Learn to genuinely like people.
Ask YC: Best ways to become socially adept?
51–60 of 106 posts
Re: Ask YC: Best ways to become socially adept?
#52Read "How to Make Friends and Influence People". Oh you said besides that...well practice what it preaches. Us folk (geeks/nerds/hackers) tend to like to show how much we know about a subject. Some old dude is talking about how his phone can now surf the web...what do you say? Act a bit surprised and ask him a bit more about the subject. Let HIM show what he knows, and get that little feeling of self-importance. Don'…
I found that "How to Make Friends and Influence People" was really good but more suited to the workplace/building up business contacts.
Valid point, it did have that feel.
But I think the key points are suited to all interactions. If you are first meeting someone...and I don't know how to phrase this to be politically correct...you are 'intimately' interested in, perhaps telling them about your magic card collection isn't the best approach. You could discuss his/her Starcraft skills instead :)
Re: Ask YC: Best ways to become socially adept?
#53I think it comes with age and experience.
When I was right off school, I had the same problems as you guys, mainly overthinking about everything, and everybody you meet, makes it hard to just have casual conversations.
Just as I learned in soccer, you should just stop overthinking and overanalyzing, and just go with it, causually and naturally.
Also, in my current job, I interact with a lot more people everyday, so I was forced out of my shell a while ago.
But, when you are in parties, you have to make some effort to reach to people and talk to them. Even thou nothing might come out of it, it is better than just staying in one corner and doing nothing.
Anyway, stop reading books and just put yourself out there and practice.
It will help when you meet girls.
Re: Ask YC: Best ways to become socially adept?
#54Go to bars and pull up seats next to random people. Make a game out of it. See how long you can hold a conversation until it gets awkward.
Re: Ask YC: Best ways to become socially adept?
#55From my own experience: It may seem crazy, but try this. Climb down your geek tower and stop judging people (you may be judging people without even knowing it), then will come respect for people. When you respect anyone around, you will gradually find interest in them; That will help break the ice, conversation will come easy and you’ll found out that people are much interesting than you think.
I couldn't agree more. During Y Combinator, there were two guys sitting behind me. They said something along the lines of "Not to be sterotypical but I am suspicious of any girls here. They're probably just project managers and not really hackers." Not a very "social" tactical move to do when there were about two girls around the area who heard his comment and some hackers wonder why girls don't talk to them.
or maybe those girls are trying to score a future millionare... hehe...
ok, just kidding. But in some "Tech parties" you always seem some of them and it is very easy to spot the Gold Digging types.
Re: Ask YC: Best ways to become socially adept?
#56I went with my friend to the convenience store on the weekend. He spent a couple of minutes chatting with the clerk behind the counter while I watched. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world. He later told me that he didn't feel at all comfortable during the conversation. He said that he has been trying to "bust out of his geeky shell" by talking to random people. To me it looked like he was just a friend…
"Moral of the story: just do it. It will probably feel weird but you are the only person who will notice."
While this advice is, of course, true, it's also pretty common for introverts without a lot of social experience to not notice when they're making someone uncomfortable. So, starting conversations is a great way to get over the fear of them, ending them in a reasonable time frame is a great way to insure you aren't crossing the boundary into uncomfortable (for the other person...I know that the introvert is going to be uncomfortable throughout the exchange, as I'm an introvert myself, and so the cues that may be obvious to most folks aren't as obvious to an introvert...insert boiling frog analogy here).
Re: Ask YC: Best ways to become socially adept?
#57Want to change your lifestyle? You need to force it, it is difficult and you need to get out of your comfort zone and put yourself in awkward situations. Here is a great book with a 30 day lifestyle challenge. Each day is a new challenge. By day 30 you will be comfortable walking up to and engaging any stranger in interesting conversations. Day one challenge for instance is start five conversations with 5 strangers. Each day there is a new challenge and they get progressively harder and funny enough easier as you become more comfortable outside your comfort zone.
http://www.amazon.com/Rules-Game-Neil-Strauss/dp/0061540455/...
Re: Ask YC: Best ways to become socially adept?
#58I went with my friend to the convenience store on the weekend. He spent a couple of minutes chatting with the clerk behind the counter while I watched. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world. He later told me that he didn't feel at all comfortable during the conversation. He said that he has been trying to "bust out of his geeky shell" by talking to random people. To me it looked like he was just a friend…
I agree with this. My biggest fear up to last year was public speaking. No matter what format it was, I just hated being in front of people. Then one day, I decided I wasn't going to suck at it anymore and I started to seek out opportunities to present, and I slowly got better. It is still pretty terrifying, but usually I'm the only one who notices.
Re: Ask YC: Best ways to become socially adept?
#59Start by pretending to be genuinely interested in other people's lives, and their problems. If you pretend this for long enough, you'll find yourself actually feeling that way. And then you'll enjoy being around people, because they'll enjoy being around you.
I'm not sure you have to pretend at all. Try to realize that everyone and everything has a story and that it's often interesting to find out what it is. Some people and things are more interesting than others of course. Learning how to gracefully exit a conversation is step #2.
The exit is the hardest part - by far.
Re: Ask YC: Best ways to become socially adept?
#60don't. people are generally least interesting in casual, social situations. for example, most of the people in this thread have said reasonably interesting, intelligent ideas. but at a bar they'd say worse things.
For anyone who couldn't figure out what the earlier replies r.e. judging people had to do with anything, the parent reply is an illustration.