Ask HN: Why is machine learning easier to learn than basic social skills?

Good reply.

> Show genuine interest in other people, make the effort, remember their name, pay attention to what they share.

When I do all of the things you mention, they are very intentional. For example, during conversations I actively think to myself, "I need to remember this so I can bring it up next time I talk to them because that is a nice thing to do and will make you friends, which are nice to have." It gets easier over time, as I "train" myself in good social behaviors like that, and I think I'm decent at it now. But it definitely felt like a skill I was actively putting effort into developing around my early 20s and it still feels like a very intentional and high-effort activity to this day.

One thing I often wonder is if other people so intentionally think about their social interactions this way, or if it's just something that "most" people do by nature, and my behavior reflects some deviation from average in myself.

We don't have enough information to help you. But, you should know that for most people social skills come somewhat intuitively. Some folks (and probably a lot of Hacker News users) have to actively cultivate and manually think through social interactions a bit more than the general public. If you think you're bad at social interactions, there may be a few things going on:

- You're not actually that bad at them, but they do make very anxious. Because you see that social interaction does not make other people quite so anxious, you assume you're doing something wrong.

- You're actually not very good at social interaction.

- Some combination of the two.

Anyhow, the best thing to do is try to assess what category you fit into. Find some friends you trust who can actually give you objective advice, and most importantly, be calm and confident enough that people will actually tell you the truth. For many people, a difficult question such as "Am I really awkward socially?" can be just as difficult to answer as "am I fat?" ie, most people will not really answer that question honestly, because the average person would only ask that question for the purposes of being reassured. The point here is to try to foster a conversation with someone who knows you well, who might be brave enough to give you honest advice.

I mention anxiety specifically, since anxiety can short-circuit most social interactions. If you're worrying about how you're coming off, then you're not focusing on the other person. And if you're not focusing on the other person, then anyone would be liable to misread and misunderstand. Take cues, ask questions, and make the conversation more about them than about you. That will get you a long way. Most people are will to forgive minor social faux pas if you're kind, if you're genuinely interested in talking to them.

If you're only 18, then I have good news for you: you're not finished learning about yourself, or about people, and you're almost certainly going to be much more socially capable in your future. Just maybe not your immediate future. :)

TL;DR your life happens within a field of informed movement/perception/relation that determines which social capabilities you have and which not.

As we grow up as a baby, our first connections to the world are based on touch. The skin is the interface between the world and ourself. How the world touches us, informs in our motor system a picture of the world. Over time the cutaneous interactions (movement qualities) modulate into mimics, later into speech (where we still find it as characteristics of our voice).

Now, assume there is a circular process (Gestaltkreis) of your motor system. It constantly sparks a movement intention. First it needs to be executed. Then it needs to be perceived: Has it been executed? For both phases, the body needs to convey signals. As the motor system only sparks a movement intention until it receives the full perception of the executed movement, sparking of the movement intention means that the trains are not yet developed to the extent required. "What fires together, wires together" / Neurobiotaxis may play a role here. Movement essentially becomes perception. And your body is your compiler for that. The motor system basically takes care for development of the trains in your body.

Now, there are two considerations: 1. You can relate to others to the degree your body is integrated internally (inner world connectivity ≈ inner to outer world connectivity) 2. The circular process undergoes biological phases: In different phases, different parts of your body grow; which brings your body out of balance (while you move). The motor's core intention is to develop your ability to maintain your balance with different movements. That is a process after you have attained the ability to run. Those different phases require different sensory inputs. Our parents (society) are usually not able to provide that (as they themselves did not receive it). So, you might end up with social capabilities of a disturbed child as an adult. The movement qualities show for example how you will act in group settings, in which kind of situations, etc.

There might be an approach [1] (with quite some history but ironically yet to be validated empirically) that makes that circular process visible: It allows the movement intention to become visible to a trained facilitator. The facilitator then verbalises the intention - which is not accessible to the subject - to the subject. The verbalised intention is basically a new movement possibility / way to perceive the subject had not on his internal movement world map. While the subject tries out the movement possibility, this also happens in the circular process. That means, perception of the movement of the body is continuously transmitted to the motor system. And as mentioned earlier, once the perceived executed movement is equivalent to the forecast of the executed movement intention, the sent out movement intention changes. The Bewegungsgestalt has irreversibly evolved. And this evolution follows a biologically predetermined sequence (you know in advance what the next movement intention will be once the current has been fulfilled). And with the changed Bewegungsgestalt, the attained way to move and to perceive, we are able to relate differently to the world - and the world is able to relate differently to us. That makes sense to me, as we evolve our internal connections, we evolve the connections to the outer world.

As this is related to fascia, you might be interested in the Roll Model by Jill Miller, also the coop of her with Thomas Myers Roll the Anatomy Trains online course.

Yes, I see the value of mental efforts of improving your social skills by applying communication technique A or trick B. However, if it holds true that any of this effort happens within the context of your movement/perception/relation field, it is naturally limited by the stage the Bewegungsgestalt has evolved into.

[1] https://www.tonfeld.de [2] https://try.tuneupfitness.com/rolling-along-anatomy-trains-j...

This is helpful as it has three very useful examples for people who want to learn social skills.

1.) The tactic is action, action, count and action. Greet the couple, smile, count (“and one and”) and move on. That’s enough time to give someone an out. The tactic is not “stand there silently and stare.”

2.) Part of having social skills is knowing when and where to have intense conversations. If you choose to have an intense conversation at a place where people mingle, that’s really not very helpful.

3.) Again, most social skills are about giving people an out. If someone is standing there awkwardly, have some compassion. Ask yourself if you’re having the conversation in the right place and be kind. It sucks to be that awkward person standing on the fringes. Our job as nice adults is to make them feel incredibly welcome, even if it means having our intense conversations in private.

Well, I'm sure you can also contribute to "real communication" by now.