Does it really matter what others think? Too much of our self-worth is tied up in the fleeting opinions of others. There are only two opinions that matter to me: my wife’s and my daughter’s. The rest of humanity is made up of people I interact with for a specific purpose, such as work, and those interactions are governed by certain rules. Within such frameworks we play our roles and go our separate ways after, and no one’s self esteem needs to be hurt.
People Like You More Than You Know
31–40 of 220 posts
Re: People Like You More Than You Know
#32What does that even mean? I'm sure some like me more than I think and some hate me more than I think. But mostly 99% of the people don't care because they have their lives to lead.
Are there people I like more than they know. Sure. Are there people I hate more than they know. Absolutely. But really 99.99% of the people don't matter. I don't think about them or them me.
Ultimately, you care about your family and friends. Do people waste their time wondering if "people" like you or not?
Re: People Like You More Than You Know
#33It takes me about 3-4 months of being around someone regularly before I’m convinced that they aren’t constantly annoyed by me and everything that I say. I hide it pretty well. Sartre was on to something with his comments about “the gaze of the Other”.
It takes me about 3-4 months of being around someone regularly before I'm able to hold a conversation that's more than direct answers to direct questions. It's impossible to hide pretty well, or at all really. Everyone I've ever known says something like "you don't talk much, do you" or something equally obvious. I used to wonder if people ask others the obvious "you're fat, aren't you" etc. I've learnt that few peop…
I’ve had the same issue, and it’s really tough. I’ve had some success by asking people questions, paying attention to the answers, asking follow up questions, sharing details about myself if relevant. It doesn’t come naturally and I don’t always do it right, but it has allowed me to become friends with some people who I wouldn’t have been friends with otherwise.
Re: People Like You More Than You Know
#34I'm sure this is true. Another thing I'm sure of is how little time most people spend thinking about other people. Even the people in my life I don't care for, I rarely spend more than a passing moment thinking about them, even if they're in the same room. The ones I do think about a lot are the ones I love (wife, children, closest friends). Despite knowing this, though, I'll admit that I can spend a lot of time thin…
This reminds me of a fortune cookie I once had, that I first thought was aggressive, and then I found liberating: "You'd care less about what people think about you if you realized how little they do"
That's the spirit that got Linus Torvalds where he is now —
"Be abrasive, don't pull punches, be a 'git'. People don't care about you, so you can't really hurt them anyway"
Re: People Like You More Than You Know
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
It takes me about 3-4 months of being around someone regularly before I'm able to hold a conversation that's more than direct answers to direct questions. It's impossible to hide pretty well, or at all really. Everyone I've ever known says something like "you don't talk much, do you" or something equally obvious. I used to wonder if people ask others the obvious "you're fat, aren't you" etc. I've learnt that few peop…
I’ve had the same issue, and it’s really tough. I’ve had some success by asking people questions, paying attention to the answers, asking follow up questions, sharing details about myself if relevant. It doesn’t come naturally and I don’t always do it right, but it has allowed me to become friends with some people who I wouldn’t have been friends with otherwise.
Yeah, basically this. I personally don’t like people asking me a lot of questions, and so for a long time I assumed this was generally true.
Apparently it isn’t. People like to talk about their lives.
I guess my main reason for not liking people asking me questions is how their eyes glaze over and they start fidgeting when I answer. Maybe it’s me. I find it pretty annoying so I give terse answers or deflect in one way or another.
But other people do like personal questions it seems. And I admit, it helps build relationships.
I guess my problem is I just am not that curious about people I’ve just met. It would be pretty rare for me to give a shit about what you do for a living, and so if I ask, it’ll be my eyes glazing over.
But I do make the effort anyway, particularly if I get the feeling that someone is a talker.
Re: People Like You More Than You Know
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve had the same issue, and it’s really tough. I’ve had some success by asking people questions, paying attention to the answers, asking follow up questions, sharing details about myself if relevant. It doesn’t come naturally and I don’t always do it right, but it has allowed me to become friends with some people who I wouldn’t have been friends with otherwise.
Yeah, basically this. I personally don’t like people asking me a lot of questions, and so for a long time I assumed this was generally true. Apparently it isn’t. People like to talk about their lives. I guess my main reason for not liking people asking me questions is how their eyes glaze over and they start fidgeting when I answer. Maybe it’s me. I find it pretty annoying so I give terse answers or deflect in one wa…
I'm no ace at social interactions, so please treat the following as a straw-man theory, but...
I wonder if you (and I) sometimes fail to recognize when the person asking those questions is actually communicating something different (e.g., they want to become more friendly with you). But we fail to recognize that they're using a cultural idiom to do so.
A neuro-psychologist has told me that based on some testing I've had done, there's a decent chance I'd also test positive for Asperger's. And this kind of focusing on the literal without noticing that it pattern-matches a different, idiomatic interpretation would make sense for a person with Asperger's.
It reminds me of that line from the song What a Wonderful World, "I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do They're really saying I love you."
If that's what's really going on, perhaps the number of questions you're getting can seem less onerous?
Re: People Like You More Than You Know
#37I'm sure this is true. Another thing I'm sure of is how little time most people spend thinking about other people. Even the people in my life I don't care for, I rarely spend more than a passing moment thinking about them, even if they're in the same room. The ones I do think about a lot are the ones I love (wife, children, closest friends). Despite knowing this, though, I'll admit that I can spend a lot of time thin…
This reminds me of a fortune cookie I once had, that I first thought was aggressive, and then I found liberating: "You'd care less about what people think about you if you realized how little they do"
I'd like to mention how much truer this is in today's world. Specifically, if you live in an urban city. Today, everyone is constantly bombarded with information from multiple sources that they often forget much about past interactions with people they aren't close with. Even if you are close with someone, they are very much likely to only remember significant memories or memories which you remind them of.
Re: People Like You More Than You Know
#38Yeah, but none of that helps with me not liking them
If you listed and categorized the people you dislike, what would the breakdown look like? I personally found as I got older (not implying that you're young, just that I changed over time) that many people I previously disliked were now just people I felt neutral about. More specifically, I thought they were well intentioned but flawed as all humans are, and their flaws just happen to be the ones that bug me but not o…
4. There are too many people and too few hours in the days to care about them all, so some got optimized out.
This is how I generally feel when meeting people that I'm 90% sure I will never see/interact with again. For the 10%, that I do, I probably come across as uninterested in them or 'aloof', but, meh.
Re: People Like You More Than You Know
#39These are true stories. I don't wish to come across as bragging. The last day of a job I had for seven years, the director of engineering told me I was the best engineer he ever knew. And he worked for some pretty well known engineering firms. If he had told me that before, I might not have left. A woman came into my office--someone who didn't seem to want to give me the time of day--and the conversation got around t…
Also, not trying to brag: I've also been told similar things, usually by people that thought less of me (or so I thought, sometimes for years). Typically it's a 'last day' phenomenon. I've had a fair few experiences where I was leaving a place and thought everyone had hated me, but, like you, I was totally wrong.
There is one glaring exception though: my winter coat. It's really the only piece of clothing that I have consistently received unsolicited compliments on. It's an old Swedish army surplus wool first-class greatcoat. As it's army surplus, it comes in nearly every size, so it fits me like a glove, and is fairly cheap[0].
It's a lesson I've tried to learn: dress well. However, in my own 'experiments' only the coat gets the compliments, not nice shoes or shirts or ties. You kinda have to dress 2 levels higher to get noticed enough for others to say anything.
Dunno if that helps at all with this issue.
[0]https://www.surplusandoutdoors.com/greatcoat-swedish-airforc... (something like this)
Re: People Like You More Than You Know
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
This reminds me of a fortune cookie I once had, that I first thought was aggressive, and then I found liberating: "You'd care less about what people think about you if you realized how little they do"
That's the spirit that got Linus Torvalds where he is now — "Be abrasive, don't pull punches, be a 'git'. People don't care about you, so you can't really hurt them anyway"
Linus seems to care these days. This does not translate well across different cultures. I've lived in two cultures and still have a hard time practising "not caring" about other people.