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Talking to strangers at the gym

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Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#401

Post by dktoao »

mtlynch wrote: post #80

One of the things I like about this is that OP is giving people genuine compliments without any particular agenda. It reminds me of one of my favorite parts of How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, where he tells a story about complimenting someone, and a student asks what he was hoping to gain from offering the compliment. Carnegie is incensed: > I was waiting in line to register a letter in the…

Since everyone else is sharing their experiences with this book here is mine:

Reading this books was a huge turning point for me as someone with diagnosed mild Autism. I think a lot of the things in this books are fairly obvious to non neuro-divergent folks. But for me, it was like a manual on how to handle myself in social situations, a thing that was mysterious and frustrating to me before. I wouldn't say I am now some sort of socialite, but I am far from the days of being being excluded from basically every social group I attempted to be part of.

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#402

Post by alecco »

mtlynch wrote: post #80

One of the things I like about this is that OP is giving people genuine compliments without any particular agenda. It reminds me of one of my favorite parts of How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, where he tells a story about complimenting someone, and a student asks what he was hoping to gain from offering the compliment. Carnegie is incensed: > I was waiting in line to register a letter in the…

> One of the things I like about this is that OP is giving people genuine compliments without any particular agenda.

IMHO that is as fake as a car salesman. Mature, cultured people will say thank you and think "what a nuisance". I prefer being open about my motives. Smart people appreciate truth over compliments. And if the dumb/immature get offended, good riddance.

I used to be a big fan of HtWFaIP, but eventually I realized it's not healthy.

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#403

Post by IncreasePosts »

stronglikedan wrote: post #203
tomjen3 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a stranger - its also super annoying when random people want to talk to you.

As someone who wants to have meaningful interactions even if they are brief, it's super annoying when I just want to offer a compliment or joke to a stranger and they think I'm trying to talk to them. Are they so selfish that a little chuckle or "thank you" is going to break them?

For every person like you there's 500 dudes who want something from the stranger - their money, their body, etc. People are standoffish because they don't have the context that you do regarding the interaction and it's unclear which way it's going.

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#404

Post by tylerc230 »

helterskelter wrote: post #354
planet36 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And "Remember their name".

Hah. I'm ADHD and I used to be terrible about remembering people's names -- like, their names didn't even register and I couldn't tell you what it was 30 seconds later. It wasn't that I didn't care about the person, it was just that their name would never stick. Anyway, I finally made enough people feel bad and embarrassed myself enough that I started compensating and made a point to remember basically everybody's na…

A trick I learned is to picture their name written across their forehead (visualize each letter). It works pretty well.

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#405

Post by Silamoth »

StevePerkins wrote: post #386
axus wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mr. Carnegie should update his book with a few sentences about how using LLMs to flatter people is not being genuine.

That would be quite a feat, given that Mr. Carnegie was born in the 1800's and died over 70 years ago. I'm convinced that 99% of the people who criticize or even just talk about that book have never actually read it, and have zero idea what they're talking about. It's just in that Ayn Rand bucket of books that people talk about, because they see other people getting likes and upvotes for it.

Ayn Rand was a pretty terrible person. But you’re right that there are some interesting ideas in her books. Howard Roark in The Fountainhead is exceedingly interesting as a person living genuinely without much regard for societal norms and expectations. There’s some weird stuff in that book, but Howard Roark is very interesting. A trimmed down version of The Fountainhead would be much better received, I think. (It’s over 700 pages and has some odd and unnecessary scenes where some of Ayn Rand’s less-than-great views probably shine through. It would also just benefit from some good editing.)

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#406

Post by nathanielks »

soopypoos wrote: post #383
nathanielks wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> World is not your amusement park That's literally what the world is. It's the amusement park for all of us. Some of us like sharing our joy with others. It's up to you whether you are open to receiving it.

the flasher's fallacy

Consent is still necessary. People's opening line when talking to strangers should indicate whether the other consents or not.

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#407

Post by helterskelter »

GolfPopper wrote: post #384
helterskelter wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah. I'm ADHD and I used to be terrible about remembering people's names -- like, their names didn't even register and I couldn't tell you what it was 30 seconds later. It wasn't that I didn't care about the person, it was just that their name would never stick. Anyway, I finally made enough people feel bad and embarrassed myself enough that I started compensating and made a point to remember basically everybody's na…

As someone with very similar issues with names, how did you start remembering names?

For me it just required being "consciously conscious" (if that makes sense), motivated by the thought of the inevitable embarrassment if I didn't remember their name.

I started out by anticipating that somebody would tell me their name at some point and repeating it in my head a few times when I heard it in the conversation. It helps to round off the conversation with "thanks $NAME, pleasure meeting you." so the name is something that gets used and isn't a bit of stale trivia. After the exchange I'd consciously go through what their name was and what they said, trying to attach associations to it. You've got to give them some space in your head. It was kind of a ritual I'd do, like how before I go out I do the "wallet, keys, phone" thing. Now I just do it automatically because of all the repetition.

Honestly I think the biggest things are:

- remembering to make the effort - the anticipation of hearing it, and - using of the name

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#408

Post by ignoramous »

alecco wrote: post #402
mtlynch wrote: post #80

One of the things I like about this is that OP is giving people genuine compliments without any particular agenda. It reminds me of one of my favorite parts of How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, where he tells a story about complimenting someone, and a student asks what he was hoping to gain from offering the compliment. Carnegie is incensed: > I was waiting in line to register a letter in the…

> One of the things I like about this is that OP is giving people genuine compliments without any particular agenda. IMHO that is as fake as a car salesman. Mature, cultured people will say thank you and think " what a nuisance ". I prefer being open about my motives. Smart people appreciate truth over compliments. And if the dumb/immature get offended, good riddance. I used to be a big fan of HtWFaIP, but eventually…

> Mature, cultured people will say thank you and think "what a nuisance"

  The world is a mirror, forever reflecting what you are doing within yourself.

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#410

Post by cubefox »

TFNA wrote: post #368
brushfoot wrote: post #47

Wonderful! There's a lot of advice online about how essentially evil it is to talk to strangers: They're busy, they have headphones in, they might think you're hitting on them (God forbid; nothing could be more evil than attraction). Ignore it. It often as not boils down to fear and neuroticism from terminally online introverts (and sometimes plain old misanthropists) raised in a hyper-individualist culture and glued…

> they might think you're hitting on them (God forbid; nothing could be more evil than attraction) You can find legions of people, particularly women, who do not want to be hit on unless they already find the other person attractive. Being hit on by an unattractive person may even quality for them as something akin to danger, already along the spectrum towards stalking or assault. Has nothing to do with being termina…

> Being hit on by an unattractive person may even quality for them as something akin to danger, already along the spectrum towards stalking or assault.

Just trying to initiate a conversation with someone simply is not stalking nor assault, even if it is perceived that way. Their "perception" is mistaken in this case.

> HN is an international forum, and while people are reporting increased loneliness in many countries, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they want attention from strangers. Where I live, a total stranger talking to you in public is annoying; it is strongly associated with foreigners who haven’t learned yet how to behave acceptably within the local culture.

I don't know what country you are from, but it is highly probable that even in your culture, public conversations significantly decreased in the past 30 years. Which means that the amount of interactions was higher than it is now, even within the same culture.

> A mere friendly stranger in public could lead to such real bonds only rarely, so rarely that it’s not even worth considering.

The gym example of this article points in the opposite direction, or do you think that gyms in your culture work differently?

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