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My stages of learning to be a socially normal person

sashachapin.substack.com

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Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person

#341

Post by arowthway »

Nathanba wrote: post #175
AuthAuth wrote: post #28

This sounds like a ton of work to learn and by the end it sounds more like a curse than a super power. To be so above people in terms of social intelligence must be horrible. It sounds like the Author views interactions on a completely different level. I dont have any offensive social strategy so its hard for me to dictate making friends but passively I do quite well by just projecting an authentic version of myself.

I've always hated it when people juggle me and when I notice that I'm getting played. "Normal" people seem to absorb this strategy subconsciously throughout their lives and train themselves to do it too because they notice that it works better. To someone who notices this consciously it seems psychotic because well of course it's always easier to cheat, lie and fake your way to an advantage. You should be choosing no…

Come on, can you really care about a stranger's stupid story?

Isn’t it enough that I care about not being lonely for the rest of my life, and in pursuit of that goal I decided to act like a good person and a good conversation partner?

Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person

#342

Post by whstl »

K0balt wrote: post #330
whstl wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bullshit rationalization for horrible behavior. The people doing the judging certainly aren't gonna reproduce with 99.99999% of the people being judged, and I'm being extremely generous here.

While I certainly agree that it is an example of poor judgment and perhaps weak character to be broadly judgy about cosmetic efforts in general, I can understand the theoretical plight of someone who might be taken in by a deceptive person in that regard. If you steelman the argument you can see the point, but it’s also unreasonable to assume that a person is living the steelman version of life (and being a deceptive…

But the problem is not admiring good looks if they're natural, or expecting someone to be truthful, or anything of the sort that might or might not theoretically happen.

The problem is clearly with the bullying. And the assumptions around character. And basically using "changing yourself" as a proxy for hallucinating all sorts of completely unrelated bad characteristics. And the rationalizing around it.

It's the same for behavior: people are fine with the behavior of "naturally charming" people but as soon as someone mentions "learning how to do it" people immediately jump to conclusions and call it manipulative.

Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person

#343

Post by amypetrik8 »

ryanjshaw wrote: post #278
Aurornis wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I don’t think that’s a fair comparison to what’s describe in this blog post. The writer describes taking on different personas and trying different tricks with other people portrayed as subjects of some sort of experiment. The casual mentions of how they tried so…

I don’t think neurotypical people can ever understand this process but I’ll try to explain what it was like for myself, a neurodiverse person: - yes, I was consciously trying different ways to fit in - yes, I felt uncomfortable that it was forced and unnatural - no, it didn’t occur to me at all this was a deeper issue; I had all kinds of naive explanations: oh I’m not as confident because I because I started school a…

the only book worth reading on this topic is "how to appear normal at social events" by Lord Birthday

Like you I was disgusted to see OP's link posted to these hallowed grounds, a bunch of filthie normie jibber jabber waxing poetic about how great it is to have cracked the normie code

Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person

#344

Post by wedje »

underlipton wrote: post #243
taurath wrote: post #211

Earlier 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…

> presenting as a woman

When autism meets sexism.

Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person

#345

Post by coldtea »

Aurornis wrote: post #47

This 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 post felt like a rollercoaster between using tricks to charm and manipulate, and periods of genuinely trying to learn how to be friends with people.

That's why the title is "My six stages of learning to be a socially normal person" and not "My story of being a perfectly socially normal person from the day I was born".

When you're learning social skills because you don't have them naturally, it usually starts with "reductively thinking about other people, assuming you can mind-read them to deconstruct their mindset (the section about identifying people who feel underpraised, insecure, nervous,) and then leverage that to charm them".

So I'm not sure what your point is. That this sounds calculated and mechanistic? It is. That's explicitly said there in the article. And the progression of the author's stages is towards doing less of that.

Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person

#346

Post by coldtea »

1shooner wrote: post #219
etangent wrote: post #72

Earlier 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…

>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 us. I have to say this strikes me as a very distorted perception. I don't know about 'normal,' but a s…

>I have to say this strikes me as a very distorted perception. I don't know about 'normal,' but a socially successful person isn't intuiting their behavior subconsciously, they have learned it, and are actively mindful of it as they engage in it.

Lots and lots of, if not most, social behaviors are intuited subconsciously.

And that's even if the person has actively studied and learned them (and most are picked up by osmosis, not consciously learned anyway).

>I also don't think normative social interaction has much tolerance for manipulation. Maybe in the scope of a night out socializing or a business transaction, but in the context of actual relationships, those people are often ostracized or avoided in my experience.

That's either oblivious to 90% of social interactions out there, or just understands "manipulation" at the con artist or sociopath level.

Even wearing nice clothes to make a better impression is a kind of manipulation. Same for using different manners of speaking and language in different social contexts, and lots of other stuff.

Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person

#347

Post by xamuel »

jonnybgood wrote: post #145
nkrisc wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The post felt like a rollercoaster between using tricks to charm and manipulate, and periods of genuinely trying to learn how to be friends with people. That’s all the same thing. What is being friends with people other than essentially manipulating them into liking you by being likable and a good friend? What’s important is why you’re doing it.

> What is being friends with people other than essentially manipulating them into liking you by being likable and a good friend? No, that’s not a friendship. That’s just a relationship built on insecurity. You can only hold up the facade for so long. Imagine manipulating a romantic interest in to liking you, or vice versa. That’s not a very nice thing to do. It never ends well.

>Imagine manipulating a romantic interest in to liking you, or vice versa. That’s not a very nice thing to do. It never ends well.

Someone better tell the makeup and fashion industries...

Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person

#348

Post by coldtea »

YurgenJurgensen wrote: post #307
whstl wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very strange that people are ok with people charming others "naturally" (while it's probably because they learned by imitation, often from parents) while "practicing it" is seen as bad and manipulative. It's the same with genetics. Getting lucky with looks is fine but working for the same goal (eg surgery) is somehow bad and people often hide it.

You say ‘somehow’ like the reasoning isn’t obvious. Physical attractiveness is a signal of reproductive fitness when it’s genetic, and not otherwise.

The reductionist biological explanation might be obvious to you, but in the actual world, the reasoning and the moral condemnation of things like plastic surgery is never explicitly about giving false signals regarding one's reproductive fitness. Reasons "haters" cite are about vanity, narcissism, refusing to look your age, etc.

Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person

#349

Post by 1718627440 »

opwieurposiu wrote: post #83

One hazard of being a programmer is that sitting alone in a room alone with a computer for 10 years can turn you into a weird dude. Lately I have taken steps to re-learn how to be social. I am doing a lot of social dances, like Salsa, Swing, Bachata. I think partner dance is good training for body language. Also good training for presence, as when you really start dancing, you stop thinking; conversely when are think…

> You can be technically quite bad and people will still want to dance with you if you have good eye contact,

Yes. Your ability to do so largely depends on the dance. Good luck dancing Viennese Waltz, when you both try to look somewhere else than to your left. For other dances like Quickstep, it is only important, that the woman looks to the left, the man isn't all that important. Then there are dances, where it doesn't matter, so you might as well look at your partner.

Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person

#350

Post by coldtea »

whstl wrote: post #331
lmz wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could argue that they are ruining the value of the signal for everyone.

If it was about signal-to-noise, there would be no bullying of bald people, or short people.

Or it could still be, but have other explanation. E.g. you're called out if you ruin the signal to noise ration, but you're also called out if you genuinely give the unfit signal.

(Don't approve doing this or anything, just pointing the blind spot in your dichotomy, interested in the argument on a purely technical manner).

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