The best advice I’ve ever received along these lines is “treat people as though they were already close friends.” In my case, that mostly means having conversations with them about topics I actually care about, as opposed to conventional topics.
IME, this weirds a number of people out, who subsequently don’t interact with me much, but that’s not necessarily a problem.
It also causes people to think I’m coming on to them, which is sometimes a problem, but was less of one when I was in the dating pool.
The best advice I’ve ever received along these lines is “treat people as though they were already close friends.” In my case, that mostly means having conversations with them about topics I actually care about, as opposed to conventional topics.
I always interpreted that piece of advice as meaning something more along the lines of “Be as enthusiastic and casual when you’re hanging out with a relatively new acquaintance as you would be when you’re hanging out with an old friend.” This seems like decent advice, but it’s very difficult for me to actually put into action, and it also seems like it would make some people very uncomfortable.
But your take on it is interesting. I’m not 100% sure I can picture it, however. Could you maybe give some sort of example of this strategy in use?
If “enthusiastic and casual” characterizes how you differentially treat your close friends, then sure, I’d say go for that. It doesn’t for me, especially.
What I find differentially characterizes my relationships with close friends is that I can start a conversation with whatever has recently been on my mind, however unconventional an opening gambit, and we will mutually engage at a fairly high-bandwidth level. (And vice-versa)
E.g., I recently started a conversation (or, well, replied to “So what’s up?”) with “I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to tell the difference between a lack of motivation that signals lack of genuine interest in doing something, versus a lack of motivation that doesn’t, and one thing I’m noticing is that if I ask myself ‘Self, are you looking forward to getting out of this slump and being enthused for that project again?’ myself sometimes says ‘yes!’ and sometimes says ‘meh.’ and I wonder if that’s correlated.”
And, yes, I agree that it makes some people uncomfortable. I generally operate on the principle that my goal is not to make close friends out of everyone, nor even to make as many close friends as possible, merely to make close friends without wasting a lot of time. If 19 people respond “Oh look I must be going” and the 20th engages with me and we find each other mutually interesting, I generally consider that a win.
Do you think by any chance you could give a percentage estimation on how many people respond well, poorly, and neutrally to this strategy? (Or something along those lines.) This is interesting to me.
It’s most relevant at parties and large social gatherings where I don’t know anyone, and I don’t really think in terms of percentages-of-people in such situations so much as how quickly I find someone worth talking to.
Over 95% of the time, I’d say the result is a little bit of chitchat followed by the person and I both talking to someone else. Whether that’s responding well, poorly, or neutrally I don’t know; that seems to be the default condition at parties.
Less than 1% of the time, the result is the other person’s eyes lighting up in what I’ve come to label the “oh look, one of my people!” expression, and I make a new friend. Probably not much less than 1%, though.
(By way of establishing scale, I’d say I try this ~50 times in a given year… I’m not a terribly outgoing guy, and generally prefer to hang out in smaller groups or just stay home with my husband, but I’m reasonably socially ept when I do go out.)
That said, I also have a reputation in my social circle for being kind of intense and a little out there, but interesting to talk to if you’re interested in, well, talking. Which also creates a second-order effect, where friends introduce me to friends of theirs who share this trait because we’d really enjoy each other, and more generally where my social environment self-selects.
The best advice I’ve ever received along these lines is “treat people as though they were already close friends.” In my case, that mostly means having conversations with them about topics I actually care about, as opposed to conventional topics.
IME, this weirds a number of people out, who subsequently don’t interact with me much, but that’s not necessarily a problem.
It also causes people to think I’m coming on to them, which is sometimes a problem, but was less of one when I was in the dating pool.
I always interpreted that piece of advice as meaning something more along the lines of “Be as enthusiastic and casual when you’re hanging out with a relatively new acquaintance as you would be when you’re hanging out with an old friend.” This seems like decent advice, but it’s very difficult for me to actually put into action, and it also seems like it would make some people very uncomfortable.
But your take on it is interesting. I’m not 100% sure I can picture it, however. Could you maybe give some sort of example of this strategy in use?
If “enthusiastic and casual” characterizes how you differentially treat your close friends, then sure, I’d say go for that. It doesn’t for me, especially.
What I find differentially characterizes my relationships with close friends is that I can start a conversation with whatever has recently been on my mind, however unconventional an opening gambit, and we will mutually engage at a fairly high-bandwidth level. (And vice-versa)
E.g., I recently started a conversation (or, well, replied to “So what’s up?”) with “I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to tell the difference between a lack of motivation that signals lack of genuine interest in doing something, versus a lack of motivation that doesn’t, and one thing I’m noticing is that if I ask myself ‘Self, are you looking forward to getting out of this slump and being enthused for that project again?’ myself sometimes says ‘yes!’ and sometimes says ‘meh.’ and I wonder if that’s correlated.”
And, yes, I agree that it makes some people uncomfortable. I generally operate on the principle that my goal is not to make close friends out of everyone, nor even to make as many close friends as possible, merely to make close friends without wasting a lot of time. If 19 people respond “Oh look I must be going” and the 20th engages with me and we find each other mutually interesting, I generally consider that a win.
Do you think by any chance you could give a percentage estimation on how many people respond well, poorly, and neutrally to this strategy? (Or something along those lines.) This is interesting to me.
Offhand, I don’t know.
It’s most relevant at parties and large social gatherings where I don’t know anyone, and I don’t really think in terms of percentages-of-people in such situations so much as how quickly I find someone worth talking to.
Over 95% of the time, I’d say the result is a little bit of chitchat followed by the person and I both talking to someone else. Whether that’s responding well, poorly, or neutrally I don’t know; that seems to be the default condition at parties.
Less than 1% of the time, the result is the other person’s eyes lighting up in what I’ve come to label the “oh look, one of my people!” expression, and I make a new friend. Probably not much less than 1%, though.
(By way of establishing scale, I’d say I try this ~50 times in a given year… I’m not a terribly outgoing guy, and generally prefer to hang out in smaller groups or just stay home with my husband, but I’m reasonably socially ept when I do go out.)
That said, I also have a reputation in my social circle for being kind of intense and a little out there, but interesting to talk to if you’re interested in, well, talking. Which also creates a second-order effect, where friends introduce me to friends of theirs who share this trait because we’d really enjoy each other, and more generally where my social environment self-selects.