I have long made an explicit practice of trying to be a social supernode. It pays off, it really does. (Today’s example: free Skype speech therapy sessions for my daughter from a friend I haven’t seen in a decade, who I met because another online friend had mentioned to her that I was in the same city.)
Join social networks of various sorts, offline and on. Get to know as many people as you can and interact with them. Have fun interacting with these lovely people. Consider it a task, as you would if you’d just moved to a new city and had to find friends afresh.
But mostly it’s something I just do ’cos I’m like that.
Consider it a task, as you would if you’d just moved to a new city and had to find friends afresh.
You might think that it’s obvious what one would do when one moved to a new city and had to find friends afresh. There’s a good chance that you do things that are not obvious to a lot of people reading your post.
When you say that it pays off, is the main benefit just the pleasure you get from having lots of friends and social interactions, or are there actually substantial tangible benefits? Do you think you could reproduce all the tangible benefits with an extra $10K/year of income, or is it worth a lot more than that? I am curious because I have often felt like people who are good with people and know a lot of people should have a substantial advantage over someone like me, who is terrible with people. But then in practice I don’t really see it.
I have long made an explicit practice of trying to be a social supernode. It pays off, it really does. (Today’s example: free Skype speech therapy sessions for my daughter from a friend I haven’t seen in a decade, who I met because another online friend had mentioned to her that I was in the same city.)
Can you explain more about how you do this?
Join social networks of various sorts, offline and on. Get to know as many people as you can and interact with them. Have fun interacting with these lovely people. Consider it a task, as you would if you’d just moved to a new city and had to find friends afresh.
But mostly it’s something I just do ’cos I’m like that.
You might think that it’s obvious what one would do when one moved to a new city and had to find friends afresh. There’s a good chance that you do things that are not obvious to a lot of people reading your post.
When you say that it pays off, is the main benefit just the pleasure you get from having lots of friends and social interactions, or are there actually substantial tangible benefits? Do you think you could reproduce all the tangible benefits with an extra $10K/year of income, or is it worth a lot more than that? I am curious because I have often felt like people who are good with people and know a lot of people should have a substantial advantage over someone like me, who is terrible with people. But then in practice I don’t really see it.