I guess I should reach out to somebody in my badminton class this afternoon!
Yesss let us know how it goes
Talking to strangers at the gym
731–740 of 810 posts
Re: Talking to strangers at the gym
#732Good for you, OP! Climbing gyms are especially good for making friends because you are working on problems with people. My gym has a weekly meet up for people looking for belay partners as well as classes where folks talk. Crossfit might also do the trick, as might a running club. Good luck!
I used to rock climb in gyms a lot. I stopped going because I found the people there incredibly irritating (didn't matter on the gym). The things that irritated me: 1) People would immediately jump on the route I was on after seeing I struggled. Cool flex. 2) Unsolicited advice. Thanks, but I'm here minding my own business I generally have a hard time connecting with people like OP but found that I was able to find g…
> People would immediately jump on the route I was on after seeing I struggled. Cool flex.
I find it highly strange to assume malicious intent ("flexing"), rather than charitable one (they're just interested in this route regardless of you being on it, or your attempt made this route seem fun/interesting and made them want to try it for themselves).
People seem to assume bad intent all the time when there's obvious equally-or-more-likely charitable explanations, to the point that I wonder if it's me who's naive.
Re: Talking to strangers at the gym
#733Earlier 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. FWIW this book came out in the 1930s, long before "red pilling" was a thing. I've read it before and it's not about manipulating people unless you consider being a genuinely sincere person to be manipulative in some way. It's a good book, if a little outdated, and,…
I agree with you this was not Dale Carnegie's intent when he wrote the book, but alexmuresan probably takes issue because the "red pilling" crowd have used Carnegie's advice to manipulate people. Personally, salespeople have randomly complimented me and repeated my name over and over, and on the receiving end it weirded me out. So the problem is that in certain situations there is an overarching "what did you want to…
I start asking (annoying) legal and technical questions if they start with that first name basis crap, usually enough to make them back off.
Re: Talking to strangers at the gym
#734Please don't let Reddit warp your perception of reality. It is just a corner of the web full of awkward and negative people (and bots these days). In real life, there is always people socialising at gyms, especially small ones, even received a random compliment a couple of weeks ago by someone I never met.
I’ve been going for a few years and only had someone talk to me once. Maybe I should start going without headphones.
I have never worn headphones to my gym (YMCA) and I can only recall one person, a friendly, disabled man, initiating a real conversation.
Re: Talking to strangers at the gym
#735Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There was simply not much I could work with (what I thought at the time). This has been my big blocker keeping me from talking to most people. I feel quite adept socially once I get going, but I can usually only get to that point through mutual interests or a solid conversation topic to kick off from. I seem to usually psyche myself out because most starters feels too fake or unsubstantive. Compliments make sense,…
another thing to keep in mind is that > try to talk to someone > run out of things to talk about > feel awkward or dumb is not really a bad outcome, physically speaking. IMO ost people's anxiety about things X is not "fear of X" but rather "fear of fear" or "fear of embarrassment": they'll avoid something because it could go wrong and then... what? what if it goes wrong? nothing physically bad happens except that you…
*most, sigh
Re: Talking to strangers at the gym
#736Around 15 years ago I took on the challenge to start a conversation with random people to break through this barrier and train this muscle. What I started with was to chit chat with those I had already established an interaction. For example at the Starbucks I would say something to barista. Those interactions were short but broke the ice. Later I went for random people in the street and that was quite awkward. There…
I'm not saying this is you, but i've also ran into a lot of those people, almost always men, often in their late 30s or 40s, going around talking to everyone cracking jokes and thinking they're the live of the party, while everyone else is just silently annoyed by them.
On the other side, I've seen people that get anoyed with someone trying to have a good time and start subtly using their group influence to sour people against that poor sap.
It is like a crabs in bucket mentality mixed with in-group machiavellian politics.
Re: Talking to strangers at the gym
#737Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which is why you should only give warranted compliments. You're right, telling someone bald that they have a great head of hair is not going to work well. Fortunately, virtually everyone has something you can compliment them about. Even if they're a surly old frumpy shopkeeper, maybe they keep their store super clean and organized. Maybe you're impressed by their loyalty to serving the community for so many decades.…
I guess I should edit it to just compliments are my biggest red flag, and it's born out of experience. These people are looking for something either now or in the future, and this bullshit false niceness is simply their way of cultivating a network of people that they can use.
My wife is a great compliment giver. She'll walk down the street and see a person wearing a great shirt and say "Oh my God, I love that shirt! It looks so great on you!"
The other person will smile and laugh, and they'll exchange a couple other words, and then be on their way.
What do you think my wife is looking for that's a red flag?
Re: Talking to strangers at the gym
#738Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Ayn Rand was never the type to submit to heavy editing. There is a better novel hiding in there to be sure.
Dune is a pretty good book and I attribute that to a ruthless editor. After the author died, the son published many of the notes (sort of the way JRR Tolkien's son did) and one of the books shows several early drafts of the first novel - most of which were stinkers. The notes filled an entire room and he managed to squeeze 15 novels out of them.
Re: Talking to strangers at the gym
#739Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, that's what I meant by it being outdated. He uses a lot of examples and aphorisms from the 1930s, which sometimes come off as a little bit quaint or folksy almost 100 years later. I'll also mention that the book was written for men "influencing" other men; any reference to women in the book is usually in the context of them being objects that should be managed using the author's techniques.
I'm not sure why this would be downvoted. I hope that people consider treating women like objects to be outdated and problematic.
The backlash against the MeToo movement shows that that treatment is not as outdated/problematic as it should be.
Re: Talking to strangers at the gym
#740I can definitely relate. What's funny is I've always been really social and open to talking to strangers, plus I come from a culture where this is accepted and encouraged (Brazil). However, I've been working remotely for 7 years now and recently became a solo founder, and I realized I'm having a fair amount of social anxiety. At the previous two companies, I was working remotely but still had people online to chat to…
Remote work is absolutely brutal to a cohesive functioning society. I know people are going to slam me for saying it but is honestly true. People forgot how to interact with each other because the forcing function that gets everybody mixed together into the same pot got taken away. And if you don’t take some fairly extreme steps to counter it, you’ll be completely alone and isolated, subject to algorithmically chosen…
I think remote work should have been accompanied with a reduction in the working week.
Everybody is working more hours in a day with remote work, it would only be fair to have the friday in return.