Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. It's the playbook of social interaction written out. Nothing offensive about that.
A self-help book that took off saying the quiet part out loud is How to Win Friends & Influence People. It predates the 'influencer'.
My stages of learning to be a socially normal person
241–250 of 444 posts
Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think big distinction is “doing it on purpose, in a thought out manner” vs “just being who you are and people falling into friendship with you”. Doing it on purpose - even if you don’t have bad intentions - still feels selfish, you make them like you for your own benefit first and foremost as you want them to be your friends.
I’m curious how you accidentally or unintentionally become friends with someone. Being friends almost always requires intent.
> I’m curious how you accidentally or unintentionally become friends with someone
Really?
My most enduring friendships seem to just sorta happen, meeting people at random in various ways, figuring out you're into a lot of the same stuff, just sorta rubbing along well... and now we've known each other 25 years, how the hell did that happen? Ha.
Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is a mistake I think. Many 'normal' people who grow up (emotionally) make a conscious effort not to instrumentalize their social interactions even if they do know how to do it. Certainly with friends they aim to be authentic. I think emulating things that a serious person discards is a step backwards.
My take living as a relatively high functioning autistic (& other things) person and having many neurodivergent friends is that instrumentalizing is more often due to relational failures due to developmental social differences. The underlying of those is most often a hypersensitive (to sight, sound, smells, touch) individual having periods of being overwhelmed by the world around them. Couple that with parents who re…
I think this is where the high incidence of neurodivergence in the trans community and certain subcultures (furries, roleplaying) comes to fore. Autism is often accompanied by identity conflicts - between what you're labeled as, and how people treat you, and how you feel about yourself - because communication disruptions are common when neurotypes are unaligned, and identity is both the reason for and the means by which much interpersonal communication takes place.
People who don't feel resonance between their label, treatment, and self-concept will question why that is, up to questioning aspects of their identity themselves. Once unmoored from a proscribed identity, people can find the ambiguity uncomfortable and untenable, and may adopt a concrete identity that fits more closely.
That doesn't make the adopted identities any less true, of course. Identity is socially-constructed, so deciding that you feel more comfortable presenting as a woman isn't any less justifiable than being assigned good ol' football-playin', roughhousin', English class-hatin', red-blooded American manhood at birth. Calling yourself a wolf or an orc is probably more extreme, especially in general contexts, but at a convention where you're surrounded by a thousand other people who find it easier to connect when they've thrown on a (literal or figurative) bear sark? Go ham.
In the end, of course, you're just you. All of the labels - even the ones you internalize and externalize - are just ways of trying to communicate, and to make being around you easier for other people, in part by giving them a box to put you in and to understand you by, because that's what our pattern-matching ape-brains like. The mask is a mask; it's a cover, not a substitute, for the totality of a person's being.
Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the limit of someone's behavior winds up making everyone happier-off, I don't understand why I ought to care. In that sense, calling it "manipulative" seems either inappropriate or not very useful. At least with something like adultery, there's a pretty obvious ill consequence of someone finding out what's going on behind the scenes. But if I looked behind the curtains of someone like OP and found out that the rea…
> If the limit of someone's behavior winds up making everyone happier-off, I don't understand why I ought to care. I guess I don’t believe this behavior actually leaves the targets better off. Doing a lot of experiments where you feign connections and openness with other people is going to leave a lot of the targets feeling unhappy when they realize they were tricked into opening up to someone who was just using them…
The assumption is that it’s feigned. Frankly you do not develop these skills to this degree if you are inauthentic.
Even the “zen openness” bit is mimicry of people whose vibe they liked, and they were surprised by the results.
Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person
#245This post wasn't what I was expecting from the "socially normal" title. While there is a lot of self-reflection and growth in this piece, a lot of the points felt more like learning how to charm, manipulate, and game social interactions. Look at the first two subheadings: > 1: Connecting with people is about being a dazzling person > 2: Connecting with people is about playing their game The post felt like a rollercoa…
The fact that it’s written as a personal journey and not as advice suggests the author was on a journey to become more genuine/accepting of who they are. It does read as someone who tried to be manipulative at the start but graduated away from that towards the end of their journey.
You can gain a lot from the article and see it as both manipulative, or as insights for working through your own social anxieties. You could bring both attitudes to the article. And one of those is obviously healthier than the other.
Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sometimes we find it distasteful to have things we're fully aware of explicitly spelled out. A trite quip here is "nobody wants to see how the sausage is made".
Sometimes doing something explicit that is typically done without thought or plan feels phony and off. This is such a scenario.
That's not what I got from the article. Firstly they seem to be saying that they were not seen as phony (hard to judge). Sure they're using tricks, but they were copying tricks off other people! Not all social interaction is genuinely raw.
I thought the article was more about leaning into their own style, becoming more intuitive over time.
Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think big distinction is “doing it on purpose, in a thought out manner” vs “just being who you are and people falling into friendship with you”. Doing it on purpose - even if you don’t have bad intentions - still feels selfish, you make them like you for your own benefit first and foremost as you want them to be your friends.
I’m curious how you accidentally or unintentionally become friends with someone. Being friends almost always requires intent.
I guess you intentionally interact with them (because you like them, you share an interest), but you don't intentionally pretend to be something you are not (even though you know the other person would like that).
Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person
#248This post wasn't what I was expecting from the "socially normal" title. While there is a lot of self-reflection and growth in this piece, a lot of the points felt more like learning how to charm, manipulate, and game social interactions. Look at the first two subheadings: > 1: Connecting with people is about being a dazzling person > 2: Connecting with people is about playing their game The post felt like a rollercoa…
> a lot of the points felt more like learning how to charm, manipulate, and game social interactions. A lot of stuff "normal" people do is charm, manipulate, and game social interactions. Except because they are not conscious about it, we give them a pass. One of the characteristics of autistic-spectrum individuals is that they must make a conscious effort to achieve goals that are achieved unconsciously by most of u…
Recommend this book about how we have evolved to deceive ourselves about our true motives, in order to better deceive others...
The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28820444-the-elephant-in...
Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
My take living as a relatively high functioning autistic (& other things) person and having many neurodivergent friends is that instrumentalizing is more often due to relational failures due to developmental social differences. The underlying of those is most often a hypersensitive (to sight, sound, smells, touch) individual having periods of being overwhelmed by the world around them. Couple that with parents who re…
I think this is where the high incidence of neurodivergence in the trans community and certain subcultures (furries, roleplaying) comes to fore. Autism is often accompanied by identity conflicts - between what you're labeled as, and how people treat you, and how you feel about yourself - because communication disruptions are common when neurotypes are unaligned, and identity is both the reason for and the means by wh…
It heartens me that someone else could make that connection between identity seeking and masking.
Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
> a lot of the points felt more like learning how to charm, manipulate, and game social interactions. A lot of stuff "normal" people do is charm, manipulate, and game social interactions. Except because they are not conscious about it, we give them a pass. One of the characteristics of autistic-spectrum individuals is that they must make a conscious effort to achieve goals that are achieved unconsciously by most of u…
That is a mistake I think. Many 'normal' people who grow up (emotionally) make a conscious effort not to instrumentalize their social interactions even if they do know how to do it. Certainly with friends they aim to be authentic. I think emulating things that a serious person discards is a step backwards.
Although, I agree that for average people, over instrumentalizing your interactions becomes fake (although, to be honest, most could use a bit more, including myself, to communicate more effectively with those close to us).
Still, agree with others, seems like you're generalizing what is good for the average person is also good for those with personalities that are more at the extremes. Yeah, know a couple of people who just don't understand what people are thinking or feeling, ever. And so they have to learn a system of cues to look for to figure out whether a person is angry or sad or happy... These people need to create systems to make socialization work.