about this community. Yikes!
It's much harder to program humans to do what we want them to do.(My wife has it figured out though).
Re: Always Talk to Strangers
#27Yet another article trending on Hacker News about loneliness, social anxiety, and community. Man, we really must be a bunch of introverted shut-ins! Machines sure can be funner than humans, but the ammount of trending articles around this theme reveals a few uncomfortable truths about this community. Yikes!
Shaming us for it is not helpful.
Re: Always Talk to Strangers
#28Excerpt:
"There's evidence suggesting that negative factors of the neighborhood, things like density of fast food outlets, violence, noise, and poor air quality impact health,” lead researcher Eric Kim, a psychologist in his final year of doctoral work at the University of Michigan, told me. I'd add broken windows. One 2003 study found that “boarded-up housing” predicts high rates of gonorrhea in a neighborhood, as well as premature death due to cancer or complications of diabetes. (And murder.) More recently, researchers from University of Pennsylvania looked at the health detriments associated with vacant land. By their understanding, abandoned buildings lead to isolation and erosion of social relationships, mutual trust, and collective efficacy, which leads to poor physical health.
Kim’s team is focusing on the other side of things: the positive elements of a neighborhood that “might perhaps be protective or even enhancing of health." For a young scientist, Kim is precociously well versed in the language of hedging
So, what gives? I am baffled as to why this is not being discussed in earnest as a piece on research into health factors but is being talked about like it is a criticism of the social climate of HN and the social skills of its members.
Re: Always Talk to Strangers
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is true, but it's a higher hurdle. I went to bars through college, but made no progress socially. To learn, you need to be able to try a lot, in a consistent environment, and get feedback. Bars made it difficult to try small things, and they're a complex environment where you can't repeat the same interaction so easily. Whereas, saying "hi" to a stranger is never that different, in terms of how it goes initially…
I think it depends a lot on your personality. My best friend and I used to be a lot alike in this way. We were both really shy, had trouble socializing, especially dating. It was a big part of why we are such good friends. A few years ago he started going out to the bars after work almost every day. It started as an attempt to maintain a relationship with a girlfriend who liked hitting the bars, but after they broke…
Good point. I don't like clubs, so I only go there talking to strangers with outcomes in mind.
Whereas, when talking with people on the street, I don't care how the interaction goes. So that makes me relaxed, and the interaction goes well.
I enjoy it for the sake of it, whereas I don't enjoy clubs unless things go well.
Re: Always Talk to Strangers
#30Yet another article trending on Hacker News about loneliness, social anxiety, and community. Man, we really must be a bunch of introverted shut-ins! Machines sure can be funner than humans, but the ammount of trending articles around this theme reveals a few uncomfortable truths about this community. Yikes!
Shaming us for it is not helpful.
May be projecting there ... no shame intended.