Other Asian Guy's burger looks good as hell.
Talking to strangers at the gym
521–530 of 810 posts
Re: Talking to strangers at the gym
#522Earlier quoted context omitted.
My father gave me this book when I was 12 or 13. It unlocked everything, sort of permission for my teen self to put himself out there. Years later, I've made friends all over the world, some have been in my life for more than 3 decades now, and I continue to make new ones basically by initiating a lot of conversations. I look for something to naturally lean into to start with. For example, I saw a guy in the coffee p…
Would you say the reading level of the book is easy enough for a young kid? Did you struggle at all in reading it?
Some of the examples are going to be corny for a young kid, but none of the core concepts are too challenging. Some fashion of the knowledge has probably already been communicated to children, it is just a codification of social interaction that not everyone has passively absorbed.
Re: Talking to strangers at the gym
#523I don't have much issues talking to people, but I have issues maintaining friendship. I came to the conclusion that my relation to people has been fucked up by sexism and its consequences, probably because I think about it too much.
As a male all my friendship with heterosexual males end up being frustrating and diaappointing. They can behave when you meet them with their partners but whenever you go out with alone they can't help acting like alphassholes making derogatory comments about women they see in the street. In fact even homosexual male oten can't help acting like Neanderthals too. I am not under any illusion that women behave much better when they are in groups but I have had less occasions to hear their comments so keep a more candid view.
I tend to have more interesting experience with women but I always find it skewed. I rarely interact with strangers because I don't want to be that guy they could feel is harassing or mansplaining them.
Two recent examples, funnily both happening while riding my bike: - oveetook a woman on the road riding a bike with a bent drop bar. As I glanced over and said hello I realized that handlebar was flexing at every pedal stroke and knowing the fatigue limit of aluminium I assumed it was alrady cracked and was staying in one piece only with the help of the bar tape. I wanted to warn her about the risk of riding with a handlebar that could break anytime and would have gladly offered her to fix her bike for free as we were close to home and I have some spare parts in mint state basically waiting to be used. But I was so afraid of mansplaining her that I just ler her go, hoping she would not lose her teeth in the near future. - last sunday, after a quick stop to take some pictures. When I hoped back on the bike and was progressively accelerating to my cruising speed, two women overtook me. Despite having a friendly hello, I realized later that I was just 2 meters behind and we had more or less the same cruising speed. I was afraid of making them uncomfortable following them as I realizwd one of them glanced several times over her shoulder. In hindsight I should have stopped again foe a minute but I decided to overtake and drop them to save them from that annoyance. They probably thought I was that guy trying to impress them while I was just escaping from an awkward situation.
With non strangers that I know from hobbies or work, I have had great relationships but I have always ended up losing contact. I am even more uncomfortable with those that have a partner as I feel like their is always like a question mark over wether going out with them alone would be seen as trying to date them. I have several ex colleagues that I genuinely wanted to stay in touch that I totally ignored for that very reason after switching job.
Another example is an ex colleague of mine, who was not at the time in a relationship. I had mentionned her to my partner several time as seeing her as a great friend as she had been very kind to me and offered genuine support at a time I was suffering. Since she had moved to another city we always mentionned meeting when we had a chance. Ultimately when planning a road trip with my girlfriend, we envisioned making a stop in that city and my girlfriend asked me if I wanted to message her. But then a few minutes later came THE QUESTION. How does she look? Is she pretty? I knew from that moment that it was a lost case and I just never messaged her and completely lost touch when I closed my social media accounts.
Re: Talking to strangers at the gym
#524Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
> Their "perception" is mistaken in this case. It’s their right to decide how they perceive being approached by a stranger. And most of society is going to empathize with them and their feeling of unsafety, not with the stranger approaching them. > even in your culture, public conversations significantly decreased in the past 30 years The culture in my country never really had many “public conversations” from one str…
> It’s their right to decide how they perceive being approached by a stranger.
Okay, I suppose everyone is entitled to their own delusions. But believing that initiating a conversation with a stranger is stalking or assault is just false.
> The culture in my country never really had many “public conversations” from one stranger to another. This is something that has been noted by foreign travelers for generations now, at least back to the nineteenth or eighteenth centuries.
How then do people come to know each other in the first place? Every familiar person has been a stranger at some point.
> They definitely do. This has already been mentioned by various people from different countries in this thread.
I read one of my home country (saying that you would get arrested if you did this) and I assure you it is false.
Re: Talking to strangers at the gym
#525I have found three strange and unexpected avenues for interacting with people. 1. Be on a quest. Yes a quest. I was trying to buy an old metal key as a gift for a friend. I wanted to find someone who sold sheep's milk (for making cheese). If you are on a quest it gives a context for an interaction. You both have something to talk about and it you both have an out: the answer. People almost always help you with a ques…
"trying to get to the airport and I don't have much money" is not the quest you want to be faking...
Re: Talking to strangers at the gym
#526Earlier quoted context omitted.
I avoided this book for a long time. for some reason I got it in my head that it's a sort of red pilled book that teaches you how to manipulate people. I know it's very shallow on my side, but I somehow crystallized this opinion based on a few acquaintances that claimed to read it and instead that they include the name of a person they just met in every sentence because it made that person like them more. Your commen…
I was given this book as a shy kid. I've read it multiple times. It really should be titled, "How To be a Decent Human". Show genuine interest in everyone you come across, and everyone's day ends up much better. I'm still bad at remembering names no matter how many tricks I use, but I'm really good at remembering other people's stories and interests. I also learned that so many people have amazing stories to share, a…
> [The book "How to find friends" should actually be called "How To be a Decent Human"]
Well, that's basically the point.
Re: Talking to strangers at the gym
#527One 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…
Complimenting people was my college party trick. I'd be a little inebriated and I'd just compliment people/say friendly vibey things. "That's a cool hat" or "that song is awesome" or "where did you get that??"
Your comment reminds me of advice I once got as a young person: small talk is an invitation to talk, and if you don't get traction with small talk, you're not ever going to get deep talk. So, hopefully the friendly vibe was a good start to build on!
Re: Talking to strangers at the gym
#528Earlier 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?
Along with the sibling comments I'd mention that being afraid to forget someone's name doesn't help you remember it. Be accepting of the limits of your memory and don't be afraid to ask again. If you're concerned they may be offended then being open about ADHD is always a fair mitigating tactic.
Re: Talking to strangers at the gym
#529Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember the book saying something like "a person's name is the most beautiful sound in the world to them." The book may say to say their name back to them (I don't remember right now), but that's not what I took away from it. It reminded me of when people would make fun of my name (first and/or last) or bring up someone famous who has the same first ("Donald Duck") or last name ("are you related Joan Rivers?"), or…
You’re for sure right about the name thing. It’s so hard to resist commenting on names for a lot of people, I think, due to the extreme asymmetry of novelty. When you meet someone named Michael Jackson, that’s such novel information to you: “there’s a guy right here in front of me who is named the same thing as a famous musician!” Meanwhile, from Michael’s perspective, they’ve been named Michael Jackson and getting c…
This is like when you're working retail and the scanner glitches or the barcode isn't registered and the customer says "I guess that one's free then!" and you have to say "ha ha, very droll sir" as if you didn't hear that same joke yesterday.
Re: Talking to strangers at the gym
#530This is absolutely bonkers to me. We're not here to be scientifically experimented on or to make you feel better about yourself. The very idea that OP learned about places and activities that people participate in explicitly to be social and, instead, chose to touch people when they're not clearly wanting to chat is just wild. What do we have to do to discourage you from touching us? I mean I guess I'm glad that you'…
There was no mentioning of OP touching or taking advantage of others. I think you read this the wrong way.
"Then, I would approach them, wave or tap them on the shoulder to get their attention, and then give them my opening line."