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Talking to strangers at the gym

thienantran.com

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Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#551

Post by llbeansandrice »

talkingtab wrote: post #506

I 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…

I read something a while ago that talked about this. Friendships are solidified mostly by asking for help. It shows the other person that you trust them and people are often honored that you would do so. Even if the request is small.

So being on a quest is a great approach! You often need help and are in a discovery phase where you need to interact with people. Even if the interactions don’t go anywhere most of the time.

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#552

Post by necovek »

tines wrote: post #510
cj wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anyone that asks how you are doing, answer honestly! Or with something slightly unexpected or easy for the other person to engage with or laugh at. “Hi, How are you?” “Well I woke up this morning and stepped on my dog’s tail by accident. He was not happy with me, but we’re all good now - how about you?”

The issue for me is that I seem to really "page out" parts of my life that aren't relevant to the situation I'm in. If I were to sincerely answer the "how are you" question, I would have to pause for ten or twenty seconds to think about how I am, which obviously doesn't fit the interaction. Any tips on how to avoid this? I'm a chronic over-preparer and I've tried to equip myself with answers to every conceivable ques…

I may suggest to answer genuinely about how you are instead of "how is life" — yes, my life is hard because of many ongoing family health issues, but I might still be OK in the moment. Or sleepy from a bad night of sleep, or hungry because I skipped breakfast. Or happy because I got my favourite parking spot. Or had a nice meal....

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#554

Post by Nition »

tylerc230 wrote: post #404
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…

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

AR glasses killer app.

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#555

Post by Nition »

dlivingston wrote: post #114
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…

I find it so bitterly ironic that the people whose opinions we read the most of - the terminally online Redditors and tweeters - are exactly the kind of people we should not be listening to. Like you alluded to, the terminally online people who post the most tend to be those with neuroticism, isolation, severe anxiety, etc. There's a famous Reddit post about this I can't seem to find - "Everyone Online Is Insane" or…

And now those words are infusing the training runs of LLMs as well. The words of the extrovert who's already outside living life aren't written down.

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#556

Post by SchemaLoad »

talkingtab wrote: post #506

I 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…

I've seen this a lot with travel youtubers where they want to show genuine interaction with the population rather than generic tourist stuff. So they set arbitrary restrictions like not using maps, or avoiding PT and trying to hitchhike to destinations. Pretty much everyone everywhere is willing to help how they can and have a conversation in the meantime.

Having some obvious goal like "I'm a tourist and I'm lost" immediately cuts past the "Is this person a scammer/beggar?" you normally think when a stranger walks up to you.

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#557

Post by sysworld »

cubefox wrote: post #423
sparklingmango wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I loved it too. I audibly laughed at this one: "Korean girl Short I didn't know how to start a conversation with her, so I just asked if she was Korean and she said yes. Then I made her guess what kind of Asian I am. Then I rambled about being Asian in Syracuse before leaving. I initiated one more conversation but now we don't interact" So endearing!

That sounds frightening to someone with social anxiety...

Yeah, that would be the last time I show up to that gym. I'd feel it was my fault. and that I was bothering them.

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#558

Post by janalsncm »

alexmuresan wrote: post #98
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…

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 think the association with red pill is probably because men in general read much less than they used to, and the books men do read tend to be nonfiction self-help.

However, How to Win Friends was written in an era where self-help didn’t have those connotations at all.

There is probably some deeper relationship with current reading trends and contemporary winner-takes-all society, but my impression was that the book was more about middle class aspirations e.g. being charming at a dinner party. Not some kind of Machiavellian social maneuvering like 48 laws of power (“crush your enemies completely”).

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#559

Post by SchemaLoad »

philangist wrote: post #212
tomjen3 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will happily stop and chat with you if you demonstrate that it is worth the time and interruption (if I was lost in thought, that will take at least 5-10 minutes to get back to). If not, I will not let you know. I will just fume, blame and judge you for some time after.

"Hey sorry, I've got some things on my mind right now and can't really talk. Have a nice day though". That takes less than 10 seconds to say, let's you protect your time and peace of mind, and as a bonus there's no need for fuming, blaming, and judging that the other person won't ever even know about.

This requires social skills many HN users are lacking.
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