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I analysed 20 years of my chats

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Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#121

Post by Arainach »

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…

Go out, meet people, talk to them. Note what works and what doesn't.

Most friendships are made by doing something that puts you in proximity to the same people repeatedly. Go join (or start) a pickup sports team. Or a reading club. Or a run club. Or hang out at a bar on the same evening each week. Find something that aligns with your interests. Do it with other people. If they invite you to grab dinner or go somewhere afterwards, go along and keep talking.

The goal isn't to interview people.

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#122

Post by jodrellblank »

astura wrote: post #75
norome wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You said it yourself, you never developed the skills. there's a learning curve, but learnable skills they are. You need the courage to start developing a skill that you're completely incompetent in, and just do one thing each day. I was in the same place as you at 32 but four years later It's another story.

How?

Literally any way.

If you're nearly a professional athlete then "how do I improve?" has very few answers that could help, and many ways that won't, but if you're a couch potato then anything is better than nothing. Any movement or club, from walking to bodyweight exercise, community hall dance group, exercise bike, treadmill, gym club spin class, climbing gym, Starting Strength, Couch to 5K running podcasts, Pilates, Yoga, Martial Arts, frisbee, volunteering to walk dogs - anything at all is an improvement.

Any book, blog, video, article, about developing social skills will have some ideas and approaches. Asking anyone - family member, counsellor, therapist, doctor, coworker, stranger in the street - for ideas could give you some. Take anything other people do and google "how do I learn that?" and try some of the suggestions.

Charisma On Command channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Charismaoncommand/videos

Harvard Business Review on enjoying smalltalk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRG-YubP1rw

Dr Burns on empathic communication: https://feelinggood.com/2016/12/12/014-the-five-secrets-of-e...

Dr Burns on stop trying to "be somebody" and dare to be Average: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz_Iw3JLCb0

Dr Burns on stopping criticising yourself with "I should XYZ" to everything you do or don't do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5Zl12LS3bg

anything on improving your fashion, haircut, body language, giving genuine compliments, making people feel happier around you, helping interactions feel fun and less like a competition you have to win, how to start conversations, how to keep conversations going, how jokes work, some jokes to memorise.

Imagine all the "how do I learn programming?" posts on the internet, if you want to make a 100fps 3D game in C++ there's only a few useful ideas, if you want to "learn programming" it does not matter what language, computer, IDE, editor, book, article, video, tutorial, you start with. Anything is more progress than doing nothing.

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#123

Post by shimman »

registeredcorn wrote: post #119
bitexploder wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ha…

You need to go to therapy and speak to a professional about this. Choosing to not have social connections is a deeply anti-human behavior, we were evolved to be social creatures after all.

Maybe you are truly asocial, but you come across as someone severely stunted emotionally if you think companionship means always extracting value out of someone.

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#124

Post by fullstop »

rabarbra wrote: post #56
Gigachad wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My advice is to go somewhere in person and to keep going there consistently. It could be a club, a meetup, volunteering, etc. The internet is the fast food of socialising. While it might be quick and easy, the quality is terrible. You’ll make real life long friends just being in the same room as someone regularly and chatting face to face.

I'm in a similar situation — 0 friends, 0 regular contacts, 0 significant others in general (though maybe I'm less worried about that than the original poster). So, I have no chats to analyze. What you offer doesn't work for me. I studied onsite at 2 universities and have 0 contacts/friends from there. I've now been studying for 3 years at an onsite school (I'm there every evening after work and on weekends) — 0 cont…

You're not going to make friends by studying. Hard pill to swallow, but you have to make an effort to talk to people and get to know them. Go out to lunch with them.

If you're eating alone at your desk, you are signaling that you wish to be left alone.

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#125

Post by forlorn_mammoth »

astura wrote: post #74
DesaiAshu wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still can. Most people have more and less social periods of their lives. I have plenty of _very_ social friends in their 40s/50s who weren't as social in their 20s. Or the opposite. Life is long, and many of us need decades focused inwards with others focused outwards

How, though, If you never developed social skills?

https://www.empathiceurope.com/ has free courses/trainings on empathic listening skills.

Spend some time on that website, see what you can dig up on specific skills, and then test using them in real life.

That site skews heavily towards therapists, and has a lot of woo-woo. It is clearly not THE answer.

But it is A answer. Enough to give you a framework to get started.

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#126

Post by NDlurker »

fooster wrote: post #120
astura wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Get into slacklining. Set up a slackline at a park and people will come.

If you're into music, find out what local/regional bands are in your area and where the small local venues are. Show up a little early and talk to strangers.

Rock climbing isn't for me, but my brother has made a bunch of friends at the local rock climbing gym.

Bird watching clubs are everywhere and you guys can nerd out over different camera setups.

Join a running or cycling club. I've heard the ones around here are very welcoming to people new to the sports.

Table top RPGs are fun. Your local game stores probably have one shot nights where everyone is welcome and noobs are encouraged.

Find some sort of hobby you enjoy and find others who want to nerd out over it

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#127

Post by fullstop »

fooster wrote: post #120
astura wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

.. and it's okay to be the one to start a conversation.

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#128

Post by anthonypasq »

registeredcorn wrote: post #119
bitexploder wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ha…

Your primary motivation for having a friend is that you enjoy being with them and talking to them. thats it.

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#129

Post by fullstop »

randusername wrote: post #86
astura wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How, though, If you never developed social skills?

Find ways to lower the stakes. Make new friends with others that have underdeveloped social skills and figure it out together. Do things in a group in some activity that won't put the spotlight directly on you and where you can observe others. Explore therapy where odds of rejection are pretty low since you're paying them for coaching. I think noticing how children play is very instructive, but if you don't have good…

I help my neighbors out a few days a week, and walk their kids down to the bus stop and make sure that they get off to school okay. There's a bunch of kids at the bus stop, and I know them all pretty well by this point.

The one little girl is black and has very tightly curled hair. Every few weeks she has it done up differently, with different colored beads, etc. I make sure to pay attention to when it changes so that I can tell her that it looks amazing, and she gets a huge smile on her face every time. It's often the highlight of my morning, and I truly hope that she heads off to school with more spring in her step.

Adults aren't much different -- they also like to receive compliments. Give out compliments as you see fit and soon you'll have something in common to talk about.

Re: I analysed 20 years of my chats

#130

Post by jdw64 »

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…

Sounds good, let's be friends! Feel free to email me anytime, and I look forward to us staying in touch.
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