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How to be anti-social – a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences

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Re: How to be anti-social – a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences

#141

Post by SkyeCA »

svnt wrote: post #107
justonceokay wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If any one single interaction makes you have such a response, that might be a reason to see someone. I wish for everyone to be able to move through the social world with grace and ease. Put less kindly: there’s nothing so special about you that being yourself around a new person should cause such a panic. Even if they take an instant dislike to you, that should be something you can take in stride

Your response assumes a lot about the homogeneity of subjective human experience that the data don’t seem to support. There is a diversity of physical attractiveness, innate and learned social grace, social environment, and phenotypic variability in psychosocial capacity that makes your comment sound extremely out of touch to some people. I can do what you describe because I am fortunate that many of my social intera…

> and the tragedy is that every mistake they make compounds this

This is correct and I'm convinced there comes a point where there's no way out. The vast majority of social experiences in my life have been negative and it gets worse every time I have another, making it less likely the next will be positive.

Rather than continue to get hurt I have nearly 100% socially isolated myself, save for the internet. I work remote in a rural area and I only leave the house for essentials. There's no place for me socially and I've accepted that.

Re: How to be anti-social – a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences

#142

Post by nickburns »

justonceokay wrote: post #131
nickburns wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matching your latter register: and what, in your mind, will 'seeing someone' do to change somebody's lack of social 'grace and ease'?

Going to therapy can help you create a more positive and staple self image.The more you like yourself the more you would want to share that with other people and the easier it becomes. To put a finer point on it, it kind of seems like the person I was responding to has an extreme anxiety problem. I feel bad because I’ve gone through that and I feel like I wasted a large portion of my life because I was so scared that…

Your comments feel like projection, which lead you to make an extreme (and, in my opinion, unfounded) assumption about GP. GP says nothing about self-confidence nor 'liking' onself. One can have a social interaction like GP comically describes—and still be mostly socially 'at ease and graceful', possess a positive and stable self-image, be otherwise antisocial, and not need therapy.

Re: How to be anti-social – a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences

#143

Post by andrewstuart »

LeCompteSftware wrote: post #78

I've seen a lot posts like this recently. This comment is coming from the perspective of someone who the author would consider "anti-social": I once reported my boss to HR for a racist remark, and then resigned in protest. By 2026 I have embraced being a somewhat Diogenesian outcast and progressive hall monitor. I lost friends over it. So I find this post incredibly condescending, and it seems clearly directed at a f…

Avoid people who seek to be offended.

They always find a way to get what they seek.

Re: How to be anti-social – a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences

#144

Post by RankingMember »

dmbche wrote: post #101
labrador wrote: post #94

As a anti-social person and a misanthrope, these are all tips for amateurs that assume you must be in a relationship with other people. This is not true. One can be a hermit and enjoy the solitude. My comment here is not designed for replies and social interaction. I'm making it to test my idea against the wisdom of the crowds in case someone can enlighten me about where I might be wrong. I'm seeking information, not…

You are forced to see the world through your own biases (including things like having two arms and seeing the visible light spectrum, not just who you vote for). Many of these biases are common in humans, and humans can exchange ideas. It can be enlightening to test your biases against real human being to see which ones are valid and which ones are things you've picked up along the way and might not be fruitful to yo…

> I've found exchanging with others fruitful, even when I don't want to and find it repellant.

Agreed. It's almost like taking bitter medicine for me- I loathe the idea of going to outings and meeting new people, but however tired I am afterwards from masking, some part of me comes away better off for it (assuming I'm not being forced to do it all the time).

Re: How to be anti-social – a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences

#147

Post by arximboldi »

reedf1 wrote: post #23

The other day someone described themselves to me as an 'empath' which was odd, because in the context of the discussion it was invalidating to hear. And ironic considering they hadn't forseen how I would take it. Some people have ultimate confidence in their social judgements and the true sign of empathy is a kind of meta-empathy that allows you to consider truly alternative understandings of the world i.e. empathy f…

Almost every every person I've met that describes themselves as empath tends to rank rather low on empathy, under my own judgement at least.

One explanation I have for this is that precisely because empathy is a more rare experience for them, it becomes a more remarkable one, perhaps even overwhelming at times. This leads them to believe that they experience it more than or more intensely than others, when on the contrary the rest of the world is simply more habituated to it and integrate it more gracefully in their ordinary experience.

The other interpretation is that it requires certain level of narcissism or egotism to describe oneself in such flattering terms.

Or ultimately, as the Spanish proverb says: dime de que presumes y te diré de que careces.

Probably some degree of all of this is true in most cases.

Re: How to be anti-social – a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences

#148

Post by renewiltord »

justonceokay wrote: post #42
foo12bar wrote: post #33

How about the old fashioned freezing with a face contorted in fear like your being held at knife point unable to think of anything to say and just waiting to be able to leave? When you get asked a question, fumble over your words and say something stupid. Later on, you can reflexively watch the memory played over and over again so you're even worse the next time. If you see anyone you met during the encounter afterwa…

If any one single interaction makes you have such a response, that might be a reason to see someone. I wish for everyone to be able to move through the social world with grace and ease. Put less kindly: there’s nothing so special about you that being yourself around a new person should cause such a panic. Even if they take an instant dislike to you, that should be something you can take in stride

I mean, obviously all the behaviors in the article are undesirable. The joke is in proposing other ones. Surely people are being amusingly self deprecating not precisely honest.

Re: How to be anti-social – a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences

#149

Post by Chance-Device »

justonceokay wrote: post #42
foo12bar wrote: post #33

How about the old fashioned freezing with a face contorted in fear like your being held at knife point unable to think of anything to say and just waiting to be able to leave? When you get asked a question, fumble over your words and say something stupid. Later on, you can reflexively watch the memory played over and over again so you're even worse the next time. If you see anyone you met during the encounter afterwa…

If any one single interaction makes you have such a response, that might be a reason to see someone. I wish for everyone to be able to move through the social world with grace and ease. Put less kindly: there’s nothing so special about you that being yourself around a new person should cause such a panic. Even if they take an instant dislike to you, that should be something you can take in stride

Have you considered that your advice might be akin to telling a diabetic to do talk therapy so they can start producing insulin again?

There are lots of things people can’t just talk themselves out of.

Re: How to be anti-social – a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences

#150

Post by thrie838r9fnr »

ernesto905 wrote: post #29

> when all hope is lost in conversation, retreat into your self This speaks to me quite a bit, particularly around unfalsifiable topics I'll have with friends/family, such as theology. If we define hope as the idea they'll change their mind and agree with me, seems not much one can do but retreat into themself, right? I suppose I can sympathize with their sentiment before I retreat into myself, but taking this bullet…

Theology is quite predictable rigid scientific field, something like law. You just have to define which set of rules you are using (catholic orthodox, shia islam...) There are thousands of books with notes, precedents... going back thousands years. Thousands branches...

Calling theology "unfalsiable" is ignorant. Like saying math is unfalsiable, because there are multiple geometries and nobody understands it anyway.

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