Nice article, congrats on improving your social skills! Some people are more social than others, but everyone is at least a little social :-)
I’ve improved mine a lot, too, and your post inspired me to stopped and think about how:
I realized that people are different. Just because I happen to like my characteristics a lot doesn’t mean I am inherently better than anyone else. Other people might prefer their own characteristics. From this realization came a natural mastery of the art of self-deprecation, which turns out to be quite useful as a social skill.
I’ve expanded my list of mutually interesting conversation topic possibilities. For example, I always liked music, but I never really knew what bands I liked or the names of my favorite artists. Maybe in high school, I started remembering a few lyrics of songs, typing them into google and paying attention to what exactly I liked, which allowed me to add “music” to my repertoire of mutually interesting conversations. My list of fun things to talk about with “normal” people now includes (among other things): music, work, traveling, foreign languages, running, mountaineering, football, board games, health, and food. This is usually plenty.
I stopped assuming people don’t care about the things I care about. I’ll introduce them to my ideas, or ideas I’ve read about (being mindful of inferential distance and gauging their interest level as we go). I prefer to be the “idea-receiver” than the “idea-giver” but sharing ideas is still fun! People are a lot more receptive than I had previously thought. Most people enjoy talking about ideas at least for a little while, and probably even have one or two of their own. (If the idea is bad, I also have lots of fun asking questions and getting them to reconsider it without actually attacking the idea.)
I stopped assuming people weren’t interested in my life. I started sharing more personal anecdotes, realized what people thought was funny/interesting, and shared more of the same. The more stories I told, the better I got at story-telling.
I started trying to find out what people are experts about and soak up their knowledge. I have one friend who knows a lot about history and is more than happy to talk about it. I’ve learned about law from the lawyers I know. Even if I don’t particularly care about someone’s area of expertise, it’s often a lot more rewarding just to ask a few questions and listen to them speak passionately than to retreat back to “common ground.”
I know myself and sometimes just have to accept myself how I am. I don’t try to change myself too much. For example, I prefer socializing one-on-one or in small groups, so that’s pretty much what I do when I can help it. Of course, I still end up attending some large-table gatherings, and I feel no guilt for letting my mind wander when the table wants to talk about movies and TV. I’ll usually just make some self-deprecating remark to signal that I really have no knowledge and nothing to say about the topic. Then, having established that I’m not purposefully being antisocial, I feel free to tune everyone out and think about whatever I want until there’s another shift in the conversation.
As for romantic interests, well, I guess I’ve improved there as well. This probably isn’t too relevant to LW since I’m a female, look like a female, and consider myself lucky to be a female since most guys like their stereotypical male characteristics enough to want to find someone who shares them, and I share them a lot more than most other females do. I’m always finding out from people about guys who liked me back in middle school, high school, and college. Now I pretty much operate under the assumption that every guy likes me, just to be safe. So if a guy talks to me a lot, and I have zero romantic interest but still want to be friends, for clarity’s sake, I’ll find a way to casually let him know this without hinting that he might have liked me, so that if he did actually like me, he doesn’t lose face. If a guy talks to me and I do have romantic interest, the assumption that he likes me is still beneficial since I’ll be more confident around him. Of course, the easiest solution to the whole romantic problem is to just have a boyfriend, since it removes any trace of awkward uncertainty with all my other male friends.
Stemming from #1, I’ve learned to communicate differently with different people. If I know someone has trouble with reasoning and logic, I’m usually able to “speak to them in their own language” and get the same point across/achieve the same end result by appealing to their emotions. I could give examples of this, but this post is already getting quite long.
Nice article, congrats on improving your social skills! Some people are more social than others, but everyone is at least a little social :-)
I’ve improved mine a lot, too, and your post inspired me to stopped and think about how:
I realized that people are different. Just because I happen to like my characteristics a lot doesn’t mean I am inherently better than anyone else. Other people might prefer their own characteristics. From this realization came a natural mastery of the art of self-deprecation, which turns out to be quite useful as a social skill.
I’ve expanded my list of mutually interesting conversation topic possibilities. For example, I always liked music, but I never really knew what bands I liked or the names of my favorite artists. Maybe in high school, I started remembering a few lyrics of songs, typing them into google and paying attention to what exactly I liked, which allowed me to add “music” to my repertoire of mutually interesting conversations. My list of fun things to talk about with “normal” people now includes (among other things): music, work, traveling, foreign languages, running, mountaineering, football, board games, health, and food. This is usually plenty.
I stopped assuming people don’t care about the things I care about. I’ll introduce them to my ideas, or ideas I’ve read about (being mindful of inferential distance and gauging their interest level as we go). I prefer to be the “idea-receiver” than the “idea-giver” but sharing ideas is still fun! People are a lot more receptive than I had previously thought. Most people enjoy talking about ideas at least for a little while, and probably even have one or two of their own. (If the idea is bad, I also have lots of fun asking questions and getting them to reconsider it without actually attacking the idea.)
I stopped assuming people weren’t interested in my life. I started sharing more personal anecdotes, realized what people thought was funny/interesting, and shared more of the same. The more stories I told, the better I got at story-telling.
I started trying to find out what people are experts about and soak up their knowledge. I have one friend who knows a lot about history and is more than happy to talk about it. I’ve learned about law from the lawyers I know. Even if I don’t particularly care about someone’s area of expertise, it’s often a lot more rewarding just to ask a few questions and listen to them speak passionately than to retreat back to “common ground.”
I know myself and sometimes just have to accept myself how I am. I don’t try to change myself too much. For example, I prefer socializing one-on-one or in small groups, so that’s pretty much what I do when I can help it. Of course, I still end up attending some large-table gatherings, and I feel no guilt for letting my mind wander when the table wants to talk about movies and TV. I’ll usually just make some self-deprecating remark to signal that I really have no knowledge and nothing to say about the topic. Then, having established that I’m not purposefully being antisocial, I feel free to tune everyone out and think about whatever I want until there’s another shift in the conversation.
As for romantic interests, well, I guess I’ve improved there as well. This probably isn’t too relevant to LW since I’m a female, look like a female, and consider myself lucky to be a female since most guys like their stereotypical male characteristics enough to want to find someone who shares them, and I share them a lot more than most other females do. I’m always finding out from people about guys who liked me back in middle school, high school, and college. Now I pretty much operate under the assumption that every guy likes me, just to be safe. So if a guy talks to me a lot, and I have zero romantic interest but still want to be friends, for clarity’s sake, I’ll find a way to casually let him know this without hinting that he might have liked me, so that if he did actually like me, he doesn’t lose face. If a guy talks to me and I do have romantic interest, the assumption that he likes me is still beneficial since I’ll be more confident around him. Of course, the easiest solution to the whole romantic problem is to just have a boyfriend, since it removes any trace of awkward uncertainty with all my other male friends.
Stemming from #1, I’ve learned to communicate differently with different people. If I know someone has trouble with reasoning and logic, I’m usually able to “speak to them in their own language” and get the same point across/achieve the same end result by appealing to their emotions. I could give examples of this, but this post is already getting quite long.