Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

improveyoursocialskills.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 440 posts

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#361

Post by joelbluminator »

wallflower wrote: post #53

While some of you may make light of the fact that I am giving you advice, my single most important piece of advice to people who are highly analytical and/or always solving problems is to not give unsolicited advice to friends, family, acquaintances, or even strangers. People will ask for advice if they really want it. People are not “broken pieces of code” begging to be fixed. I’ve lost friends over this, until one…

There's the other side of this; If you're a constant complainer and you don't want to hear other people's advice or perspective - but just want them to commiserate with you, take it into account that it requires a lot of patience, energy and good intention from the other person to contain you - especially if you're constantly doing this. Complaining can easily become addictive, by which point you will see the whole world negatively, and might push those around you further away.

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#362

Post by idealstingray »

rollerboi wrote: post #90
wallflower wrote: post #53

While some of you may make light of the fact that I am giving you advice, my single most important piece of advice to people who are highly analytical and/or always solving problems is to not give unsolicited advice to friends, family, acquaintances, or even strangers. People will ask for advice if they really want it. People are not “broken pieces of code” begging to be fixed. I’ve lost friends over this, until one…

I've been working on this since I noticed it in myself a few years back. It's really difficult because I'm the "problem-solver," but I'm also the person that people want to vent to. So I've come to realize - After a friend/coworker shares something that they're sad/angry about, my standard MO is: 1) Say something like "Wow, that must really feel terrible. I'm sorry to hear that!" (I always feel the need to add more t…

I really like this script! My neat trick is to directly ask "Do you just want to vent? Or do you want my advice?" If said in a gentle and non-sarcastic tone, this works pretty well on other engineers with meh social skills. I don't think I know any socially competent people to test it on.

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#363

Post by Madmallard »

leetcrew wrote: post #307
Madmallard wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lying is bad

yes and no. the actual content of a conversation is often not the literal meaning of the words. many conversations are actually meaningless, but serve to anchor participants in the script. when the cashier says "hi, how are you?" and you say "alright, how about you?" even though you feel awful, this is not really lying; it's just a choreographed handshake that begins the transaction. in the stereotypical "does this d…

I don't say I'm alright if I'm really not alright.

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#365

Post by idealstingray »

allovernow wrote: post #45

>In a nutshell, you inspire me when something that you share makes me want to share something, too. Notice the word "want" in that definition. Inspiration does not make your partner feel obligated to share. It makes them want to share. This is the part that I've been stuck at for years. And I imagine other technical people hit this roadblock as well. Being able to talk with people when you have little in the way of c…

Do you have any hobbies outside of tech? You could try talking about those. If not, just about everyone listens to music, so "what kind of music do you listen to?" is a decent opening question that might take you somewhere interesting.

If you're having trouble finding an interest in something your conversation partner is talking about, try asking them what they like about it -- it could help you find the topic more interesting.

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#366

Post by Yessing »

arthurmerlin wrote: post #171
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've learned that people hardly ever want advice. Mostly, they want you to tell them that everything is okay. The hard thing to square is, if you really care about someone, and you really think you have some input that could help them, you need to figure out how to communicate that without annoying them / hurting their feelings. It's also important not to have an ego when giving advice / input. It's likely that you'r…

At least for me, I would love advice that perfectly solves all my problems. But probably this advice doesn't exist, because if it did, I would have figured it out already. I often have conversations that go like this - Me: I have this problem that sucks. Other person: Have you tried A? Me: No, I thought about that already. A isn't a good idea because of B. Other person: Well, what about C? Me: No, I thought about tha…

- If I talk to someone about a problem and he gives me a suggestion. I know that he is trying to help. getting mad at him is unfair because he means well. In fact what's natural is to be happy that someone values me enough that he's spending effort to help me.

- If someone talks to me about a problem that I can't solve. I'll try to help, if I don't know the answer. that's normal. I don't know everything.

- If I try a solution to a problem and It doesn't work, I get frustrated not at the asker, but because It didn't work.

If everybody acts this way, The situation gets easier for everybody, problem are solved if possible and no bad feeling are had,if not.

In fact this behaviour follows directly from already well established moral values: giving others the benefit of the doubt, not being vain ( needing others to validate/compliment you), humility, "I know that I know nothing", Thirst for learning.

I don't understand why autistic people are assumed to be wrong/inferrior in scoial contexts even when their behaviour is the right thing to do.

Another example is trashtalking people behind their back. I always feel compelled to either say a nicething about that person, defend him/play the devil, stop the conversation. People don't like it when I do that, although I'm sure that they, as well as I, would appreciate if someone defends them when they are not there.

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#367

Post by johnpowell »

I had a bit of a moment back when I was 17. I had what I thought was a really good friend that I skateboarded with for 5 hours a day after school. We partied too and hung and everything seemed great. We had a big social circle in high school. I had lots of friends and could always find people to go have grilled cheeses and coffee with at Larry and Kathty's. It was this dive place that didn't care if we spent hours in there getting free coffee refills and bad fries. But it is what we did after school was go there and hang out. Twenty of us. I had a solid chunk of friends.

But then I got a blast of truth.

Shaun, the friend I hung out with a lot was having problems at home and had just turned 18. I was also moving out so we looked at a few apartments. We found a great one that was cheap and Shaun was hesitant. It was ours and we could afford it but he hesitated.

A few days later someone told me he didn't want to live with me because, "I was a tedious asshole and living with me would be miserable".

This was brutal. This is a guy that everyday we head out to the U.S Bank underpark to skate. While good friends he thinks living with me would be horrible. So then my mind went a bit wild and I figured that all my friends thought the same.

So I changed. I am not a tedious asshole anymore. I will correct you if you are really wrong. But I am not going to point out your rounding error so I can feel superior.

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#368

Post by TeMPOraL »

natrik wrote: post #268
TeMPOraL wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even the simple act of two people wanting to go through the same door at the same time is an impossible conundrum. Tangential, but I hit this issue very often with couple of friends during university years; two of us wanted to go through a door, and get stuck in a "you go", "no, you go", "I insist" loop. At some point I said, "you know what, let's do rock-paper-scissors, if you lose you go first". It immediately ca…

Disregarding the amusement from the game you might get, why waste time when attempting to go through a door. The rest of the class might be annoyed at waiting while you decide who goes through the door first...

When we started to do rock-paper-scissors, the process became really quick - about two seconds to notice the situation, exchange the looks, shake our fists three times and show rock/paper/scissor. Sometimes it took a bit longer if there was a tie in the first round - but never long enough for anyone else to be bothered.

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#369

Post by pluto9 »

Madmallard wrote: post #250
lisper wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I have no idea what guys want. Every guy is different. And it's not just you: there are seven billion people in the world, and some of them are not going to be into you no matter who you are. But among those seven billion there are also going to be some who like you for who you are, so don't give up. But be careful about falling into the trap of being gloomy because you think you're never going to find someone, beca…

Im not going to lie

Then tell the truth or don't answer the question. Those are your three options.

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#370

Post by bloak »

goto11 wrote: post #351
jimmaswell wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"My car's been having trouble" "I know a good mechanic" "Oh my god how dare you take my agency away from me, I'm never talking to you again" Good riddance if that's how somebody in my life ever reacted in that situation.

Can you imagine the reverse scenario, people giving you unsolicited advice? Most people just don't like advice they didn't ask for.

Does that "most" mean 60% of people, or 90%?

Unsolicited advice only annoys me if it's long-winded and preventing me from doing something else.

Also, I don't know what "validation" is in this context. Oxford English Dictionary doesn't seem to adequately cover psychobabble (though it does at least have the word "psychobabble").

Post reply on HN