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

Talking to strangers at the gym

thienantran.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

711–720 of 810 posts

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#711

Post by lovemenot »

technothrasher wrote: post #472
nozzlegear wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My full first name is Joshua, but when I was a kid everyone would just call me Josh. That was until 5th grade, when another Josh joined my class, and whose last name just happened to come right before mine in the roll call. I loathed that he "stole" my name and (in my head) made me sound like the repeat, so from that point on I decided that I would be Joshua because it sounded "fancier" to me. Years later, my choir t…

I've got a life long friend who's full first name is Josh, derived from the Japanese name Yosh. People often try to call him Joshua and it annoys the hell out of him.

Yosh would always be an abbreviation in Japanese. And only done for foreigners, not for other Japanese.

Yoshihiro or Yoshiyuki would likely be called Yoshi by their friends.

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#712

Post by xico »

socalgal2 wrote: post #701
dweekly wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My read on the book was "humans are really good at telling if you genuinely care about them or not and will respond well to that, so you should genuinely care about the people around you, and good things will result from that overall, especially if you're not super mercenary about it." Bill & Ted said it most pithily: be excellent to each other.

Serious question - what is your definition of "genuinely care"? The Carnegie example doesn't show "geninuely care" to me. It's nice, I think I should do it. Give people random but geninue complements. It's nice. It costs nothing. It makes both of us feel good. But, is that "genuinely care"? I ask because I'm bad at conversation. I hear this "genuinely care" and I just, usually, can't get myself to do it. I don't care…

Well, force yourself to care.

I'd argue that there is a very strong value in doing something good, not just because it's genetically or socially imprinted on you, but because you actually decide to do it.

This applies to everything, there is no merit in being good at something just because you were born that way.

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#713

Post by __alexs »

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…

> it's a sort of red pilled book that teaches you how to manipulate people.

This is not an unfair view of the book IMO. While OPs excerpt is lovely, the core of the book is all about getting people to say yes and do things you want them to do.

Carnegie is just so good at this, he's even managed to convince you that he has your best interests at heart by trying to teach you how to do this to people.

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#714

Post by thitran »

codethief wrote: post #710

@OP > Comes with a friend to workout. I think she's from Columbia In case you continue talking to her: Colombians are rather particular about their country's spelling. They will usually frown when you spell it incorrectly, that is with a U instead of an O, and label you as stereotypical gringo / US American because of that. (Adding the "US" prefix here because I can already hear my Colombian friends complain that the…

> In case you continue talking to her: Colombians are rather particular about their country's spelling. They will usually frown when you spell it incorrectly, that is with a U instead of an O, and label you as stereotypical gringo / US American because of that. (Adding the "US" prefix here because I can already hear my Colombian friends complain that they, too, are American… :-))

Oh shoot! Thanks for letting me know. I'll correct it when I get home.

> Is it really hard drinking that they do or just socializing?

Hm I actually don't know. I kinda just assumed that it was hard drinking. I think I should give it a fair shot though. I'll see if there are any bars with non-alcoholic drinks

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#715

Post by thitran »

konschubert wrote: post #695

> do your hobby with other people, frequently I think this advice can be refined. The goal is to meet people with shared interests, regularly . You may like to work out, but unless you enjoy talking and thinking about working out, the gym isn't the right place! You may like to hike, but you may not enjoy talking and thinking about hiking. You may still find friends in the hiking group, because as you spend time toget…

Yes I agree! The shared interest really helps with developing the connection

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#716

Post by Cytobit »

HeartStrings wrote: post #654

"According to Reddit” - so many lives have been ruined listening to what gremlins on social media have to say. It’s simple. If you want, approach. It’s not dangerous, you won’t get cancer. If they don’t want to talk, you will stop talking with them and talk with someone else. "I am deeply afraid of irritating someone or being in awkward situations." - anyone who thinks like this is suffering from abused dog syndrome…

You can find contrary advice for any given topic, all upvoted highly, if you look for it.

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#717

Post by birdsongs »

weregiraffe wrote: post #663
dweekly wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My read on the book was "humans are really good at telling if you genuinely care about them or not and will respond well to that, so you should genuinely care about the people around you, and good things will result from that overall, especially if you're not super mercenary about it." Bill & Ted said it most pithily: be excellent to each other.

How can you make yourself genuinely care about something you don't care about? It sounds as plausible as changing your own sexual orientation.

For me, I find most things can be fascinating. There are so many domains I have zero personal, surface-level interest in, but have nuances that are super interesting.

When someone else has that spark, and their eyes sparkle, and they beam as they talk about "their interest"? Idk, I love that. It makes me feel good to hear them. I feel like we both come away better for the conversation.

I guess not everyone is like this?

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#718

Post by [deleted] »

altmanaltman wrote: post #632
salynchnew wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Books Could Kill (which is notoriously against self-help books) did an episode on Dale Carnegie. Even they said that he seemed to be a pretty alright guy who was genuinely nice to people in his personal life, not just in his public persona.

Did they review the original text of the 1930s book that captures the intent of the writer or the scrubbed latest version which washes away the sexist, racist and problematic text written by the original author? He was as nice as they can be for a white man living in 1930. Good for fellow white men, not good for anybody female or a different skin tone. But the book has been changed over time to make it seem like he w…

[deleted]

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#719

Post by dukeduke555 »

While I admire the proactive approach, I just can't stop thinking how wrong all of this feels and that your situation is just a symptom of our modern, deracinated society. Your grandparents didn't have to think about all this. They just lived in their community, had lifelong friends and a family without consciously making an effort not to be lonely.

Re: Talking to strangers at the gym

#720

Post by thitran »

rimmontrieu wrote: post #250

Being an introvert myself and perfectly fine when being alone, this is so hard to read. Possibly it's just me but making new friends is quite overrated, and the whole thing OP does feels forced and artificial at many levels. Genuine connection should be built on mutual deep interests, and small talks at random places rarely reveal them. I'd be disappointed if someone starts a conversation with me artificially because…

Hey I can see why you think that. There were times when I had to reflect on whether I was doing it because I had set a goal of talking to one new person that day or doing it because I was actually interested in them. And I think both were true. There's a lot of people in the gym but I chose to talk to this specific person because of an exercise they were doing, a cool t-shirt they were wearing, or their awesome hair

I think that working out can be a mutual deep interest

Post reply on HN