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I analysed 20 years of my chats

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Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#111

Post by the_af »

latexr wrote: post #99
rhines wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's some truth to this, and I'm sorry it's been your experience, but I'd like to gently expand on this a bit as I don't think muscles are the only thing that matter - I know plenty of skinny and fat people with friends. Relationships are inherently transactional. You won't want to spend time with someone if you don't get something out of it, barring certain unconditional loves like your immediate family. When mak…

You’ve crafted a well-meaning response, so I want to preface this by saying I’m not poo-pooing on your response at all. Rather, I want to share some other complementary views. > barring certain unconditional loves like your immediate family. I’d argue your immediately family isn’t deserving of unconditional love. Unfortunately, familial relationships can be much more toxic than other relationships precisely because y…

> Careful, as those are not universal. Placing too much emphasis on physical appearance can have the opposite effect and make other people preemptively judge you negatively.

Yup. To me, a muscled/fitness-type guy who seems to care too much about his appearance is a turn-off, I'd be unlikely to seek friendship. It signals to me "we share very little in common". Which, to be clear, is a prejudice, but if we're discussing physical appearance, that's what this is about.

Also, something similar happens with (some, not all!) guys being afraid to approach very attractive women because they seem out of their league. And the same must happen to some women.

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#112

Post by astura »

bonesss wrote: post #81
astura wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How, though, If you never developed social skills?

How to start riding a bicycle in your 40s, if you never developed bike skills? How to snowboard, if you never developed snowboard skills? … Do it; suck. Do it more; suck less. “How to Make Friends and Influence People” is a great & classic book about giving people social room, focus, support, and attention with genuineness and humour (“influence” isn’t meant in a manipulative sense). Effort and attention are required…

I mean.... Riding a bike is nothing like making friends.

“How to Make Friends and Influence People” is a salesman's guide, Dale Carnegie was an traveling salesman and the book techniques he learned making sales. The techniques you need to be a salesperson is probably not the same techniques to build lasting relationships. These tips are great for brief interactions; they are not for building relationships.

There's a couple of things that need serious caveats -

The "using the person's name" is so well known it's now clocked as exclusively a sleezy sales behavior. Don't do this - you sound like a sleezy salesman.

Asking people endless questions about themselves can really come off as a really weird integration and can be extremely off-putting if not done carefully/correctly and with grace. My mom does this, she asks hundreds of the dumbest most inane questions and she doesn't even listen to the answers to. It's so insufferable that people actively avoid her. I'm sure she read this book and thinks she's a social genius.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2040953/episodes/17943742-how-to-...

"And also, if you think about these tips of smile and try to avoid arguments and greet somebody enthusiastically a lot of these are tips for making somebody like you immediately... They're not tips for ongoing relationships. They're like, when you show up at somebody's door, how can you make a good impression in the first five minutes and establish trust very quickly?"

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#113

Post by valzevul »

Topgamer7 wrote: post #9

I envy you that you manage to keep meaningful contact with dozens to hundreds of people.

Hi, OP here. No idea how I did it ten years ago, but looking at the Dunbar layer contraction, my active network (e.g acquaintances) peaks at 275 in 2016 and gradually declines to about 60 by 2026, and the close friends layer drops from 9 in 2016 to 5 in 2026.

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#114

Post by valzevul »

TrackerFF wrote: post #51

One byproduct of me storing all my harddrives going back to 2001, is that I also have all my chat logs. Last fall I decided to invest in some HD adapter, as I was looking for pictures of my friend for his 40th birthday - miraculously all drives worked, though some would just power off at random intervals. I decided to look through old IRC chats, and I honestly couldn't for sure say who maybe 30% of the people are jus…

I wish I had kept my IRC logs but I am quite happy the ICQ logs are gone.

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#115

Post by ge96 »

ZpJuUuNaQ5 wrote: post #30

>15 close friends, 50 regular contacts, 150 active acquaintances Seems like a lot. For me, it's 0 close friends, 0 regular contacts, and 0 active acquaintances. I think I simply never developed any useful social skills which would help me make and keep friends or acquaintances. I wish I had (somehow) kept in touch with at least some people I have met throughout my life. It has never been easier to stay in contact tha…

Funny I go out a lot and I have so many random numbers in my phone from dudes who added me, single serving friends for the night

But yeah I only have like 5 real friends and then maybe 10 acquaintances eg. work

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#116

Post by iknowSFR »

ashm1104 wrote: post #18

I do wanna do the same, but at times I fear about getting too aware from the insights of the analysis, I fear my opinions my faith might change in certain people.

Or how about your opinions on yourself? Analysis of your own behavior, done by AI, seems like a a decade of therapy provided by a maybe-good-or-bad psychologist happening in minutes. The impact of that could change how you think about the world by reinforcing biases you hold or weakening strengths by making you self conscious.

Ultimately you run the risk of having a computer program redefine who you are as a human and that begs the question of whether you’re really you after that?

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#118

Post by geodel »

ZpJuUuNaQ5 wrote: post #30

>15 close friends, 50 regular contacts, 150 active acquaintances Seems like a lot. For me, it's 0 close friends, 0 regular contacts, and 0 active acquaintances. I think I simply never developed any useful social skills which would help me make and keep friends or acquaintances. I wish I had (somehow) kept in touch with at least some people I have met throughout my life. It has never been easier to stay in contact tha…

Many will tell otherwise, but I think it is fine to not have these friends, contacts and acquaintances etc. In my case I did put in effort to stay in touch, call up people after many years. But in most cases result was like "Okay, we were in same school/office/rpoject/neighborhood / waited for same bus etc...etc.. now what do you want from me?"

It maybe that you most definitely want it. However for me "missing out" hasn't make life any worse.

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#119

Post by registeredcorn »

bitexploder wrote: post #78
ZpJuUuNaQ5 wrote: post #30

>15 close friends, 50 regular contacts, 150 active acquaintances Seems like a lot. For me, it's 0 close friends, 0 regular contacts, and 0 active acquaintances. I think I simply never developed any useful social skills which would help me make and keep friends or acquaintances. I wish I had (somehow) kept in touch with at least some people I have met throughout my life. It has never been easier to stay in contact tha…

Well. Start now. Treat it like an algorithm. Schedule reminders to text/email/call/follow up with people. My ADHD was hard. I would just forget about people and not because I don’t care about them. Then I would feel bad and delay even further because of that. Just do the thing. It may never feel natural except with very close and trusted people. That’s okay. Having friends for the sake of it isn’t the point. Being ge…

> Being genuinely interested and sharing experiences and common interests and learning from each other are good reasons though.

(Not OP, but interested to hear more)

In terms of motivation, do you know of a way to begin a sincere and genuine interest in others that doesn't have some ulterior motivations? That may sound kind of mechanical, but what I mean is roughly something like: "I don't know people, so I do not have any 'genuine interest' in them. As a result, any interest that I do have is insincere."

I chose not to have friends for several decades, which has been extremely convenient for the most part, except for tasks that require more than one person, or work-related situations. Not having to worry about offending people, remembering birthdays, messing up my own plans for the needs of others, etc. was very burdensome. However, being able to use people as a job reference, or getting leads on future opportunities from people I used to work with would also be beneficial so I can understand why people would expend the effort. However, retaining a friendship solely for those job-related purposes seems grossly manipulative because there is no sincerity in what I want from them. I do not want them I only want to extract what they can give to me.

Is it simply understood that, if you make friends with someone as an adult, it is inherently with ulterior motivations in mind, whether it be to avoid loneliness, get work-related benefits, or extract knowledge from them? As a child, I think people tended to make friends simply because they were bored and the person seemed neat. Is that why people still try to make friends with people?

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#120

Post by fooster »

astura wrote: post #112
bonesss wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How to start riding a bicycle in your 40s, if you never developed bike skills? How to snowboard, if you never developed snowboard skills? … Do it; suck. Do it more; suck less. “How to Make Friends and Influence People” is a great & classic book about giving people social room, focus, support, and attention with genuineness and humour (“influence” isn’t meant in a manipulative sense). Effort and attention are required…

I mean.... Riding a bike is nothing like making friends. “How to Make Friends and Influence People” is a salesman's guide, Dale Carnegie was an traveling salesman and the book techniques he learned making sales. The techniques you need to be a salesperson is probably not the same techniques to build lasting relationships. These tips are great for brief interactions; they are not for building relationships. There's a…

You are trying to make friends not interview people. The easiest way to make new friends is to engage in a common activity. Sports, hobbies, music, clubs whatever. Join one and see what happens.
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