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 Post Office at Thirty-Third Street and Eighth Avenue in New York. I noticed that the registry clerk was bored with his job[...] So while he was weighing my envelope, I remarked with enthusiasm: “I certainly wish I had your head of hair.”
> He looked up, half-startled, his face beaming with smiles. “Well, it isn’t as good as it used to be,” he said modestly. I assured him that although it might have lost some of its pristine glory, nevertheless it was still magnificent. He was immensely pleased. We carried on a pleasant little conversation, and the last thing he said to me was: “Many people have admired my hair.”
> I told this story once in public; and a man asked me afterwards: “What did you want to get out of him?”
> What was I trying to get out of him!!! What was I trying to get out of him!!!
> If we are so contemptibly selfish that we can’t radiate a little happiness and pass on a bit of honest appreciation without trying to screw something out of the other person in return—if our souls are no bigger than sour crab apples, we shall meet with the failure we so richly deserve.
> Oh yes, I did want something out of that chap. I wanted something priceless. And I got it. I got the feeling that I had done something for him without his being able to do anything whatever in return for me. That is a feeling that glows and sings in your memory long after the incident is passed.
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 comment made me consider reading it. This rant about radiating happiness towards people without expecting something in return gives me a different insight on his reasons for writing the book.
> 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, if I could summarize it in one glib sentence, its lesson is "If you want people to like you, then be nice to them, be genuine, and show enthusiasm and interest in what they show enthusiasm and interest in."
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 get out of that person?". Don't be those people.
Strike up conversations because you enjoy people and their stories.
> Part of Cialdini’s large book-buying audience came because, like me, it wanted to learn how to become less often tricked by salesmen and circumstances. However, as an outcome not sought by Cialdini, who is a profoundly ethical man, a huge number of his books were bought by salesmen who wanted to learn how to become more effective in misleading customers.
Yes, the problem is that every scammer and salesman uses these techniques also, and if you've run into a few of them, having a complete stranger approach you with the standard Dale Carnegie playbook immediately sets off alarm bells.
Hah. I'm ADHD and I used to be terrible about remembering people's names -- like, their names didn't even register and I couldn't tell you what it was 30 seconds later. It wasn't that I didn't care about the person, it was just that their name would never stick. Anyway, I finally made enough people feel bad and embarrassed myself enough that I started compensating and made a point to remember basically everybody's name that I met. The change was really surprising, people notice that sort of thing and they make an effort to return the same kind of energy. My general attitude about people since then has become a lot more positive because I realized that overall, most people really don't need a whole lot of impetus to show their better side, and it's not like it costs me anything to treat somebody with a little more consideration.
I remember the book saying something like "a person's name is the most beautiful sound in the world to them." The book may say to say their name back to them (I don't remember right now), but that's not what I took away from it. It reminded me of when people would make fun of my name (first and/or last) or bring up someone famous who has the same first ("Donald Duck") or last name ("are you related Joan Rivers?"), or someone famous who sounds like my first and last name put together (Doc Rivers), and I never thought it was funny. When I see people make fun of other people's names, the recipient never seemed to enjoy it either.
You’re for sure right about the name thing. It’s so hard to resist commenting on names for a lot of people, I think, due to the extreme asymmetry of novelty. When you meet someone named Michael Jackson, that’s such novel information to you: “there’s a guy right here in front of me who is named the same thing as a famous musician!” Meanwhile, from Michael’s perspective, they’ve been named Michael Jackson and getting comments and jokes about it near-daily for 35 years - and it’s really a boring non-story - they’re named after their grandfather, their parents didn’t care about the other Michael Jackson one way or the other, and they themselves also neither like or hate MJ.
Yeah, you also have to remember that someone has heard every possible joke about their name and their appearance a million times.
I do think Dale Carnegie overemphasizes the importance of saying people's names, and in fact saying people's names in conversation often sounds forced and manipulative, but maybe that's just a cultural shift over the past century.
I don’t have any problem with my name, and it feels manipulative and overfamiliar and I assume someone’s trying to Carnegie me into something if they use it.
That said, it also has all the self help faults. It repeats itself a lot, is full of happy anecdotes that repeat the same thing yet again, and could have fit in a chapter.
My father gave me this book when I was 12 or 13. It unlocked everything, sort of permission for my teen self to put himself out there. Years later, I've made friends all over the world, some have been in my life for more than 3 decades now, and I continue to make new ones basically by initiating a lot of conversations. I look for something to naturally lean into to start with. For example, I saw a guy in the coffee place with his work badge on so I asked, "coming or going [to work]." Kicked off a 30 min conversation about the economy (he worked at a pawn shop as it turns out and knew a lot about gold, regional poverty, etc). Saw him a couple days later and we picked right back up. The other thing I do is keep it soft focused on them, 100%, until they ask me about me. Nothing kills a conversation faster than someone with a conversational agenda, ie, an go-to opinion. Anyway, I wish more people would start random conversations - it really helps build community.
It's pretty easy to read (but disclaimer : I read the french translation) but it's still nothing more than a list of useful advices on the topic. So the prerequisite is that you have to be interested by the idea of the book in the first place. But if you are, it's nothing more than a big blog post (a good one).
I was given this book as a shy kid. I've read it multiple times. It really should be titled, "How To be a Decent Human". Show genuine interest in everyone you come across, and everyone's day ends up much better. I'm still bad at remembering names no matter how many tricks I use, but I'm really good at remembering other people's stories and interests. I also learned that so many people have amazing stories to share, and are just waiting for someone to ask.
If being friendly with people is manipulation then I don't really know what to say. I'm more likely to help someone if they are not being a jerk and vice versa.
I was in the same boat as you before I heard enough good things about it that I checked it out. After all, if it was really bad, I would be able to tell as much and stop reading it, nothing lost.
I can confirm it's really good. It's not manipulative at all. The book can large be summed up as "if you want other people to care about you and your desires, you need to care about them and theirs and SHOW them that this is the case: here's how."
> "if you want other people to care about you and your desires, you need to care about them and theirs and SHOW them that this is the case: here's how."
Only if you think of it that way -- making every human interaction purely transactional.
Conversely, there's something I've used as a guiding principle for a while now that isn't quite the same, but in the same direction: to receive help, be helpful.
Both of these also fall under the greater umbrella of "treat others as you would like to be treated".
I was in the same boat for a while, but I gave it a shot several years ago when I was doing a lot of driving every day and was powering through audiobooks. This might sound a little hyperbolic, but it actually ended up changing my life in a lot of little positive ways. For example, I used to work with a guy that got made fun of for some of his interests (nothing harsh or super hurtful, just poking fun). I was always really supportive of what he was into and asked questions about it. I wasn't trying to get anything out of it, I just remembered the book and thought it's nice to be nice. When he got married about a year into us working together, I was the only one from our job that he invited to his wedding.
> This rant about radiating happiness towards people without expecting something in return...
This was one of my main takeaways from the book. I would argue that you do get some things in return: richer relationships with the people you already know, pleasant encounters with people you may not know well, and increased enthusiasm for your own interests compounded by hearing someone else explain how enthusiastic they are about their interests.
If Books Could Kill did an episode on How to Win Friends and Influence People, it's an interesting listen. iirc the book was written by someone documenting what they learned while breaking into high society or some other class they were not a part of. So it's not so much about manipulating people but more about stroking egos and being as agreeable as possible to avoid any conflict. The podcasters make the point that it was written in the 30s when confrontation, being an individual, and sticking up for one's beliefs wasn't really possible while climbing the social ladder.
Yeah, I don't think you'll find it a red-pill kind of book at all. I know what you mean about books like The 48 Laws of Power feeling like the world is 100% zero sum, so everything is about dominating or outplaying people.
How to Win Friends and Influence People is very much focused on win-win. There is an agenda to make friends and influence people, as you'd guess from the title, but the strategies are about taking a genuine interest in people and making them feel good.
It's almost 100 years old, so the style is kind of hokey, and only about half the advice resonated with me, but there are 3-4 lessons that had a major impact on me.
I think it's quite clearly the second part of the title. If it was just "How to Win Friends" it might be something more people don't dismiss just based on the title.
"... and Influence People" makes it sound like that's the purpose of befriending someone, i.e. getting them to do what you want, or to do something for you.
It seems to be a rather brilliant piece of marketing to put that phrase in the title. It raises curiosity in a way that a generic "make friends" does not. (The "win" is a subtle move also.)
Once the readers are drawn in, whether from base or nobler instincts, the book can try to influence its readers into being nice.
Only trouble is that it may push away those who are "already nice" enough to feel bad about manipulating people.
I'm 100% with the GP - I've avoided reading the book due to the manipulative sound to the title... Ironically I have read The 48 Laws of Power, hah.
I read it though thinking "I'll bulwark myself against manipulators by understanding their tactics" whilst the "Influencing People" book just sounded like manipulative self-interest.
You've changed my mind; I'm going to read it right away.
It's a classic book but as many others have mentioned in comments, a lot of red pillers use this book as a Bible of sorts, so it's gotten a bit of a bad rap.
In my early adulthood I was deep into MLMs and internet marketing and this book was the Bible, but it was a bit tautological because it was assumed that everyone respected and venerated that book, so all the marketing materials (that we had to purchase of course!) referred to the book.
Indeed, the best way to get rich quick is to sell get rich quick schemes.
On another note, an equally good book that is also used for manipulation is How to argue and win every time by late lawyer Gerry Spence. The book does what it says on the tin but it's more on persuasion methods and framing, which of course can be used for nefarious purposes.
> instead that they include the name of a person they just met in every sentence because it made that person like them more.
I've never read this book but have learned through cultural osmosis that this practice largely originated from it. I always found it rather stilted and ever since discovering where it came from I view it with a degree of suspicion. A contrasting, more generous reading is that the people who read the book and do this are trying to do more of the "win friends" part than "influence people." I'm also notoriously bad with names so I can't really blame somebody for perhaps trying to use mine verbally to commit it to memory :-).
It's a very good book, I haven't read it since I was a kid.
The title is unfortunate, and doesn't really reflect the book IMO.
It sounds like a seedy way to manipulate people and get what you want.
I think a more appropriate title would be "Treat people with kindness and decency and your life will probably be better as a result." Or "A manual for interacting with fellow humans".
I need to reread it actually.
Edit: It has been decades since I read it, but that is my recollection of it at least.
The book really helped me put things into perspective as a teenager who was habitually "angry", and "on the less adept at social side of things"[0]. Had a much healthier time growing up afterwards. Honestly, I should re-read it.
[0]: I am not formally neurodivergent, but I wouldn't be surprised if I was mildly so.
I avoided the book after reading it high school and thinking along the same lines. I looked at the suggestions cynically.
A college program required I re-read it. That time, I read it as genuine suggestions of good faith actions. In that light, it was fantastic. Almost 30 years later, I still quote from it.
Your admirable openness to reconsideration reminds me of, "I could be wrong. I often am. Let's examine the facts."
> 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.
It's two sides of the same coin. Many techniques in that book are things that both genuinely kind people and manipulators do, the difference is intent. In that sense the idea of the book is a bit of a Rorschach test, although the way the author goes about it makes it pretty clear it wasn't meant to teach manipulation.
When I read the book over a decade ago, it did not feel like a red pilled book, it felt like a guide for well-intentioned people to learn how to express that more effectively. On the spectrum between "people orientation" and "task orientation", I was a task oriented person learning how to navigate personal and professional relationships more like a well-adjusted person would, and I suspect I and everyone around me was happier for it.
Makes me think that anything taken too far can be a bad thing. Pity in its raw form is an incredibly empathetic side of our human nature and can be extraordinary.
However, if pity is made a reward system for the people receiving the empathy, it can be used manipulatively. I believe CS Lewis called it "a passion for pity" (I could be wrong).
I've seen many people express the same sentiments about this book.
"The title made it seem shady and underhanded and manipulative. But then I read it and it just says to be a genuinely nice person with no agenda. Everyone likes to be friends with that kind of person."
I think that's why people gravitate towards friendly dogs. Dogs have no deception in their intent, and they communicate it physically well before you reach them.
Animals in general are much more honest than people. They might sometimes engage in minor deceptions (although I sometimes wonder how much of that is projection based on our perceptions of their intentions), but they always make it clear where you stand with them. An animal will never pretend to like you to your face if they actually don't. Obviously it can be useful for humans to be able to deceive like this (e.g. maintaining cordial professional relationships with coworkers who you might never choose to spend time with if you didn't work with them), but as someone who struggles to read social cues and gain confidence about what people actually think of me, it can get exhausting.
It is a great book. I disagree though that all modern books on this are derivatives. I haven’t read many, but The Charisma Myth is a great book on human interactions, that I believe is very novel in its content and approach
Maybe a lot of the books do cover some of the same content, but that’s probably because human nature hasn’t changed much since the 30s, when Carnegie published his book
I think you're right to have been uneasy at the title because it's so capitalist in the framing. "Win" friends sounds capitalist, while "influence people" sounds a lot like the vapid propaganda networks we interact with every day
"Machiavellian" is probably a better term for a book that describes how to manipulate people (for your own benefit).
I don't think a red pilled book would teach you how to manipulate people. I think it would be an attempt to manipulate you towards a specific (red pilled) view of the world.
This rant about radiating happiness towards people without expecting something in return...
The narrator explicitly says he gets something in return though. I think it's important to understand that seemingly charitable acts are never 100% altruistic, and while that's not necessarily a moral judgement, it is still important to understand people's motivations for doing things.
As long as you’re open to their motivation being “it makes them feel good” or “they like making other people happy.” The cynical view is that everyone is fundamentally deeply selfish.
If you go deep enough, you can convince yourself of that, but you lose what Carnegie talks about. You create your own experience of other people by carrying assumptions like that.
It’s been a while since I read it, but I don’t remember it being particularly preachy about why you’d want to make friends or influence people - whether you were doing so out of some nefarious manipulative reason, or out of the genuine human goodness of your heart - I think it’s more just about how to do so.
And the ‘how’ generally revolves around just being nice to people - being kind, taking care, noticing, being generous and observant and engaging. The whole idea is that you are good to them, which means they’ll be good to you.
All of which I was already intimately familiar with - I actually don’t think I read anything new in that book, it all seemed like pretty standard stuff… but then again there will always be stuff that seems obvious to you, and it a revelation to others.
I certainly think you could do much worse than treating others according to how that book instructs.
Strongly disagree with this sentiment. Influence can have a lot of sources, from institutional authority to simply being persuasive, which is distinct from manipulation.
In this context influence and persuasion are being used interchangeably, but persuasion is the act of winning someone over to your point of view, so they understand the topic as you do. It respects their autonomy and acknowledges that people can change their mind when presented with different perspectives. Oftentimes, being likeable (or at least respectable) is a prerequisite for getting someone to listen to you in the first place, so it's a central pillar to being influential.
Manipulation on the other hand, doesn't respect someone's autonomy. It might involve deception, threats, coercion, etc, but it ultimately aims to make someone do something that they don't want to do.
If you're getting a little kid to eat his dinner for instance, persuasion might appeal to his motivations (e.g. having more energy to run faster), while manipulation might look like saying not eating would make his mom sad (guilt tripping), or that he wouldn't get to play with his favorite toy (threat).
I'd argue that {someone who is good at getting desired outcomes} is going to have a toolbox of carrots, sticks, and other things and I think sometimes you are going to be 100% ethically happy with how a situation went and sometimes you are going to feel some conflict between your values. [1]
I'm not sure where the line between "manipulation" and "persuasion" is exactly but certainly a person's intent and how they think about themselves and other people has something to do with it. There are many feats that I can do today with ease that my evil twin coveted a few years ago and just couldn't do because he had a bad attitude.
I think that’s exactly what they’re saying. Influence doesn’t have to be manipulative, but it sure can be. Here’s the difference:
Influence for influence sake is selfishly motivated. Doing something charitable garners influence. Influence is a side-effect and not the intended goal—unless it is, and then it’s manipulation.
The fact is correct that the word influence is a euphemism for manipulation. The very fact that people are confused about this is case-in-point on the subtlety of the notion.
Surely you can see that your statements contradict each other.
> Influence for influence sake is selfishly motivated.
Hard disagree. It certainly can be, but doesn’t have to be. A person can be a positive influence for no other reason than they feel like it’s a good thing to do. You could influence your coworkers to be better engineers and not gain anything from it.
I mean, we could retreat to the “oh you feel good about it, so it’s still selfish” stance, but that’s uninteresting.
> But if you read a book about influencing people and suddenly start complimenting people’s hair, time for some introspection.
The book's also apparently about winning friends, as well. And the excerpt above seems to be about getting better at being nice to people without an agenda.
I think this is a very subjective matter and depends on how negatively connoted someone's perception of the word 'manipulate' is. By your definition, I would consider 'studying/learning' also a form of manipulation.
The idea is to have genuine compassion without any agenda, actually. Or on a deeper level, just acknowledge people exist, and let them know that their existence is noticed.
> The whole “you could only possibly pretend to care about other people” response to the book is vaguely psychopathic.
I prefer to interpret it charitably: the line between influence and manipulation can be pretty fuzzy, and some people come to a conclusion of, basically, "don't do it at all because it's always selfish."
I think it's a flawed view because it's impossible to go through life not influencing anyone and not wanting anything from anyone, so you may as well try to do it in a way that is generally win-win or at least not win-lose.
I think the most charitable interpretation would be that people expressing that view are deeply self-conscious. They are afraid if they followed the advice in the book, they might be perceived as manipulative and they want to avoid that possibility. They hide from that fear by insisting that it actually must be manipulative.
Outside of that, I can only see less charitable interpretations. e.g. The idea that the only reason someone could ever compliment another person is to manipulate them says either that the person holding the idea literally can’t imagine interacting positively with someone for non-selfish reasons (psychopathy) or that they hold such low opinion of the rest of humanity that they believe no one else could (misanthropy).
This is a very important part of learning how to have real conversations with people.
There is too much bad advice about using tricks or hacks to try to start friendly conversations with people. It’s refreshing to see someone learning that a key to healthy conversation is having selfless motives.
Something surprising about How to Win Friends and Influence People is that it’s not as manipulative as the title suggests. A key theme of the book is that you need to be genuine in your interactions. You can’t pretend to be interested in what other people say, you have to actually approach the conversation with interest.
People will see through hidden agendas and ulterior motives. The bad social advice tries to use too many tricks and hacks to formulate a set of interactions that sound good when you’re reading about them but have the wrong effect when you go into the world and interact with other people with a hidden agenda.
This is why I caution against all of the conversation hacks that are recommended, like coming up with excuses to ask someone for a favor (that you don’t really need) as a way to get them into a conversation or pretending to be interested in their life story when you’re only interested in getting someone to talk to you. Others will recognize when there are hidden agendas. It doesn’t set you up for success.
That book is very good. However, for some (including me at some point), it can be a bit advanced
I highly recommend the book The Charisma Myth, it covers a lot of the same topics, including very good exercises, to help understand and develop human interactions in general
Personally, it helped me be able to get into, the situations that the first book assumes the reader is already in, or comfortable with (like talking to strangers)
> ... OP is giving people genuine compliments without any particular agenda.
It takes some effort to be good at doing this, if people aren't used to getting any kind of compliment then it can land as super awkward.
(hint: avoid commenting on peoples physical appearance directly, always clothing, or hair, make-up, jewellery/watches -- or ideally how they handle themselves)
The "trick" is confidence, knowing in yourself that you mean well and, if challenged doubling down with a broad genuine smile, don't try to half-ass the smile because it makes things awkward-er.
The other thing is that compliments can be broad, but criticisms have to be very specific.
Once you get the hang of it you can make peoples days genuinely better effortlessly, by just saying the positive thing that you're thinking.
"How are you today" → "Better, now you're here" -- Isn't cheesy, if you mean it.
It's interesting also to notice cultural differences like when I moved here I started to receive compliments about my clothes shoes and stuff like that and in my country people prefer to do compliments on people's physical appearance or personality.
> "How are you today" → "Better, now you're here" -- Isn't cheesy, if you mean it.
To me that's super creepy. It's like a cheap pickup line. It's only something I'd say to someone I'd been dating a while.
> avoid commenting on peoples physical appearance directly
Gym bros love compliments on their muscles. It has to come across as "bro to bro" and not with a "broad genuine smile" (as a gay guy, you'd come across pretty gay IMHO lol)
Congratulations on derailing what was otherwise such a nice thread. Well done.
Not everyone in this world is always on edge like you. It is OK to be cheesy sometimes. Humor exists for a reason. Not every unconventional interaction is creepy. Get over yourself, please.
Using a throwaway with 37 karma to come in and act like the HN police and pretending you know me? My friend, it appears it is you who needs to get over yourself.
>> Once you get the hang of it you can make peoples days genuinely better effortlessly, by just saying the positive thing that you're thinking.
>> "How are you today" → "Better, now you're here" -- Isn't cheesy, if you mean it.
> To me that's super creepy. It's like a cheap pickup line. It's only something I'd say to someone I'd been dating a while.
Really, if the person actually means it? I think that's the key point.
I think that particular line would come off as creepy pickup line if it came from a stranger, who couldn't possibly mean it except in the most superficial way. I don't think it would come off that way if your relationship with the person is such that it's plausibly true and they don't overuse it.
On that last point, if you actually want to do something like this, I feel like you'd have to have familiar and confidence to use hundreds of phrases like that, for different situations. I'm reminded of an anecdote I read about Ronald Reagan: he was apparently known as being good with little quips and jokes. He apparently spent a huge amount of time working on them so he'd have something ready at any given time.
Full disclosure: I'm bad at complements and do none of this stuff.
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.
Never say anything that isn't genuine. Fortunately, most people have qualities you can be genuine about.
My approach to self-transformation these days is to take on long term projects (months, years) aimed at changing habits from the outside in and inside out simultaneously.
If I was interested in praising people I would task myself to look at people when I am out in the field and find some kind of praise I could give them. Maybe I give them this praise maybe I don't. Doing this over time I will find it bubbles out of me, the desire to give praise and the words to say comes more and more frequently and quickly and it will come out increasingly. Whether the feeling comes spontaneously or whether you consciously plant a seed and let it grow, it comes across better than if it forced.
Lately I've been practicing deep and rapid synchronization when situations are favorable and I'd say I favor listening and observation over praise except in cases where my feeling is very strong, such as somebody really helped me. There is a long list of language patterns that somebody might read as "somebody is trying to butter me up" and in this mode I avoid them almost entirely. It is important to stay in a "I'm OK, you're OK" [1] frame no matter what happens and to have control of your microexpressions (one wince can set you back permanently) which comes not from an act of suppression but rather going into a situation feeling full and practicing radical acceptance.
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.
What's next, do you think parents providing for their children is an agenda, merely so the parents can feel good about that glowing feeling about being a good parent?
Yes it is, and the narrator told us so. There's no need to put words in my mouth; I agree with the narrator that you can want to do a good thing for many reasons. In this case, the narrator tells us why he did what he did.
I'm ctrl+F'ing for "agenda" on the post and getting zero results, sorry. I don't need to "put words in your mouth", you are literally the one who used the word "agenda".
You don't seem to understand what the word "agenda" means in social interactions. It has a negative connotation, it is an ulterior motive, something you are hiding from the other person because they wouldn't like it.
That doesn't apply to normal positive-sum social interactions. Again, see my example about parents and children.
You are misunderstanding the meaning and usage of the word "agenda".
Around 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 was simply not much I could work with (what I thought at the time).
This turned out to become a low stake effort to improve my social anxiety. Helped me build humour around it and eventually become comfortable
Fast forward to today, I can literally talk about anything to anyone. The main pattern I follow is to break the pattern and make a joke, be sarcastic respectfully or give a compliment. No permission just something they don't expect. Almost works all the time. It helps with confidence and also makes you realise its all in your head.
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.
This is such good advice! The expectation at Starbucks is that the exchange with the barista is super short anyway so you really can’t go wrong. Instead of saying “I’ll have the Danish”, try to turn it into a two-sentence exchange initially (eventually you shoot for a 3 sentence exchange with any stranger you interact with), say “which do you think is better, the danish or the croissant”?
> 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, but could you elaborate on "break the pattern and make a joke, be sarcastic respectfully"?
I'll share my secret. Rather than trying to initiate a conversation with others, make it easy to initiate a conversation with you.
I started wearing hats outdoors to keep the sun off my balding head (I've had a sunburn up there, and I don't want another one), and the hat I had around to wear was from when I went as Ash Ketchum for Halloween. Or even just looking at my hat and smiling...
Nearly everywhere I go with that hat, I'll get someone saying nice hat, or professing their love for Pokemon, or asking me if I've caught them all.
This provides an opportunity for conversation and a shared interest. I can ask them if they're into the show, the books, the card game, the video games. How did they get started? What Pokemon is their favorite? Who's the best trainer? When did they start liking Jesse and James? Do they like old stuff or new stuff (I've got the OG hat from season 1).
It takes almost no effort to wear a hat and it helps me use my social skills when I'm out and about. And keeps the sun off my face a bit, and is handy for napping at conventions. You don't have to be Ash Ketchum, any character hat will do.
Also, bonus secret. When I'm sleep deprived, I get chatty... You may or may not, but if you do, use it for practice when it happens... and if you say something embarassing, you can always blame the lack of sleep. I was just at First Robotics worlds and the setup is harsh for sleep hygiene, but I had a ton of nice conversations with random robot people. Shared interest, opportunities and sleep deprivation combined. Otoh, much fewer notices of my hat at the convention center than I expected.
I was in a similar boat, but recently started getting through that barrier. The thing that clicked for me is pretty simple: I was filtering myself and chipping away at that filter made a huge difference.
For example, I was in the elevator with a neighbour and they were carrying a lot of mugs. I said "that's a lot of mugs" and we ended up having a quick conversation.
In my case at least the conversation starters are all there in my head, but I'm discarding them hunting for the "perfect" one which obviously never comes and the moment passes.
Even though typing them out may make them stupid but here are a few examples thinking out loud. Remember the body language is quite important and as you do more you start feeling more comfortable in your skin.
- Waiting for an elevator that never comes with two strangers. What I may say: I guess we'd be camping here tonight. Do you have your tent with you?
- Embarrassing moment: I hit my head lightly to something in front of 5 people: Act funny saying Oh can someone call an ambulance.
- Someone dropping yogurt from their spoon on their shirt and locking eye to eye with me realising I've been watching the moment: I would have an empathetic look and then act with an imaginary spoon picking from my own shirt and eating it.
Basically the kind of mild jokes/acts you would do and say to close people would work on strangers as well
> 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're uncomfortable for a moment. But it's your subsequent reaction to the discomfort that is the actual source of the issue, not the discomfort itself. Which is why a lot of progress on anxiety can be made by focusing on the response: find ways of practicing being in the situation and being uncomfortable to a survivable degree such that you can learn to not be averse to the situation and can thus start adapting to it.
"I did the same thing; whoever designed these doors was a sadist." -
"Do you like that bag? I've been meaning to get a new one, I'm so tired of this one." -
"Now see, if we were as good looking/rich/smart as him we could have figured that out." -
"Is that thing broken again? I'm telling you, we're in the wrong business man." -
"Nothing to do with talent, it's a money and equipment problem, we're awesome at this." -
I've used each one of these in the past week with complete strangers, in neutral-to-unfamiliar surroundings, in passing, and the most hostile reaction I've gotten is "hahaha, I know right?" :)
I had a similar challenge but more dating oriented (not fully though). I'm not at your level, but I want to be. Happily married nowadays, so it'd be a pure social challenge this time.
haha the dudes are of course the best. when I say "I can talk to anyone" it doesn't mean "Everyone will talk back to me". Which is fine and I don't care. For what its worth I'm glad not to have to talk to boring people.
What I want is to have a laugh or an interesting intellectual conversation.
Being able and willing to talk to strangers unlocks the eventuality that you will one day start chatting with a person who also does that and it will be like the small talk singularity. Once a man approached me and complemented my bicycle, and I engaged with him, and since we were both waiting at the same breakfast counter without anyone else, we sat down at a table and had breakfast together, and an hour later I could have counted him as a friend. Uncommon, but exhilarating possibility.
As someone who wants to have meaningful interactions even if they are brief, it's super annoying when I just want to offer a compliment or joke to a stranger and they think I'm trying to talk to them. Are they so selfish that a little chuckle or "thank you" is going to break them?
How does that make someone selfish? I'm sure there are judgements you could make against someone who would prefer to be left alone, I just don't see how "selfish" could be one of them.
For me, one of the main motivations is suspicion of ulterior motives. If it really is just "hey I like your hat okay bye" that's one thing, and is generally harmless. But usually when someone approaches me they want something, either they're selling me something, or asking me to sign something. It's not that the initial comment is necessarily an issue, it's guarding against people pretending to have an innocent interaction as a foot-in-the-door technique.
I was curious to get a sense for the overall "success rate" at a glance, so I uploaded the author's data as a spreadsheet and color-coded the conversations based on length (short=red, medium=yellow, long=green) with the help of Claude:
If you want to build a relationship with someone, try asking them for a small favor rather than offering one first* (or, for example, making random small talk about the weather). Most people love to help and feel useful. If you're new to the gym or want to learn a new exercise, you can simply ask for help. It's something we'naturally do if we weren't so afraid of approaching strangers.
I have heard this repeated across books and podcasts for years but I’ve only seen it fail in person.
Maybe it might not fail if the “favor” isn’t really a favor at all but instead something almost completely effortless like asking for the time or directions to the bathroom.
However when someone is at the gym and another stranger asks them to stop and do a favor that takes time out of their gym visit it’s just annoying, not a friendship starter.
Respectfully, I think you're looking at this from a bad angle. You wouldn't go up to someone in the middle of a set, wearing headphones, and ask them to stop what they're doing to help you. Instead, you find someone who's finishing a set/exercise and politely say something like "hey, I'd like to try this exercise and you seem to know it well, would you mind taking a moment to give me a hand?".
I've personally done this twice this year (I genuinely wanted to learn, I'm not using it as a strategy) and it worked very well. I suppose culture plays a role but I'm in one of those countries where people don't usually socialize with strangers and it still works.
I’m typing this comment from the gym, actually. I’m on the friendlier end of the spectrum and really don’t mind helping out when someone could use some actual help. Giving a quick spot or a quick exchange of advice is common.
What I don’t enjoy is when someone ropes me into doing something for them when it becomes clear that they had other intentions for the request. It’s the ulterior motive part that can have the opposite of the intended effect.
When you realize someone asked the favor not really because they needed it but because they thought it would be an opening to get you into conversation, you start wondering what their real motive is. In this case it may be benign enough, but it’s not a great way to start a conversation
Yeah that's fair and I see it the same way. For example, when I visit the US and a waiter/waitress is extremely friendly (even asking about my personal life and complimenting whatever) it's usually clear (in most cases anyway) what they're after. But obviously I'm not talking about those situations, I was instead giving examples of genuine requests for help, not tricking people.
"Hey man, can you spot me?" Is a pretty universal request, and frequently honored. Once you are done with your set, offer to spot them, and while you are both resting after your respective sets, start up some small talk. If small talk works, continue to bigger conversations.
I’m typing this comment from the gym, actually! Spotting someone is common and I’m happy to do it.
That’s not what I was talking about. The part that fails is when someone asks for a favor but then it becomes apparent that they didn’t actually need the favor, they were just trying to find a way to talk to you. Like when someone requests a spot and then you come over and realize the weight they’re lifting is so light that there is no reason they needed a spot other than as a conversation starter.
If you actually need help then asking is fine.
If you don’t need help but you’re coming up with reasons to trick someone into giving you help so you can talk to them, that’s a situation with an ulterior motive. People are good at identifying ulterior motives and it doesn’t set you up for conversational success.
If someone just wants to talk, I don’t recommend playing these mind games. Just learn how to strike up conversation. The honesty will be appreciated and it won’t trigger other people’s ulterior motive detectors.
No. Don't start up some small talk right then, unless they are clearly inviting it. Leave them alone, they did what you asked. After a couple of workouts, you know their name, they know your name, you are familiar to each other, then maybe you start asking what they do or getting to know more about them.
At least that's what I do. If someone I don't know at all asks me for a spot and then starts immediately hitting me with a bunch of questions/chitchat I'm suspicious. The last time this happened it turned out to be a guy who fancied himself a powerlifting coach and was looking for new clients.
Depends. I'm an introvert, but lifting is my second passion. I've noticed someone doing a lift I want to get better at and asked them for advice, form check, etc and they're usually excited to share the hobby. The reverse is true too.
> However when someone is at the gym and another stranger asks them to stop and do a favor that takes time out of their gym visit it’s just annoying, not a friendship starter.
Might be the place you live; this is not my experience at all. I ask randos to spot me every week. People love to help out. Sometimes they'll even keep an eye on you in case you have another set and come offering.
I think you’re missing the point. The original advice wasn’t actually about the spot, it was about coming up with a “favor” to ask to trick someone into being friendly.
If you’re just asking for advice or a legitimate assistance and then moving on then there is absolutely no problem with that because it’s honest from beginning to end.
My point is don’t go out of your way to seek favors from people because you think it’s a hack to trick them into being more friendly with you.
It's not 'coming up with a favor'. You're genuinely asking someone for help that they can provide. This one is more challenging with strangers, but with friends and newer relationships where you know the people better, asking them for help is a big deal. I think too many of us don't want to bother people, but it turns out people generally want to help others around them. As Simon Sinek says, don't take away your friend's ability to help you - it's selfish!
Personally I would read this as a weak, but noticeable signal of being a person who is okay with taking advantage of others. Most people are too embarrassed to ask complete strangers for actual favours.
That sends a different signal, because you're asking someone to do something you could do yourself but simply choose not to, which is essentially what you described above as "taking advantage of others". However this is quite different from what I described in my comment.
If you see every request for help as someone taking advantage of others, I'd encourage you to reconsider why you view everyone that way. It might also be preventing you from seeking help yourself, out of fear of being seen as a leech.
> If you see every request for help as someone taking advantage of others
Let me rephrase, because there seems to be some kind of misunderstanding here:
To me this advice applied broadly would take the appearance of such a signal, even if weak. The framing of "do it because people like to help" is something which wouldn't even occur to me as motivation to ask for help.
Those examples aren't something a person needs help on, I think that's the difference. I can't spot my own lift. I can't teach myself what a certain machine does if I don't even know what it's called. I can't understand a new lift I haven't seen before without asking the person doing it what it is and a little about it.
Ask people for help where help is actually needed, not to act as your servant cleaning up behind you.
I don't think so. Last week someone asked me if they could use one of my climbing equipment for a moment and I said sure. They asked me in a friendly manner and I had a positive feeling of them afterwards.
I learned about this technique from Owen Wilson’s character in the otherwise exceptionally forgettable movie “The Haunting (1999).” Paradoxically, you are the one doing them a favor by effectively giving them permission to ask for help in the future.
The Ben Franklin effect is real!
My experience at conferences has improved significantly by ending talks on a personal note and explicitly saying that I have trouble approaching people but very much like being approached and chat about anything. This usually leads to interesting conversations in the breaks.
Please give it a try if you are like me and aimlessly wander the hallways in between sessions otherwise.
I have heard that this is called the Benjamin Franklin effect, and it appears to be an inversion of the principle of reciprocity coined by Robert Cialdini.
It might be psychopathic behavior to make things up just to ask for help, but that's not what I'm saying (and you can see the rest of the thread for reference). What I mean is that one of the many ways relationships are formed is through collaboration, rather than small talk about irrelevant things that 99.9% of the time leads nowhere. Be the first to help, or ask for help when you genuinely need it. There's nothing psychopathic about that, this is as human as it gets - you'll observe the same behavior with certain animals.
Wonderful! There's a lot of advice online about how essentially evil it is to talk to strangers: They're busy, they have headphones in, they might think you're hitting on them (God forbid; nothing could be more evil than attraction). Ignore it. It often as not boils down to fear and neuroticism from terminally online introverts (and sometimes plain old misanthropists) raised in a hyper-individualist culture and glued to devices sometimes from infancy.
Fair enough if an introvert just wants to be left alone; we should obviously never force our company on anyone (nor do the mentally healthy among us have any desire to do so, because we have empathy). However, people like that will let us know that they don't want to talk when we approach them, either directly or via body language and the nature of their replies. For many others, they're starving for social interaction, and it might make their day for you to reach out. This is what makes outreach worth it, in the end, despite the risk.
I find it so bitterly ironic that the people whose opinions we read the most of - the terminally online Redditors and tweeters - are exactly the kind of people we should not be listening to.
Like you alluded to, the terminally online people who post the most tend to be those with neuroticism, isolation, severe anxiety, etc. There's a famous Reddit post about this I can't seem to find - "Everyone Online Is Insane" or something.
I really think this is why the past decade+ of American culture, politics, and society has been so off-the-wall insane. The Overton Window - another overused Redditism - of society has shifted towards the opinions of the neurotic and anxious. Those are the people whose words fill the comment sections and posts that we all read, which then infuse our minds to expect these thoughts as the baseline/median opinion of society.
Yes, this is a theory I've been thinking about too.
Explains the rise of various political leaders very well.
I find it funny that even the people who comment on the "Everyone Online Is Insane" post sound obsessive or outside the norm.
I find it messes with my mental health when I read too many comments. In the real world I normally find people to be nice and kind. But then I go online and the world is totally different - I have to keep in perspective that its just a small outsized fraction.
> I really think this is why the past decade+ of American culture, politics, and society has been so off-the-wall insane. The Overton Window - another overused Redditism - of society has shifted towards the opinions of the neurotic and anxious. Those are the people whose words fill the comment sections and posts that we all read, which then infuse our minds to expect these thoughts as the baseline/median opinion of society.
Why should anyone entertain this theory? You’re a comment box.
Edit: Thirty years ago us online freaks would just interact with other online freaks. Because normal people had real hobbies.
But now that we are all doomscrollers: why would normal people be interested in the comment boxes of online freaks? They’ve got YouTube shorts and whatever to watch.
That things like 4Chan has had an outsized effect is a different matter. It’s all mediated through twenty layers. It’s not normal people reading 4Chan and other freaks directly.
I will happily stop and chat with you if you demonstrate that it is worth the time and interruption (if I was lost in thought, that will take at least 5-10 minutes to get back to).
If not, I will not let you know. I will just fume, blame and judge you for some time after.
"Hey sorry, I've got some things on my mind right now and can't really talk. Have a nice day though".
That takes less than 10 seconds to say, let's you protect your time and peace of mind, and as a bonus there's no need for fuming, blaming, and judging that the other person won't ever even know about.
In this Northern European country of mine, I’ve got as much of a neutral third party that I can think of: a friend born and raised to adulthood in the Third World. They’ve got more “extrovertism” in them than 99.9% of the natives. Yet this advice from socializing entrepeneurs with One Weird Trick doesn’t seem to hold up. People here are not all hypnotized by their screens and low self-esteem, or whatever, and then lifted up when their poor social-starved selves get attention from a kind stranger. We are just... like that. Not genetic. Not immutable. But it runs deep. Very deep. Deeper than what an “extrovert” all by themselves can penetrate.
So if there is a cultural pathology it takes way more than what socializing entrepeneurs seem to think.
> Fair enough if an introvert just wants to be left alone; we should obviously never force our company on anyone (nor do the mentally healthy among us have any desire to do so, because we have empathy). However, people like that will let us know that they don't want to talk when we approach them, either directly or via body language and the nature of their replies. For many others, they're starving for social interaction, and it might make their day for you to reach out. This is what makes outreach worth it, in the end, despite the risk.
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> However, people like that will let us know that they don't want to talk when we approach them, either directly or via body language and the nature of their replies. For many others, they're starving for social interaction, and it might make their day for you to reach out. This is what makes outreach worth it, in the end, despite the risk.
Nope.
Normal people—not freaks like me—in my culture will fume in private. Yes: any slight by a stranger will be relegated to complaints to your friends. Much more likely than sending any bad vibes. We’re cowards like that.
I’m reminded of some anecdote about Westerners being struck by how helpful Japanese people are. (This is from memory and may be wrong.) The context is that they are tourists. Well, apparently Japanese people have very strict social norms about being polite and helpful. This is amazing for tourists: they get all of the social upsides while not having to pay anything in return (because they are oblivious to it).
If I may toss out another recommendation: Volunteering is one of the best ways I have found to meet people.
A food pantry, house of worship, the library, a community theater, a political group, an environmental service group, local writers group, homeless shelter, women's center, whatever - there are so many things to choose from.
I found several advantages to making friends this way:
1. no/low stress because you are doing them a favor showing up. Any volunteer-based organization NEEDS people. YOU are people. They NEED you. Don't be stressed because you might not know what's going on. They will be GLAD to see you.
2. Volunteer onboarding processes force other humans to be nice to you and get to know you in order to place you in a service group or provide you an assignment. The people that most organizations have doing this are outgoing and friendly. I'm generalizing, but having served with a bunch of volunteer organizations, I have found this to be the rule. I was often one of them.
3. If you are volunteering for something that you care about / believe in / are passionate for, then you INSTANTLY know that you are meeting people with something in common. This gives you both something to talk about or bond over.
Source: I met my wife and many friends volunteering in different organizations.
I was at a Gurudwara (Sikh house of Worship) yesterday for a wake and everyone who enters the cafeteria perform shevas, that is, you take a turn serving everyone else food. It was very nice to do.
Recently I went to the grocery store and as I entered the alcohol section, I saw a guy stacking the shelves. His hand slipped and the beer can jumped out but he showed impressive reflexes and caught it after couple of fumbles. There was no one else but him and me in the aisle.
I enthusiastically pointed out, "I saw that! That was amazing, great reflexes!" and added that sometimes no one sees these but I will definitely remember it. He was beaming and while I was checking out my stuff, I saw him excitedly pointing towards the aisle and me while chatting with a cashier. Where I am at, it is not the usual to throw loud and vocal compliments at strangers - so I guess he wasn't used to it.
I usually don't compliment people this enthusiastically but I guess the mood and time was right and I felt as good giving the compliment as he must have felt receiving it.
I think a big part of this is that men don't typically receive genuine compliments that often, especially from strangers or acquaintances. When it (rarely) does happen I feel like it can have a significant impact on their mood.
I've always had an easy time talking to strangers and striking up conversations. I think this line is the key one:
> But over time, I came to accept that it’s ok if they didn’t want to talk to me. That’s just one of the things you have to expect when you do something like this.
People are complex! They have a lot going on. You almost never get someone responding with the same attention you are giving. That's just how it is.
What he is doing is developing a practice of friendliness. This won't develop close friendships - close friendships are what happen after you're successfully friendly to people who are good fit. But it will set you up to do well in semi-public spaces like the gym or your friends' party where you don't know anyone. It's an extremely good skill to practice and, unlike what I would have said at twenty, it does not reflect a lack of depth. Understanding that not everyone wants to have a deep conversation at every moment is maturity - doubly so if you can recognize it in yourself.
I have always been good at this and I am pretty introverted. You don't want to force conversations, just start by saying 'What's up?"'. Keep doing it over and over. The is all proved our in social psychology and proximity theory which in a nutshell means you are more likely to get to know people you see more often. You just need to let people know you see them and over time raise the bar.
I've been going to the gym for decades, and to my current one for about a decade. There's a cadre of fairly serious people who have been there for that long or longer who all know each other. Even if we don't necessarily know someone's name, we can usually give a short description, and everyone will know who we're talking about.
The downside is you get sucked into the operational drama. The guy who started the gym lives there and has developed obvious memory problems, while the business partner basically stole the business from underneath him. His now-ex-wife took all of his savings, including an insurance payout from when he was struck by a semi during a traffic accident and was forced to medically retire from being a policeman. I believe most of that money went to frequent Disney trips. The business partner is trying to drive him out by charging him rent to stay there and watch the place, changing the hours so he can't get quiet, and she also stopped paying him altogether.
We usually just commiserate on who and what we can't stand and the degradation of general gym etiquette: people screaming like they're having sex while working out, people sitting on equipment and playing with their phones, people so checked out they take the exact piece of equipment you were on, despite it being a large gym with duplicate machines for most things. These are evergreen discussion topics.
Good 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!
The other thing with climbing gyms, especially bouldering is that you only spend maybe 20% of the time climbing. With 80% time off, that's a lot of opportunities for socializing.
You don't get that with the high intensity training like Crossfit where you spend maybe 70% of the time working out and 30% of the time dying.
And socialisation happens naturally. You're waiting and lots of other people are doing the same. You are working on problems and can exchange tips or complements or cheer people on. It's inherently social.
The gym is not inherently social unless you are actively spotting / alternating uses of a single machine. You either join that group of gym rats (who in my experience spend 80% of their time talking) or you put your headphones on and crack on solo.
I'll second climbing gyms. My entire core group of friends in my city (that weren't already friends prior to my moving here) are people I met from the climbing gym or yoga classes at the climbing gym.
Its a great space to meet new people, there are inherent breaks in the activity, shared problems to work on, and its a non-competitive space. Everyone just wants everyone else to send hard.
+1 from me. I always find it very challenging to speak to strangers, but not at the Boulder gym. There's just so many opportunities to start a natural conversation:
- new climbers asks you for advise
- you can ask a new climber if they'd like some technique tips
- you finally top your project and someone commends you for it
- someone tops your project and you ask them for advise
- you're trying to top a boulder on a new set and are solving it with others
- you're _constantly_ in the gym so staff starts talking to you
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 good climbing partners outside as opposed to in the gym.
I now do crossfit and while I know it's not for everyone, it's a decent community. I still don't talk to folks in the gym, I don't want to but I like that we're all in it together and pushing ourselves pretty hard. I feel connected in that way.
I would really not like a stranger tapping me on the shoulder in the gym. That's my "alone time". That's just me though.
I can see why people would be irritated by 1 and 2 and they happen to me too, but I have just reframed how I think about them.
If someone jumps on something I'm struggling with, I take it as an opportunity to really pay attention to what they're doing and try to learn. They might just be way stronger, but they probably also have some better technique ideas.
For #2, I just take it as a slightly awkward attempt to reach out and socialize. Advice isn't harmful. At worst it's a mild spoiler (oh well), or just wrong (then ignore it). At best it's a great chance to learn something.
I'm awkward and it's rare for me to start a conversation, so I just take someone else talking to me as an opportunity to connect without having to make the awkward first step, and try to spend a minute or two (at least) talking with the person.
You know the old adage about if you meet one jerk in a day, it's them, but if everyone you meet is a jerk...anyway I'm glad you like CrossFit, if climbing weren't my thing, I'd probably do something in that category instead :)
I'm lucky enough that I live in a city that has a newbie-friendly group that climbs every week and goes for dinner and board games afterwards.
I consider myself an introvert, but after going for a while, I got to figure out who are regulars, and they recognise me as a new regular too, at which point they're more open to socialising more, even outside the weekly meetups.
Even when I'm bouldering alone, I've had random people cheer for me when I'm about to send, or show me the beta for a route I'm struggling with, or ask for help with a problem. It just provides a very natural conversation starter, at which point you can pivot to other topics, provided they seem open to talking more.
I relate a lot OP's situation but every time I think about trying to talk to someone else I just get worried that if it does go "bad" (i.e. very awkward) then it will become to mentally hard to stay at the gym for the rest of the session or even come back and since its a place I actually like being in I end up never trying anything in fear of ruining a place I like. I don't know if anyone else feels like that but I just felt like leaving this comment.
As long as you don't bring up politics, religion, or money, you would be hard-pressed to make it so bad you wouldn't be able to stay or even come back. If things are SUPER awkward, just move to the other side of the gym or go to the bathroom for a little bit (~5-10m or so) then feel free to return, just don't talk to that person again other than a simple "hi" if warranted.
It’s probably mostly your social anxiety speaking there. If you go in not expecting anything in return it won’t get that awkward just go alright I’ll let you get back to it and go back to doing your thing.
I had like 20 years of social anxiety and it’s actually very anti-climactic when you can have a normal short conversation with a stranger. Not dramatic and no one’s traumatized
It’s a similar thing for me at coffee-shops that I frequent quite often and where I often see recurring faces. In a way it’s natural, “making contact”, so to speak, would only help transform those third spaces into potential-friends spaces, which might be good for some, but which might also seem less desirable for others.
I feel, like a lot of 21st century life is trying to do things artificially. Going to the gym, talking to strangers at the gym, ... these are both artifical replacements for human activity that is missing. You go to the gym because your daily routine isn't active enough. You try to form friendships with strangers because your daily routine lacks real and fulfilling interactions with other people.
Also it's kind of odd how nowadays everyone goes to the gym. Growing up as a late-stage millenial, gym goers were a niche subculture. Now it marketed to everyone everywhere as this integral part of modern daily life.
> "Going to the gym, talking to strangers at the gym, ... these are both artifical replacements for human activity that is missing."
As opposed to what, our ancient hunter gatherer lifestyle? Going to the gym and talking to strangers at the gym isn't an "artificial replacement", it's a genuine activity lots of people do.
> "You try to form friendships with strangers because your daily routine lacks real and fulfilling interactions with other people."
How do you think people make friends? They make friends by interacting with people at shared spaces and activities.
> Also it's kind of odd how nowadays everyone goes to the gym. Growing up as a late-stage millenial, gym goers were a niche subculture. Now it marketed to everyone everywhere as this integral part of modern daily life.
GenX here and I feel the same way. To me, "The Gym" has always been a place where bodybuilders and muscle heads go. In my mind, it will always be a niche hobby like autocross racing or horseback riding. And I know that I'm wrong! Everyone and their mom seems to go to The Gym now! But, it's hard to change the culture and learnings that you grew up with.
I think it's because the general public figured out they'll die in their 50s if they don't. Modern life is too easy -- a substantial portion of the population spends their white-collar lives flying a desk, "socializing" via sitting around eating and drinking, hiring people to do their landscaping and housework.. hell, you don't even need to walk to get food anymore, both restaurant meals and groceries are delivered. Sure, you might get out to a hike every weekend but that's simply not enough. For health it's pretty much a non-negotiable to go do some strenuous activity every other day, and going to the gym is the path of least resistance to getting that done.
I think about this a lot too. There always seems to be a fitness trend involving classes like aerobics, yoga, pilates, Taibo, Zumba. But if we're talking about weight training, it is definitely having a moment now.
I wonder if all the instructional content on Youtube makes training with weights and weight machines more accessible than ever. I was intimidated by weights and figured it would be boring. A guy I knew was talking about his weight training and I asked if he plans things out with friends/workout buddies and he said he learns about it on YouTube. So when I finally pushed myself to try weights, I found a video. It was a petite woman (I'm a dude) and I thought, ok she looks better than I do and this routine is a nice start. And I went from there, in my forties.
My funniest theory is that dating has been getting more competitive and strength-training is good for confidence.
Compared to a life rhythm that was intrinsically social: recurring gatherings of your community (which used to mean proximity, not hobby) at a building, being invited to others' houses, a social expectation to be social and host things, recurring interaction with the same people due to a smaller circle. Contrast: today we're expected to leave a group of people to go to school, leave those people to move to a job, leave those people for hobbies and romance, and to never let those circle overlap.
Gym wise: compared to life being heavy, and relatively full of physical effort. (Even just working on a car/wood/metal/house/farm with hand tools for example). Cycling to work has done wonders to bridge this gap for me. I think also the current beauty/attraction aesthetic is hard to approach without dedicated weight training. At the top end of lean muscle mass modern life just isn't heavy enough to stimulate enough muscle growth, and in preferred proportions, unless you're willing to do tons and tons of reps which is exceedingly painful compared to banging out 5-15 of a rep range appropriate weight.
Boomers and Gen X are riddled with diseases associated with a sedentary lifestyle and poor nutrition/diet. I would like to think the generations are learning from the mistakes of their predecessors. A lot of science has come out about the benefits of resistance training as well, along with the normalization of women doing resistance training in large part due to CrossFit
Indeed, it's the underlying principle of "division of labor".
Karl Marx' coined the term "Alienation" for describing most of the negative societal/human consequences of this principle, leading to isolation of humans "from themselves" (their natural will to construct something whole meaningful, not just complete a task in a process, but also isolation between humans themselves)
I 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, and would meet in person once in a while. Now as a solo founder I've just been working from home and I noticed that when I was leaving the house to buy groceries or work out that was my "break time" and I somehow just wanted to be more alone so I always had my headphones on.
That meant that I became someone who's running away from social interaction the more I actually needed it. And that when placed in a social situation I'm suddenly anxious whereas before this all came very naturally to me (I've also spoken in public very often etc).
How I'm coping:
- Got a WeWork membership
- Leaving the house without headphones
- Striking up conversation with uber drivers, cashiers, etc
- Making an effort to go to events (even flying somewhere at my own expense to speak at a small event for the first time in years)
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 feeds that are completely unique to you and detached from the community around you.
It’s really quite dystopian and anti-human if you ask me. We’ve already lost so much shared mediums—nobody watches the same shows, reads the same media, etc. which in isolation is completely fine. But something has to be shared with other real physical humans and it has to be more than just occasional grocery store visits, run-ins at the park, etc.
I dunno quite how to articulate it very well though. It’s just remote work has a nasty side effect of making humans even more isolated from people not like themselves. It makes us all increasingly divided and “othered”. And that isn’t good for anybody.
I think the important thing here is you weren't just approaching completely cold but people who you've seen a few times before, which then somewhat makes sense. I think if someone approached completely cold in gym it might not come of as well.
Post College friendships can be hard. Friendships before graduations are almost all completely spontaneous and natural. No one has to _really_ know how to be the initiator. My experience suggests that it doesn’t really get better as you age, either.
My wife and I took on that role after college. Neither of us is particularly outgoing, but we’re not cripplingly shy either.
Meeting new people is about realizing you’re not alone in feeling lonely. When we pick up on positive vibes we just ask for a phone number “can I have your phone number? You seem cool, and I’d love to ___. (Fill in the blank with one of “get a cup of coffee/beer”, “take a walk,” “invite you to a [thing I host].” It’s not significantly different from the dating scene except it’s so much lower stakes. I recommend sticking to same sex or group invites for this reason. Rejections are rare, and almost certainly don’t reflect on you.
Secondly we start things on schedules. Things that happen regularly are super low pressure ways to start friendships: “hey, we cook an elaborate dinner and then hang out and play instruments/sing/watch a movie/hang out at the beach/take a hike once a month/week/whatever, join us!”
This makes it easy to invite anyone without it feeling like a date.
I say all this knowing that none of this is _easy_, but it is a kindness. You’re not alone feeling lonely. With a little bravery you can totally be the person who makes it better for your new group of friends.
> Friendships before graduations are almost all completely spontaneous and natural.
They are mainly from proximity. You see people in class, you live near them, and you're near the same age. It's the same reason in person work would generate friendships/relationships. The challenge in today's remote world is proximity now has to be intentional.
"Korean girl Short I didn't know how to start a conversation with her, so I just asked if she was Korean and she said yes. Then I made her guess what kind of Asian I am. Then I rambled about being Asian in Syracuse before leaving. I initiated one more conversation but now we don't interact"
You can easily continue this into a conversation, FYI:
"Oh, lol - you did X, and I knew another Canadian who did X, so I thought that might be a Canadian thing. Where are you from then?"
I think picking up people at the bar is easier than making friends at the gym - what you want is to join a crossfit gym, or something that has a stronger community culture to it. Not the gym.
But I hear that with Gen Z and Alpha they dont really go to bars but they do tend to go to the gym, and so the gym is becoming a more social space. So maybe OP is on the right track?
There's a pub in my city where the staff greet you when you walk in and actively encourage you to sit at a table that's already occupied. If you come in alone you'll probably end up sitting at a two person table where inevitably there will be a stranger right across from you, with a couple similar tables right next to it. Of course if you want to be alone you can go sit in a corner somewhere.
Needless to say everyone starts talking to each other after a drink or two. This bar is enormously popular. I've never seen it not be packed. It's an incredibly successful strategy for them. With all the complaints about the death of third spaces, I'm baffled that more places don't do this. I see no reason a cafe couldn't do it as well.
All this to say I think it's a great loss that younger people aren't going to bars as much. I wouldn't say they're the best way to form deep connections, but I have zero fear of ever lacking random social interactions, because I know I can just go to a reasonably busy pub in the evening, sit at the bar, and sooner or later either I'll start a conversation or someone else will. It's also a great way to get good at handling opinions that are different from yours - if you have a thin skin or live in a bubble, being subjected to drunk people from every walk of life
will rectify those issues quickly lol.
i think this can also depend on location. I live in a military town and have been a powerlifter for several years, i routinely have men come up to ask about my routine. a handful of times its turned into real friendships.
I have a ton of "gym friends." And this is a commercial gym. We know each other's names, will help out with spots, have small conversations. None of those have yet led to hanging out outside the gym, but if you go to the gym at the same time every day, you're bound to at least start to recognize people, and it's really easy to say, hey I've seen you around a lot, my name is...
Bars are a common place, but do you really want to meet the type of person who hangs out in a bar? Sure if you only want a one night stand what they do with the rest of their life doesn't matter. However if you want a relationship you probably don't want to start with a high odds of finding a borderline alcoholic.
You have some rather uncommon prejudice towards people who go to bars. Unless of course your culture is significantly different from mine.
But where I am from:
- bars are 'a third place' where people hang regularly without getting wasted
- bars serve dozens of different non-alcoholic drinks
- most people in the bar are not "looking for a one night stand" but for some socializing, fun, and a chance to meet interesting people
But as I said, maybe your part of the world has bars that attract different clientele.
You don't need to get drunk regularly to be a near alcoholic.
There are a lot of "regulars" in most who need to "get a life". I won't object to those who are visiting once in a while, but there are far more bars everywhere I've been than could exist if people "had a life", my general observation is 5-10% of the population is a regular.
Not all bars have the same "type" of people. Also if you're looking for camaraderie or friendship, it's a pretty good place to have talks of all kind - the silly ones are the best!
This is great! Good on you for putting together a plan and taking action.
One thing I noticed when I was doing salsa dancing is that there's a normal distribution for how you "click" with people. With salsa dancing, you change partners frequently so I may have interacted with dozens of people in one night of dancing. I noticed how most people fall in the middle of being fine to dance with and then you get a few outliers where they are either terrible to dance with or are amazing.
It looks like OP found something similar. Out of 35 encounters, he had 5-6 advance to the "prioritization" stage (~14%) and 2 (5%) ended up moving into building a relationship outside of the normal environment you usually interact at. I think that is very relatable. Most people you interact with will be fine to chat with but only a small percentage will be people that you really gel with.
> I asked him a question, he answered and left. I guess he didn't want to talk
If you have anxiety about talking to strangers, just remember that 99% of the time when someone doesn't really want to talk, this happens. Not really that scary after all
My fear is I’m socially awkward, I might do or say something I genuinely didn’t know was awkward, and that person will make a TikTok video of me and ruin my life. I’ve seen videos from people posting about “creeps at the gym” and it’s just a guy looking in the direction of the girl taking the video, and it seems like just looking in the general direction of someone for too long could make you a public example of a creep, and that’s basically my nightmare.
And people might say “well if you know you didn’t do anything wrong so you shouldn’t be worried” but I’ve gotten into trouble many times for things I knew weren’t wrong but you can’t rationally argue with herd mentality when a group of people decide something is a faux pas.
You’re basically so petrified of bricking prod and getting fired that you refuse to even start on your first ticket. The catastrophic outcome is low probability and not worth fretting over.
Going out and risking embarrassment is the price of admission for leaving the house. If you do say something silly, you have the opportunity to learn from it and grow a little bit.
Those TikTok videos are usually fake or bait. 99% of people do not think you’re weird or creepy for existing.
Great timing. I used to see a guy at the gym for a few months, we always go at the same time, and one day he approached me to correct my form, we had a chat and we kept meeting in the gym for a few months after that and until yesterday I mustered the courage to even ask him his name. Literally didn't even know his name for months, so yesterday I asked and got his number to catch up later.
I want to congratulate the author for getting out of his comfort zone to tackle a hard problem. But being able to make friends at a gym is not a universal experience.
I joined a gym partially to get fit and partially to meet people with similar fitness goals. Working out alone just feels sad. I tried to be friendly with people, would smile and say "hi," when I walked past someone. I would ask someone a non-confrontational question about their workout. In months of trying, maybe a handful of people who at least said anything back. Zero conversations. The rest either responded with a blank stare or pretended to not hear me at all. Nobody ever approached me or said hi first the whole time I was there, except sometimes the people behind the counter.
I'm socially deficient but not THAT awkward and have no problem talking to people in other situations. I'm not sure if it was the kind of gym I was at, or just the wrong time of day, or if people in the gym only want attention from those who won the genetic lottery. But I didn't have much success.
Different gyms do have different cultures and probably time of day matters too. Absolute worst is right after work it’s so packed and everyone’s still kind of stressed and looking to get done and head out on to the next chore
I'd highly suggest joining a Brazilian jiu jitsu gym. They tend to be filled with other computer nerds (although not only) and people are very friendly in a genuine way.
BJJ is very social because you can't train alone. It also mostly weeds out assholes because no one wants to train with jerks (usually there's a single gym in an area that ends up with all the jerks lol). The other thing that quickly forms relationships is that you're trusting other people not to hurt you and vice versa. Giving and receiving this trust tends to cause relationships to build quickly.
And yes, many gyms are filled with nerds. Once you get past the basics, it's very much a thinking sport.
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 I'm part of their hidden social experiment.
Imo talking to strangers at the gym is hard. I made friends there just by saying 'Hi', waving to them when we started to see each other working out often enough. Then once you're using the same equipment or get dressed in the locker room you have a conversation about whatever and there you go.
Anyway, the fastest way I made friends outside of school was at a language course, where you have to speak a lot about something. You can switch partners during the course, so you can talk to other people. Another thing is sports clubs, it works out the same as the gym.
So the answer is, I guess, just going to gatherings where people learn new things with an instructor.
100% this. As you say, language courses need content so a lot of it is talking about your life/opinions. Super easy to make friends after a few weeks of that if you make a tiny bit of effort
I enjoyed this read, the energy, and the detailed positive outlook. However, what am I supposed to take away from "5 weeks / 35 people / no new recurring friends"? Every time I go out I feel this personally, and I never understood why so many people have such thick shells to crack.
I live in a small town and I have noticed that I just have be outside and look available. I may be gardening, washing my car or just hanging, and people will randomly stop to start conversations, or just say "hey".
That reminds me of our grandparents and how they used to just sit on the front porch and someone would see them, start chatting, and maybe come in and have tea. We've lost those moments of availability.
> “Ignored people I knew from class instead of saying hi because I didn’t know for sure if they remembered me even though the class had only 10 people in it”
This amuses me because it’s the exact reverse of my anxiety. I’m pretty bad at remembering the identities of people I may have briefly interacted with a few times in a situation like class or work, so I’m afraid of the “person from class” remembering me and me not remembering them and being offended. Like, “How about that exam last week” and me being like, “uhhh do we have a class together?”
> there’s a number of people [at the gym] who want to be left alone and can be irritated if you interrupted their workout to talk.
This one is pretty easy. Look for the people who spend more time yapping than working out. They generally love to meet new people. The opposite case is pretty obvious too. Don't approach someone just as they are preparing to start a set or if they're going hard on a treadmill or bike. Generally, if someone is not talking to anyone and seems locked in, earbuds in, etc. probably leave them alone. But asking for a spot when they're between sets is an easy excuse to at least get their name. Nobody is going to really mind that, and you'll pick up pretty quickly whether they're talkative or not.
Is kind of sad reading the aftermath "never saw em again" kind of thing or "don't interact"
Shared interest is a main driver and frequency of interaction/seeing each other... like you become friends at school since you see each other everyday kind of thing
Shared interest, I've recently gotten into cars though I still ride the clapped out POS and someone was showing me their Porsche, sat in it, pretty cool.
But I see that person at work. In general work people don't become friends but sometimes... one of em I go over to their house, when I used to drink I'd drink with them. I do find I have to do more message initiation myself to keep things going so idk. One old friend of mine sends me reels almost everyday on instagram random dumb shit idk. Right now though I only have like 5 real friends that I talk to almost everyday. When I was younger 10s/100s but yeah that goes away as you get older. Also doesn't help I moved away to another state so lost all my IRL friends. And real friends I mean one time when I was really in a bad spot my friend loaned me 10 Gs which not trying to say money is friendship but yeah.
Meeting and talk to people is a learned behavior. It took me a while in my 20s to get comfortable talking to new people. I'm determined to not let my kids struggle with the isolation that can come with social anxiety. My wife and I are working with my 14 year son to develop those skills. Between a couple books and his therapist (everyone should have one!) he's working through it, and has gone from being one of the shy-est kids to having the confidence to go up to a person and startup a conversation. He has a couple openers he uses to get a conversation going. It's finally clicked how much a small compliment can break the ice with boys and girls. He likes the feeling he gets when he gives someone a compliment and they brighten up.
I think it's decent advice, but from my experience, it can take years to make friends that way. I practiced various sports my whole life in the context of sport clubs (martial arts, climbing, snowboarding, swimming...). The way it worked for me is that after months, sometimes years of chitchatting with same people over and over, I barely made any good friends from that context. I did make a bunch of "acquaintances". Definitely better than staying home, but not a silver bullet.
Yes it's very easy to just let things sit at the "acquaintance" level. You know people at the gym, or at work, or at whatever recurring thing that brings you together. But to extend that to friendship, you need to invite them to do something outside of that. Get lunch, come over for dinner, game night, movie, whatever you're into. And then they need to reciprocate at least somewhat evenly. If this doesn't happen it's not really a friendship. And (in my experience) it's very rare for adults to progress beyond the "acquaintance" stage.
The unstated bit is that you have an incidental excuse to talk to them (compared to cold approaching in other contexts) but you still need to talk to them. Everything depends on you making the effort.
Compared to a gym, the class setting almost forces you to talk to people. I wouldn't see myself talking to people in a gym, but in a snowboarding club or martial arts class, or a group hike, it's difficult not to. Once you exchanged a few words, even for the sake of an exercise, the ice is already broken. At the very least, you'll say hi the next time you see that person.
I find that most people don't reach out to previous friends if they haven't been contacted in a while. For whatever reason, I don't have that internal programming. Whenever I remember, I will ping my friends or old coworkers going back 20+ years and go out for lunch, and it's always a great time. It's best to not have too much pride over it, life is too short in my opinion.
And I almost never get a no when I make the effort. One of the people I spend the most time with as an adult is one of my childhood friends who we just randomly went for beers once after not seeing in 15 years and now meet up every month or two since we still had the same chemistry as we did as kids
>however, according to Reddit, there’s a number of people who want to be left alone and can be irritated if you interrupted their workout to talk.
My suggestion would be not to read social advice on public websites on the internet, especially on Reddit, because per public internet, everything is not okay/forbidden, everyone should mind their own business, choose the safest and the most inoffensive action in every possible social situation. Public places such as reddit are full of terminally online socially awkward people who are very unrepresentative of people in real life. Also, there are incentives to recommend the safest course possible because then you won't get downvoted by haters. I don't even say to take advice there with a grain of salt. I say it's probably better not to read such stuff because your brain might subconciously internalize that people think like this even though actully, in real physical world, it works differently.
> activities suggested by r/Syracuse like volleyball ... require you to already have friends.
False! Find a gym with open hours and just show up! I used to do this all the time with my friends, but there were always a few people there on their own. There is always someone a couple players short for their team, so just ask around ("Hey, you need anyone else on your team?") and you'll find some people to play with. Keep coming back week after week and you'll make some friends eventually.
I assume this works equally well for most team sports that can be played casually such as basketball, soccer, and others.
1. Its all in your head.
2. Lead with your heart and instincts- nurture this and the magic happens.
3. Dont take any negative reactions personally- they may be "somewhere" else dealing with shit in their head. But the "wave" you sent them will do its job anyway.
4. The level of creativity that can be applied to this problem is endless! For example.. the idea of them coming to you (harder than going to an existing group/event) but has its benefits.
Experiment that worked for me : I now live in Buenos Aires , and missed playing ultimate frisbee.. so i posted around in various expat groups and craigslist.. "Ultimate Frisbee en Palermo! Beginners wanted - Experts welcomed" link to a youtube explainer vid.
Experiment 2: random street portraits with phone or digital handheld camera - followed up with a "who are you?" existential question (off record)
I realized with the people where I really care about leaving a good impression or hoping to become friends with, it's really hard and scary to do any kind of interaction. If I on the other hand have no desire for a friendship with someone but a chance occurs to chat, I talk to them like I know them for decades and am fully relaxed and don't really have any kind of anexiety.
Seems that the more you want something, the more you are able to sabotage yourself getting it.
If you want to make friends, water your friend seeds.
Everybody knows a bunch of people by name, and nothing else, from various contexts. You go to matriculation, there's a bunch of people introducing themselves, too many to get to know. You work a job, there's 50 people whose name you know. You go to a party, your friends introduce you to 10 new people, and you don't have time to talk to them all.
The ones you don't talk to much, they are your friend seeds.
You move to a new town, and you know nobody, other than that one guy you never spoke to after the first week of university. Contact that guy.
I've been going to the gym for the past year after exclusively running in solitude. I am still introverted at the gym .. it's sort of my time. But I do appreciate overhearing the conversations which occur.
It's been nice to hear 60-something retirees chat about their health, quitting alcohol, sorting out the pickleball schedule, and sometimes politics (although honestly much more rare relative to the others listed)
I love the community some folks create in the gym.
I've started the same, but instead of the gym I go to random meetup events. Which feels easier since most of them are exactly for talking to strangers. Also went bars sometimes with people from the group. I have to get more confident about exchanging contact information though, only did that twice.
Such a cute read (I mean that in the best way possible). I'm quite a social person and it's really cool to see someone be so systemic about it. But I would not have the balls to just talk to random people in the way you did it, and I really admire that about you!
This is cool. The plan written as algorithm.
Pro-activity is the key. Usually, people like to stay in their comfort zone. This guy was searching for his, and found it.
I wonder, why he did not have any friends from the years of studying. Usually, this is the place friendship forever happen :)
Am I too pessimistic, or did anyone else notice the fact that you got everything you wanted with 'the only other asian guy'. Race matters in friendships more than we realize? I feel if it was a gym full of asian people (or a neighborhood with more asians) it would be way easier for you to socialize and make new friends.
This was a delightful read. I have a few relationships with people on the autism spectrum who struggle with socializing, despite recognizing the desire to be more social. I can point them to this blog.
Observation: people act like this challenge is unique to the young generation, but it certainly affected me (millennial). It was a long, scary process of getting comfortable talking to people. It's still hard! And I have to re-learn it in different phases of life:
>talking to people at school
>talking to people in college
>talking to girls at bars
>getting over the idea that I don't/shouldn't talk to girls at bars anymore, post-marriage
>talking to other parents, male or female, once becoming a parent
all different lessons, all challenging. all worth the effort.
I spent several years living in Mississippi. As someone who was fairly introverted upon arriving in the Deep South, I had that hammered out me pretty quickly, during every opportunity for social interaction. It's just part of the culture to engage. I think my time in that area was a bit of a mixed bag, but that one change was for the better, and it has led to wealth of relationships since. Most people yearn for some bit of connection, and it's not that difficult to be the catalyst.
Instead of a gym another options are joining volunteer groups, a fraternity order (Oddfellow / Rebekahs), a local D&D meetup or local motorcycle club.
Sharing a common interest is the easiest way to make new friends.
This came across as a little odd and nerdy, but I'm actually really glad you shared your internal dialogue around this. It gives me more empathy for socially anxious (or just socially inexperienced) folks. Although the way you're starting out is kind of nerdy and overanalyzing, I'm sure these interactions will come naturally if you keep it up. Connecting with people is a very worthwhile effort and it's great that you're doing it.
In particular, the "rejection" will stop feeling awkward. I have random little one-or-two sentence exchanges with people several times per day, and usually it doesn't go beyond that, but I don't experience this as failure or rejection. I only engage further with the people who show (by words, body language, etc.) that they're genuinely interested in a conversation. For me, it's less than half.
The gym is an ok place, but not a great place, for what you're trying to do. Hiking clubs, running clubs, CrossFit gyms, rock-climbing gyms, and volunteer groups are all better options. The baseline level of socialization is very high in these places, whereas if you look around at a gym, most people have their headphones on, and are doing their own workout, so there's few natural opportunities to start a conversation.
Also, try to find people who are social and have lots of friends. If they like you they'll introduce you to their friends, which is a lot easier than starting cold. Don't be afraid to talk to women. Most of the people I know who are really good at connecting people are women.
This is how social life starts, dont wanna spoil it but its full of wonderful and confusing stuff. If i may i suggest you to try some rejection selftherapy where you walk to random spots u think will say no, who knows maybe u get a few yeses u thought were impossible. As u long as u are good and nice and ur intentions are pure, and if you are willing to correct the mistakes u will make in the future, to learn from them as much as possible, u will come far. Just dont forget to have fun.
> Pretended I didn’t know a childhood friend when they said hi because I didn’t know how to act around people I used to know
In high school because people thought I was a snob or something because of my social awkwardness. I love talking to people but absolutely hate initiating conversations. I love looking people in the eye when they're talking and hate looking at people as a I pass, so I usually don't even know who is walking near me. It's kind of crippling (and this is after it's gotten much better over time).
Very sweet story. Next, invite that guy and his girlfriend and maybe someone else over to your place, or out to do something. Reciprocation matters a lot.
> activities suggested by r/Syracuse like volleyball and trivia night require you to already have friends.
Most big cities will have rec leagues that are popular with people in their 20s. Find a league that has a team happy hour after, I live in a transient city and I've made a few friends from people who get placed on my teams.
To me as someone also "deeply afraid of irritating someone or being in awkward situations", it sounds like this project is greatly expanding the surface on which awkward situations can happen? How do you decide if you should wave to the person or ignore them? Isn't it tiring? Don't you wish to be anonymous again?
I can't stop thinking about the amount of people they engaged with simply never to be seen again. Are gym membership commitments a lot less serious than I remember these days?
One thing I have learned is that there are inviters and invitees for friends groups. Most people kind of just sit around and wait for things to happen. Some other people will make plans and invite people. Taking the initiative and talking to people first is the way to go, and looks like it worked out.
Good advice generally. But please, not at the gym. All gyms have a different vibe but mine is almost strictly no talking. We go there to workout, not to chat. Everyone locked in, headphones on, no nonsense. I've been going for years and I can count on one hand the number of conversations I've witnessed.
But the flipside is, I see the same gym crowd at the coffee shop next door and we always have a good chat there. Context matters.
each place has different social dynamics. from my experience, working out at a gym isn't the exactly an easiest way to make friends. I've also frequented gyms in the past but there were moments that I needed to focus alone, otherwise couldn't get the gain I needed. the activity itself can become a social constraint in some cases.
when I've joined a social dance community, I was almost forced to talk and stand close with strangers. It is an emotional rollercoaster; it's all happy when I've met nice people but I've felt helpless when I had to dance/interact with people that I don't like, for whatever that is.
I've also practiced some type of acrobatics/solo dance for years and it is somewhere in between.
I think some type of intimacy heatmap can be made with all these activities.
Pro tip: introduce your friends to your other friends. Build a network. Networks get stronger as the number of connections increases, i.e. as more people in that network know each other. People are more excited to hang, bc they know more people, and the hangs are more exciting. And hangs become more frequent, because more people can initiate. And it makes awkward moments less common, too.
This is much more durable, reliable, and (quite frankly) fun than the hub-and-spokes model of friendship, where you just have a bunch of 1-on-1 catchups with people who know you but not each other.
Also, it's somewhat easy to do! In this guy's story, this could be as simple as, "Hey I want to get a few of us from the gym together for dinner sometime. Would you be down?" People are usually more receptive to this than they are to a 1-on-1 invite, too.
This is the nerdiest way to go about this, I love it. Good job OP! If you're interested in old video games or trading card games, see if there are any card or used game shops near you. The people there tend to be cool
Good for the author for finding some success. I'd recommend seeking a significant other, somehow that sounds less daunting that making friends past 30. Cool roommates are friend-ajacent and help with loneliness; I had a cool roommate for a while until he moved in with his girlfriend, after which I was deeply lonely until I met my now wife.
> Ignored people I knew from class instead of saying hi because I didn’t know for sure if they remembered me even though the class had only 10 people in it
This one really hits home for me. Many times in my life, I have been on the receiving end of "being ignored" by people I knew. It fucking hurts. The more it happens, the more I withdraw socially.
I don't think is a viable strategy for building a social life. Gym attracts asocial weirdos (not an insult, I happen to be one). I would consider getting a really hobby or switching jobs. There's a lot of turnover in the food service industry, plenty of chances to meet new people. If you're an unemployed CS grad what do you have to lose? The best thing though would be finding a romantic partner and just devoting yourself to that person, instead of moving from one fleeting friendship to another.
You go to the gym to lift. Not to talk. You may talk shortly if it is related to something you need to continue your workout. Apart from that you do not talk. End of story.
I always liked busting through the little social candy shell in the gym. Offering to let people work in on a scarce piece of equipment could lead to chit-chatting about whatever. It's nice! When you have about 3 minutes to rest in between sets there's time to let someone else work and talk a bit.
This is absolutely bonkers to me. We're not here to be scientifically experimented on or to make you feel better about yourself. The very idea that OP learned about places and activities that people participate in explicitly to be social and, instead, chose to touch people when they're not clearly wanting to chat is just wild.
What do we have to do to discourage you from touching us?
I mean I guess I'm glad that you're trying to resolve your anxiety. Self improvement is good for some people. I just wish it weren't at the expense of others.
So thankful that people do this and chronicle this...our society is getting more and more isolated, it feels. This (I FEEL LIKE, could be wrong, I'm kinda a boomer now haha) was more common 'back in the day' and now some people do it as a social experiment.
If you want to talk to men at the gym it's easy and no need for awkward scripts. Just ask for a spot. Most guys will feel honoured to be asked as you're showing trust in them. They'll spot you and then just talk about lifting. I met loads of guys this way.
Don't talk to girls you're attracted to, though. They can tell. If they want you to talk to them they'll give you signs. But that's a whole other thing.
The bullet point list in the intro was so relatable. It brought back some still painful memories. I often wish I could go back in time and do some of those things differently. I don't know what I was afraid of, but I missed out on so many connections.
Another trick is that people are usually nicer to you if you talk to them after having gone to the same place at the same time for a while. If you smile and waive at them a few times before you go and talk to them, you've built a bit of familiarity by nature of being a "regular" and aren't just cold approaching people you've never seen.
If talking to random strangers worked then people would be doing this more often.
The problem is that it's usually extremely unlikely that you actually have something in common with a random stranger. I mean it's fine if you enjoy popular things and do typical activities AND you like having lots of casual friendships, but if you have a distinct personality or you prefer to build deeper connections, then "send to all" approach doesn't work.
I started being nicer to people and I realized I found myself taking part in conversations that I simply did not enjoy.
Just ask for a spot when you see someone available.
You humble yourself, you grow as a person by practicing communication, and you get to try to lift a little heavier as you know someone is there to help you when you eventually fail a rep (which is important if you're trying to bulk or get stronger). You thank them after and maybe even give/get a fist bump. That's it. Do this often while being mindful of people and their own workouts. One day, someone will ask YOU for a spot. Oblige.
Asking for a spot is absolutely a frequent and everyday occurrence at pretty much any gym. Most people are actually pretty honored when they are asked to spot someone's PR attempt.
You don't really have to make a ton of small talk unless both parties are open to it, but you'll get to know the regulars who will eventually talk to you.
It's obvious in hindsight but to me its really interesting you can collect data points on the community just by chatting with them. Maybe you could guess, by appearance or behaviour or something, whether most people at the gym are university students, or gym bros, or something else.
But by chatting with them, the world seems a bit bigger. And even if you don't see them again often, or don't chat again, its just nice that you have some level of familiarity and learn new things you wouldn't know unless you chatted with them. And although sometimes you have that awkward uncomfortable short conversation, every once in a while, you make a new friend. That is life, I suppose.
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 Post Office at Thirty-Third Street and Eighth Avenue in New York. I noticed that the registry clerk was bored with his job[...] So while he was weighing my envelope, I remarked with enthusiasm: “I certainly wish I had your head of hair.”
> He looked up, half-startled, his face beaming with smiles. “Well, it isn’t as good as it used to be,” he said modestly. I assured him that although it might have lost some of its pristine glory, nevertheless it was still magnificent. He was immensely pleased. We carried on a pleasant little conversation, and the last thing he said to me was: “Many people have admired my hair.”
> I told this story once in public; and a man asked me afterwards: “What did you want to get out of him?”
> What was I trying to get out of him!!! What was I trying to get out of him!!!
> If we are so contemptibly selfish that we can’t radiate a little happiness and pass on a bit of honest appreciation without trying to screw something out of the other person in return—if our souls are no bigger than sour crab apples, we shall meet with the failure we so richly deserve.
> Oh yes, I did want something out of that chap. I wanted something priceless. And I got it. I got the feeling that I had done something for him without his being able to do anything whatever in return for me. That is a feeling that glows and sings in your memory long after the incident is passed.
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 comment made me consider reading it. This rant about radiating happiness towards people without expecting something in return gives me a different insight on his reasons for writing the book.
I might give it a shot. Thank you
> 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, if I could summarize it in one glib sentence, its lesson is "If you want people to like you, then be nice to them, be genuine, and show enthusiasm and interest in what they show enthusiasm and interest in."
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 get out of that person?". Don't be those people.
Strike up conversations because you enjoy people and their stories.
> Part of Cialdini’s large book-buying audience came because, like me, it wanted to learn how to become less often tricked by salesmen and circumstances. However, as an outcome not sought by Cialdini, who is a profoundly ethical man, a huge number of his books were bought by salesmen who wanted to learn how to become more effective in misleading customers.
(Poor Charlie's Almanack, Charlie Munger)
Yes, the problem is that every scammer and salesman uses these techniques also, and if you've run into a few of them, having a complete stranger approach you with the standard Dale Carnegie playbook immediately sets off alarm bells.
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.
And "Remember their name".
Hah. I'm ADHD and I used to be terrible about remembering people's names -- like, their names didn't even register and I couldn't tell you what it was 30 seconds later. It wasn't that I didn't care about the person, it was just that their name would never stick. Anyway, I finally made enough people feel bad and embarrassed myself enough that I started compensating and made a point to remember basically everybody's name that I met. The change was really surprising, people notice that sort of thing and they make an effort to return the same kind of energy. My general attitude about people since then has become a lot more positive because I realized that overall, most people really don't need a whole lot of impetus to show their better side, and it's not like it costs me anything to treat somebody with a little more consideration.
I remember the book saying something like "a person's name is the most beautiful sound in the world to them." The book may say to say their name back to them (I don't remember right now), but that's not what I took away from it. It reminded me of when people would make fun of my name (first and/or last) or bring up someone famous who has the same first ("Donald Duck") or last name ("are you related Joan Rivers?"), or someone famous who sounds like my first and last name put together (Doc Rivers), and I never thought it was funny. When I see people make fun of other people's names, the recipient never seemed to enjoy it either.
You’re for sure right about the name thing. It’s so hard to resist commenting on names for a lot of people, I think, due to the extreme asymmetry of novelty. When you meet someone named Michael Jackson, that’s such novel information to you: “there’s a guy right here in front of me who is named the same thing as a famous musician!” Meanwhile, from Michael’s perspective, they’ve been named Michael Jackson and getting comments and jokes about it near-daily for 35 years - and it’s really a boring non-story - they’re named after their grandfather, their parents didn’t care about the other Michael Jackson one way or the other, and they themselves also neither like or hate MJ.
Michael... Bolton?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhxRAsnizbk
Yeah, you also have to remember that someone has heard every possible joke about their name and their appearance a million times.
I do think Dale Carnegie overemphasizes the importance of saying people's names, and in fact saying people's names in conversation often sounds forced and manipulative, but maybe that's just a cultural shift over the past century.
I don’t have any problem with my name, and it feels manipulative and overfamiliar and I assume someone’s trying to Carnegie me into something if they use it.
Doc Rivers is an awesome name though.
Saying someone's name back to them is also a memory trick to help yourself remember their name for next time.
Mr. Carnegie should update his book with a few sentences about how using LLMs to flatter people is not being genuine.
That said, it also has all the self help faults. It repeats itself a lot, is full of happy anecdotes that repeat the same thing yet again, and could have fit in a chapter.
My father gave me this book when I was 12 or 13. It unlocked everything, sort of permission for my teen self to put himself out there. Years later, I've made friends all over the world, some have been in my life for more than 3 decades now, and I continue to make new ones basically by initiating a lot of conversations. I look for something to naturally lean into to start with. For example, I saw a guy in the coffee place with his work badge on so I asked, "coming or going [to work]." Kicked off a 30 min conversation about the economy (he worked at a pawn shop as it turns out and knew a lot about gold, regional poverty, etc). Saw him a couple days later and we picked right back up. The other thing I do is keep it soft focused on them, 100%, until they ask me about me. Nothing kills a conversation faster than someone with a conversational agenda, ie, an go-to opinion. Anyway, I wish more people would start random conversations - it really helps build community.
Would you say the reading level of the book is easy enough for a young kid? Did you struggle at all in reading it?
It's pretty easy to read (but disclaimer : I read the french translation) but it's still nothing more than a list of useful advices on the topic. So the prerequisite is that you have to be interested by the idea of the book in the first place. But if you are, it's nothing more than a big blog post (a good one).
Don't read the original, find a more abridged copy. The original gives too many examples for each point.
I was given this book as a shy kid. I've read it multiple times. It really should be titled, "How To be a Decent Human". Show genuine interest in everyone you come across, and everyone's day ends up much better. I'm still bad at remembering names no matter how many tricks I use, but I'm really good at remembering other people's stories and interests. I also learned that so many people have amazing stories to share, and are just waiting for someone to ask.
If being friendly with people is manipulation then I don't really know what to say. I'm more likely to help someone if they are not being a jerk and vice versa.
I was in the same boat as you before I heard enough good things about it that I checked it out. After all, if it was really bad, I would be able to tell as much and stop reading it, nothing lost.
I can confirm it's really good. It's not manipulative at all. The book can large be summed up as "if you want other people to care about you and your desires, you need to care about them and theirs and SHOW them that this is the case: here's how."
> "if you want other people to care about you and your desires, you need to care about them and theirs and SHOW them that this is the case: here's how."
Isn't this highly manipulative?
It’s manipulative if you don’t care and pretend you do, especially to achieve a goal of your own.
It’s not manipulative if you cultivate the tendency to actually care about others, and not treat them like NPCs who are only important for your goals.
Only if you think of it that way -- making every human interaction purely transactional.
Conversely, there's something I've used as a guiding principle for a while now that isn't quite the same, but in the same direction: to receive help, be helpful.
Both of these also fall under the greater umbrella of "treat others as you would like to be treated".
It’s basically “If you want to be liked, you should try to be likable.”
Is the only way to not be manipulative to be a curmudgeonly jerk?
If being pleasant means being manipulative, then indeed everyone should try to be a bit more manipulative.
I was in the same boat for a while, but I gave it a shot several years ago when I was doing a lot of driving every day and was powering through audiobooks. This might sound a little hyperbolic, but it actually ended up changing my life in a lot of little positive ways. For example, I used to work with a guy that got made fun of for some of his interests (nothing harsh or super hurtful, just poking fun). I was always really supportive of what he was into and asked questions about it. I wasn't trying to get anything out of it, I just remembered the book and thought it's nice to be nice. When he got married about a year into us working together, I was the only one from our job that he invited to his wedding.
> This rant about radiating happiness towards people without expecting something in return...
This was one of my main takeaways from the book. I would argue that you do get some things in return: richer relationships with the people you already know, pleasant encounters with people you may not know well, and increased enthusiasm for your own interests compounded by hearing someone else explain how enthusiastic they are about their interests.
If Books Could Kill did an episode on How to Win Friends and Influence People, it's an interesting listen. iirc the book was written by someone documenting what they learned while breaking into high society or some other class they were not a part of. So it's not so much about manipulating people but more about stroking egos and being as agreeable as possible to avoid any conflict. The podcasters make the point that it was written in the 30s when confrontation, being an individual, and sticking up for one's beliefs wasn't really possible while climbing the social ladder.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-win-friends-and...
Oh, I'm glad!
Yeah, I don't think you'll find it a red-pill kind of book at all. I know what you mean about books like The 48 Laws of Power feeling like the world is 100% zero sum, so everything is about dominating or outplaying people.
How to Win Friends and Influence People is very much focused on win-win. There is an agenda to make friends and influence people, as you'd guess from the title, but the strategies are about taking a genuine interest in people and making them feel good.
It's almost 100 years old, so the style is kind of hokey, and only about half the advice resonated with me, but there are 3-4 lessons that had a major impact on me.
I think it's quite clearly the second part of the title. If it was just "How to Win Friends" it might be something more people don't dismiss just based on the title.
"... and Influence People" makes it sound like that's the purpose of befriending someone, i.e. getting them to do what you want, or to do something for you.
It seems to be a rather brilliant piece of marketing to put that phrase in the title. It raises curiosity in a way that a generic "make friends" does not. (The "win" is a subtle move also.)
Once the readers are drawn in, whether from base or nobler instincts, the book can try to influence its readers into being nice.
Only trouble is that it may push away those who are "already nice" enough to feel bad about manipulating people.
I'm 100% with the GP - I've avoided reading the book due to the manipulative sound to the title... Ironically I have read The 48 Laws of Power, hah.
I read it though thinking "I'll bulwark myself against manipulators by understanding their tactics" whilst the "Influencing People" book just sounded like manipulative self-interest.
You've changed my mind; I'm going to read it right away.
It's a classic book but as many others have mentioned in comments, a lot of red pillers use this book as a Bible of sorts, so it's gotten a bit of a bad rap.
In my early adulthood I was deep into MLMs and internet marketing and this book was the Bible, but it was a bit tautological because it was assumed that everyone respected and venerated that book, so all the marketing materials (that we had to purchase of course!) referred to the book.
Indeed, the best way to get rich quick is to sell get rich quick schemes.
On another note, an equally good book that is also used for manipulation is How to argue and win every time by late lawyer Gerry Spence. The book does what it says on the tin but it's more on persuasion methods and framing, which of course can be used for nefarious purposes.
> instead that they include the name of a person they just met in every sentence because it made that person like them more.
I've never read this book but have learned through cultural osmosis that this practice largely originated from it. I always found it rather stilted and ever since discovering where it came from I view it with a degree of suspicion. A contrasting, more generous reading is that the people who read the book and do this are trying to do more of the "win friends" part than "influence people." I'm also notoriously bad with names so I can't really blame somebody for perhaps trying to use mine verbally to commit it to memory :-).
It's a very good book, I haven't read it since I was a kid.
The title is unfortunate, and doesn't really reflect the book IMO.
It sounds like a seedy way to manipulate people and get what you want.
I think a more appropriate title would be "Treat people with kindness and decency and your life will probably be better as a result." Or "A manual for interacting with fellow humans".
I need to reread it actually.
Edit: It has been decades since I read it, but that is my recollection of it at least.
The book was written well before the internet was invented, but it still warns against exactly that kind of shallow manipulation.
The book may as well be called “how to be a cool person that is well liked and people respect”
The book really helped me put things into perspective as a teenager who was habitually "angry", and "on the less adept at social side of things"[0]. Had a much healthier time growing up afterwards. Honestly, I should re-read it.
[0]: I am not formally neurodivergent, but I wouldn't be surprised if I was mildly so.
As I teen I had the hardest time finding the "there" there.
With my unusual nervous system my expectation was "I know if I tried taking an interest in people all hell would break lose" and it would.
I think Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People [1] covers similar ground and is more complete and more specific.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_7_Habits_of_Highly_Effecti...
I avoided the book after reading it high school and thinking along the same lines. I looked at the suggestions cynically.
A college program required I re-read it. That time, I read it as genuine suggestions of good faith actions. In that light, it was fantastic. Almost 30 years later, I still quote from it.
Your admirable openness to reconsideration reminds me of, "I could be wrong. I often am. Let's examine the facts."
> 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.
It's two sides of the same coin. Many techniques in that book are things that both genuinely kind people and manipulators do, the difference is intent. In that sense the idea of the book is a bit of a Rorschach test, although the way the author goes about it makes it pretty clear it wasn't meant to teach manipulation.
When I read the book over a decade ago, it did not feel like a red pilled book, it felt like a guide for well-intentioned people to learn how to express that more effectively. On the spectrum between "people orientation" and "task orientation", I was a task oriented person learning how to navigate personal and professional relationships more like a well-adjusted person would, and I suspect I and everyone around me was happier for it.
I really appreciate this share. It's very honest.
Makes me think that anything taken too far can be a bad thing. Pity in its raw form is an incredibly empathetic side of our human nature and can be extraordinary.
However, if pity is made a reward system for the people receiving the empathy, it can be used manipulatively. I believe CS Lewis called it "a passion for pity" (I could be wrong).
I've seen many people express the same sentiments about this book.
"The title made it seem shady and underhanded and manipulative. But then I read it and it just says to be a genuinely nice person with no agenda. Everyone likes to be friends with that kind of person."
I think that's why people gravitate towards friendly dogs. Dogs have no deception in their intent, and they communicate it physically well before you reach them.
Animals in general are much more honest than people. They might sometimes engage in minor deceptions (although I sometimes wonder how much of that is projection based on our perceptions of their intentions), but they always make it clear where you stand with them. An animal will never pretend to like you to your face if they actually don't. Obviously it can be useful for humans to be able to deceive like this (e.g. maintaining cordial professional relationships with coworkers who you might never choose to spend time with if you didn't work with them), but as someone who struggles to read social cues and gain confidence about what people actually think of me, it can get exhausting.
That’s the only book you need to read, really. All modern books on this topic are derivatives of it.
It is a great book. I disagree though that all modern books on this are derivatives. I haven’t read many, but The Charisma Myth is a great book on human interactions, that I believe is very novel in its content and approach
Maybe a lot of the books do cover some of the same content, but that’s probably because human nature hasn’t changed much since the 30s, when Carnegie published his book
It's one of the worst-named books, and it's definitely worth reading. I can't recommend it enough.
See https://www.dailygood.org/story/2216/grief-is-praise-martin-...
> they include the name of a person they just met in every sentence because it made that person like them more
That's stretching the definition of manipulation a bit. That's more like having (or emulating) charisma, which isn't a bad thing.
Same here I got this book as a present and haven't read it because it felt like one of the PUA/Huckster vibe books.
Guess I'm reading it too this weekend.
I think you're right to have been uneasy at the title because it's so capitalist in the framing. "Win" friends sounds capitalist, while "influence people" sounds a lot like the vapid propaganda networks we interact with every day
"Machiavellian" is probably a better term for a book that describes how to manipulate people (for your own benefit).
I don't think a red pilled book would teach you how to manipulate people. I think it would be an attempt to manipulate you towards a specific (red pilled) view of the world.
This rant about radiating happiness towards people without expecting something in return...
The narrator explicitly says he gets something in return though. I think it's important to understand that seemingly charitable acts are never 100% altruistic, and while that's not necessarily a moral judgement, it is still important to understand people's motivations for doing things.
As long as you’re open to their motivation being “it makes them feel good” or “they like making other people happy.” The cynical view is that everyone is fundamentally deeply selfish.
If you go deep enough, you can convince yourself of that, but you lose what Carnegie talks about. You create your own experience of other people by carrying assumptions like that.
It’s been a while since I read it, but I don’t remember it being particularly preachy about why you’d want to make friends or influence people - whether you were doing so out of some nefarious manipulative reason, or out of the genuine human goodness of your heart - I think it’s more just about how to do so.
And the ‘how’ generally revolves around just being nice to people - being kind, taking care, noticing, being generous and observant and engaging. The whole idea is that you are good to them, which means they’ll be good to you.
All of which I was already intimately familiar with - I actually don’t think I read anything new in that book, it all seemed like pretty standard stuff… but then again there will always be stuff that seems obvious to you, and it a revelation to others.
I certainly think you could do much worse than treating others according to how that book instructs.
Well, your instinct is right from the title. “influence” is a euphemism for “manipulate.”
Affecting influence is subtle manipulation. A compliment about someone’s hair is great if you genuinely admire their hair.
But if you read a book about influencing people and suddenly start complimenting people’s hair, time for some introspection.
> "influence is a euphemism for manipulate"
Strongly disagree with this sentiment. Influence can have a lot of sources, from institutional authority to simply being persuasive, which is distinct from manipulation.
In this context influence and persuasion are being used interchangeably, but persuasion is the act of winning someone over to your point of view, so they understand the topic as you do. It respects their autonomy and acknowledges that people can change their mind when presented with different perspectives. Oftentimes, being likeable (or at least respectable) is a prerequisite for getting someone to listen to you in the first place, so it's a central pillar to being influential.
Manipulation on the other hand, doesn't respect someone's autonomy. It might involve deception, threats, coercion, etc, but it ultimately aims to make someone do something that they don't want to do.
If you're getting a little kid to eat his dinner for instance, persuasion might appeal to his motivations (e.g. having more energy to run faster), while manipulation might look like saying not eating would make his mom sad (guilt tripping), or that he wouldn't get to play with his favorite toy (threat).
I'd argue that {someone who is good at getting desired outcomes} is going to have a toolbox of carrots, sticks, and other things and I think sometimes you are going to be 100% ethically happy with how a situation went and sometimes you are going to feel some conflict between your values. [1]
I'm not sure where the line between "manipulation" and "persuasion" is exactly but certainly a person's intent and how they think about themselves and other people has something to do with it. There are many feats that I can do today with ease that my evil twin coveted a few years ago and just couldn't do because he had a bad attitude.
Manipulation is about trickery. Influence does not have to be manipulation. Persuasion through reason is influence.
I think that’s exactly what they’re saying. Influence doesn’t have to be manipulative, but it sure can be. Here’s the difference:
Influence for influence sake is selfishly motivated. Doing something charitable garners influence. Influence is a side-effect and not the intended goal—unless it is, and then it’s manipulation.
The fact is correct that the word influence is a euphemism for manipulation. The very fact that people are confused about this is case-in-point on the subtlety of the notion.
> Influence doesn’t have to be manipulative
> influence is a euphemism for manipulation
Surely you can see that your statements contradict each other.
> Influence for influence sake is selfishly motivated.
Hard disagree. It certainly can be, but doesn’t have to be. A person can be a positive influence for no other reason than they feel like it’s a good thing to do. You could influence your coworkers to be better engineers and not gain anything from it.
I mean, we could retreat to the “oh you feel good about it, so it’s still selfish” stance, but that’s uninteresting.
> But if you read a book about influencing people and suddenly start complimenting people’s hair, time for some introspection.
The book's also apparently about winning friends, as well. And the excerpt above seems to be about getting better at being nice to people without an agenda.
I think this is a very subjective matter and depends on how negatively connoted someone's perception of the word 'manipulate' is. By your definition, I would consider 'studying/learning' also a form of manipulation.
Did I say not to read the book?
I think the idea is to find things true to you to genuinely compliment?
The idea is to have genuine compassion without any agenda, actually. Or on a deeper level, just acknowledge people exist, and let them know that their existence is noticed.
Nothing more, nothing less.
> “influence” is a euphemism for “manipulate.”
This is exactly what he’s talking about.
The premise of the book is essentially, “what if you were a generally nice person who deserved friends”.
The whole “you could only possibly pretend to care about other people” response to the book is vaguely psychopathic.
> The whole “you could only possibly pretend to care about other people” response to the book is vaguely psychopathic.
I prefer to interpret it charitably: the line between influence and manipulation can be pretty fuzzy, and some people come to a conclusion of, basically, "don't do it at all because it's always selfish."
I think it's a flawed view because it's impossible to go through life not influencing anyone and not wanting anything from anyone, so you may as well try to do it in a way that is generally win-win or at least not win-lose.
I think the most charitable interpretation would be that people expressing that view are deeply self-conscious. They are afraid if they followed the advice in the book, they might be perceived as manipulative and they want to avoid that possibility. They hide from that fear by insisting that it actually must be manipulative.
Outside of that, I can only see less charitable interpretations. e.g. The idea that the only reason someone could ever compliment another person is to manipulate them says either that the person holding the idea literally can’t imagine interacting positively with someone for non-selfish reasons (psychopathy) or that they hold such low opinion of the rest of humanity that they believe no one else could (misanthropy).
It's great in its simplicity. In a way, it's kind of a sneaky way to make a wholesome point.
I mean, the title really really implies something potentially dark. But it's just solid, simple stuff through and though.
For me it really hits home that ideas don't have to be new or fresh or amazing to be important. We just need reminders of like, kindergarten ethics.
Almost like don't judge a book by its cover, just like humans
> without any particular agenda.
This is a very important part of learning how to have real conversations with people.
There is too much bad advice about using tricks or hacks to try to start friendly conversations with people. It’s refreshing to see someone learning that a key to healthy conversation is having selfless motives.
Something surprising about How to Win Friends and Influence People is that it’s not as manipulative as the title suggests. A key theme of the book is that you need to be genuine in your interactions. You can’t pretend to be interested in what other people say, you have to actually approach the conversation with interest.
People will see through hidden agendas and ulterior motives. The bad social advice tries to use too many tricks and hacks to formulate a set of interactions that sound good when you’re reading about them but have the wrong effect when you go into the world and interact with other people with a hidden agenda.
This is why I caution against all of the conversation hacks that are recommended, like coming up with excuses to ask someone for a favor (that you don’t really need) as a way to get them into a conversation or pretending to be interested in their life story when you’re only interested in getting someone to talk to you. Others will recognize when there are hidden agendas. It doesn’t set you up for success.
This seems to be a cultural problem to me.
There are societies where talking to strangers all over the place is normal, without any hidden agenda.
Or even dancing with random people at the club, many times never to be seen again. Just to give a more intim kind of example.
While in other cultures, seems that unless there is something to gain from the effort, people don't even try.
That book is very good. However, for some (including me at some point), it can be a bit advanced
I highly recommend the book The Charisma Myth, it covers a lot of the same topics, including very good exercises, to help understand and develop human interactions in general
Personally, it helped me be able to get into, the situations that the first book assumes the reader is already in, or comfortable with (like talking to strangers)
Wow - this is the complete opposite tone I had expected from this book, given the title.
I read this book when I was 18 and took it to heart. I love complimenting people. Its such a joy.
Especially if you keep in mind some get a low single digits through their life, so every single one matters.
> ... OP is giving people genuine compliments without any particular agenda.
It takes some effort to be good at doing this, if people aren't used to getting any kind of compliment then it can land as super awkward.
(hint: avoid commenting on peoples physical appearance directly, always clothing, or hair, make-up, jewellery/watches -- or ideally how they handle themselves)
The "trick" is confidence, knowing in yourself that you mean well and, if challenged doubling down with a broad genuine smile, don't try to half-ass the smile because it makes things awkward-er.
The other thing is that compliments can be broad, but criticisms have to be very specific.
Once you get the hang of it you can make peoples days genuinely better effortlessly, by just saying the positive thing that you're thinking.
"How are you today" → "Better, now you're here" -- Isn't cheesy, if you mean it.
It's interesting also to notice cultural differences like when I moved here I started to receive compliments about my clothes shoes and stuff like that and in my country people prefer to do compliments on people's physical appearance or personality.
Funny how different our experiences are
> "How are you today" → "Better, now you're here" -- Isn't cheesy, if you mean it.
To me that's super creepy. It's like a cheap pickup line. It's only something I'd say to someone I'd been dating a while.
> avoid commenting on peoples physical appearance directly
Gym bros love compliments on their muscles. It has to come across as "bro to bro" and not with a "broad genuine smile" (as a gay guy, you'd come across pretty gay IMHO lol)
Hah, fun how that works.
Maybe the trick is not caring if it comes across as creepy.
If you take my genuine happiness to see you as creepy, maybe thats a you problem.
> Maybe the trick is not caring if it comes across as creepy.
That's a bit creepy too. You're saying you're happy if you come across as creepy.
I think we've found who the problem is here
Haha
Way to find something negative in everything.
Congratulations on derailing what was otherwise such a nice thread. Well done.
Not everyone in this world is always on edge like you. It is OK to be cheesy sometimes. Humor exists for a reason. Not every unconventional interaction is creepy. Get over yourself, please.
Using a throwaway with 37 karma to come in and act like the HN police and pretending you know me? My friend, it appears it is you who needs to get over yourself.
Do us all a favour and get back in your box.
>> Once you get the hang of it you can make peoples days genuinely better effortlessly, by just saying the positive thing that you're thinking.
>> "How are you today" → "Better, now you're here" -- Isn't cheesy, if you mean it.
> To me that's super creepy. It's like a cheap pickup line. It's only something I'd say to someone I'd been dating a while.
Really, if the person actually means it? I think that's the key point.
I think that particular line would come off as creepy pickup line if it came from a stranger, who couldn't possibly mean it except in the most superficial way. I don't think it would come off that way if your relationship with the person is such that it's plausibly true and they don't overuse it.
On that last point, if you actually want to do something like this, I feel like you'd have to have familiar and confidence to use hundreds of phrases like that, for different situations. I'm reminded of an anecdote I read about Ronald Reagan: he was apparently known as being good with little quips and jokes. He apparently spent a huge amount of time working on them so he'd have something ready at any given time.
Full disclosure: I'm bad at complements and do none of this stuff.
Many gym "bros" are somewhere on the gay spectrum.
Unwarranted compliments is my biggest red flag.
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.
Never say anything that isn't genuine. Fortunately, most people have qualities you can be genuine about.
My approach to self-transformation these days is to take on long term projects (months, years) aimed at changing habits from the outside in and inside out simultaneously.
If I was interested in praising people I would task myself to look at people when I am out in the field and find some kind of praise I could give them. Maybe I give them this praise maybe I don't. Doing this over time I will find it bubbles out of me, the desire to give praise and the words to say comes more and more frequently and quickly and it will come out increasingly. Whether the feeling comes spontaneously or whether you consciously plant a seed and let it grow, it comes across better than if it forced.
Lately I've been practicing deep and rapid synchronization when situations are favorable and I'd say I favor listening and observation over praise except in cases where my feeling is very strong, such as somebody really helped me. There is a long list of language patterns that somebody might read as "somebody is trying to butter me up" and in this mode I avoid them almost entirely. It is important to stay in a "I'm OK, you're OK" [1] frame no matter what happens and to have control of your microexpressions (one wince can set you back permanently) which comes not from an act of suppression but rather going into a situation feeling full and practicing radical acceptance.
[1] see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Berne
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.
I bet you posted somewhere a relevant "new ick unlocked" video: "giving out compliments" :D
It's okay though.
Aww, that's nice. People must genuinely enjoy your humour. Thanks for engaging in such a shitty way.
One of the things I like about this is that OP is giving people genuine compliments without any particular agenda.
Wanting that priceless glowing and singing feeling is an agenda.
No it's not.
What's next, do you think parents providing for their children is an agenda, merely so the parents can feel good about that glowing feeling about being a good parent?
Yes it is, and the narrator told us so. There's no need to put words in my mouth; I agree with the narrator that you can want to do a good thing for many reasons. In this case, the narrator tells us why he did what he did.
I'm ctrl+F'ing for "agenda" on the post and getting zero results, sorry. I don't need to "put words in your mouth", you are literally the one who used the word "agenda".
You don't seem to understand what the word "agenda" means in social interactions. It has a negative connotation, it is an ulterior motive, something you are hiding from the other person because they wouldn't like it.
That doesn't apply to normal positive-sum social interactions. Again, see my example about parents and children.
You are misunderstanding the meaning and usage of the word "agenda".
Ahh yes, that wretched agenda of human connection. Who should desire such a thing?
Around 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 was simply not much I could work with (what I thought at the time).
This turned out to become a low stake effort to improve my social anxiety. Helped me build humour around it and eventually become comfortable
Fast forward to today, I can literally talk about anything to anyone. The main pattern I follow is to break the pattern and make a joke, be sarcastic respectfully or give a compliment. No permission just something they don't expect. Almost works all the time. It helps with confidence and also makes you realise its all in your head.
And it is fun indeed
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.
I've encountered a fair few women like that too. How annoying they are is inversely proportional to how attractive they are, obviously.
Intelligence is knowing how to talk to anyone. Wisdom is knowing not to.
> while everyone else is just silently annoyed by them
And you know what everyone else is feeling how?
This is such good advice! The expectation at Starbucks is that the exchange with the barista is super short anyway so you really can’t go wrong. Instead of saying “I’ll have the Danish”, try to turn it into a two-sentence exchange initially (eventually you shoot for a 3 sentence exchange with any stranger you interact with), say “which do you think is better, the danish or the croissant”?
> 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, but could you elaborate on "break the pattern and make a joke, be sarcastic respectfully"?
I'll share my secret. Rather than trying to initiate a conversation with others, make it easy to initiate a conversation with you.
I started wearing hats outdoors to keep the sun off my balding head (I've had a sunburn up there, and I don't want another one), and the hat I had around to wear was from when I went as Ash Ketchum for Halloween. Or even just looking at my hat and smiling...
Nearly everywhere I go with that hat, I'll get someone saying nice hat, or professing their love for Pokemon, or asking me if I've caught them all.
This provides an opportunity for conversation and a shared interest. I can ask them if they're into the show, the books, the card game, the video games. How did they get started? What Pokemon is their favorite? Who's the best trainer? When did they start liking Jesse and James? Do they like old stuff or new stuff (I've got the OG hat from season 1).
It takes almost no effort to wear a hat and it helps me use my social skills when I'm out and about. And keeps the sun off my face a bit, and is handy for napping at conventions. You don't have to be Ash Ketchum, any character hat will do.
Also, bonus secret. When I'm sleep deprived, I get chatty... You may or may not, but if you do, use it for practice when it happens... and if you say something embarassing, you can always blame the lack of sleep. I was just at First Robotics worlds and the setup is harsh for sleep hygiene, but I had a ton of nice conversations with random robot people. Shared interest, opportunities and sleep deprivation combined. Otoh, much fewer notices of my hat at the convention center than I expected.
I was in a similar boat, but recently started getting through that barrier. The thing that clicked for me is pretty simple: I was filtering myself and chipping away at that filter made a huge difference.
For example, I was in the elevator with a neighbour and they were carrying a lot of mugs. I said "that's a lot of mugs" and we ended up having a quick conversation.
In my case at least the conversation starters are all there in my head, but I'm discarding them hunting for the "perfect" one which obviously never comes and the moment passes.
Even though typing them out may make them stupid but here are a few examples thinking out loud. Remember the body language is quite important and as you do more you start feeling more comfortable in your skin.
- Waiting for an elevator that never comes with two strangers. What I may say: I guess we'd be camping here tonight. Do you have your tent with you?
- Embarrassing moment: I hit my head lightly to something in front of 5 people: Act funny saying Oh can someone call an ambulance.
- Someone dropping yogurt from their spoon on their shirt and locking eye to eye with me realising I've been watching the moment: I would have an empathetic look and then act with an imaginary spoon picking from my own shirt and eating it.
Basically the kind of mild jokes/acts you would do and say to close people would work on strangers as well
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're uncomfortable for a moment. But it's your subsequent reaction to the discomfort that is the actual source of the issue, not the discomfort itself. Which is why a lot of progress on anxiety can be made by focusing on the response: find ways of practicing being in the situation and being uncomfortable to a survivable degree such that you can learn to not be averse to the situation and can thus start adapting to it.
"I did the same thing; whoever designed these doors was a sadist." -
"Do you like that bag? I've been meaning to get a new one, I'm so tired of this one." -
"Now see, if we were as good looking/rich/smart as him we could have figured that out." -
"Is that thing broken again? I'm telling you, we're in the wrong business man." -
"Nothing to do with talent, it's a money and equipment problem, we're awesome at this." -
I've used each one of these in the past week with complete strangers, in neutral-to-unfamiliar surroundings, in passing, and the most hostile reaction I've gotten is "hahaha, I know right?" :)
I had a similar challenge but more dating oriented (not fully though). I'm not at your level, but I want to be. Happily married nowadays, so it'd be a pure social challenge this time.
> Fast forward to today, I can literally talk about anything to anyone.
Try me!
Though it is a social skill indeed. But there are some people who are always weird, so I don't buy into the "I can talk to anyone" claim.
For me it is easiest to talk to people who are like the dude in the big lebowski. People who rarely upset about anything. The true hipsters.
haha the dudes are of course the best. when I say "I can talk to anyone" it doesn't mean "Everyone will talk back to me". Which is fine and I don't care. For what its worth I'm glad not to have to talk to boring people.
What I want is to have a laugh or an interesting intellectual conversation.
Being able and willing to talk to strangers unlocks the eventuality that you will one day start chatting with a person who also does that and it will be like the small talk singularity. Once a man approached me and complemented my bicycle, and I engaged with him, and since we were both waiting at the same breakfast counter without anyone else, we sat down at a table and had breakfast together, and an hour later I could have counted him as a friend. Uncommon, but exhilarating possibility.
As a stranger - its also super annoying when random people want to talk to you.
That’s fair. You can decline to participate in casual conversations and be annoyed.
Most people don’t mind someone initiating a casual conversation in a non threatening manner. Most will enjoy it, at least sometimes.
I’m happy for the author here, especially that he was able to shrug off these awkward interactions and move on.
As someone who wants to have meaningful interactions even if they are brief, it's super annoying when I just want to offer a compliment or joke to a stranger and they think I'm trying to talk to them. Are they so selfish that a little chuckle or "thank you" is going to break them?
How does that make someone selfish? I'm sure there are judgements you could make against someone who would prefer to be left alone, I just don't see how "selfish" could be one of them.
For me, one of the main motivations is suspicion of ulterior motives. If it really is just "hey I like your hat okay bye" that's one thing, and is generally harmless. But usually when someone approaches me they want something, either they're selling me something, or asking me to sign something. It's not that the initial comment is necessarily an issue, it's guarding against people pretending to have an innocent interaction as a foot-in-the-door technique.
Or maybe they have one of the millions of reason to not want to talk with the strangers.
World is not your amusement park, people are entitle to NOT wanting to talk to you as much as you feel entitled to talk with everyone.
Hey there, Mister!
Why do people think that intruding into somebody's personal space is OK.
They're speaking with people in public, not following them into their homes.
Don’t leave your house if you don’t want to interact with people
I was curious to get a sense for the overall "success rate" at a glance, so I uploaded the author's data as a spreadsheet and color-coded the conversations based on length (short=red, medium=yellow, long=green) with the help of Claude:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VqMF0xWzJMXWNndeY4P1...
It's particularly nice if you zoom out so you can see all the rows at once.
I hope the author doesn't mind - if you do please tell me and I will take it down!
If you want to build a relationship with someone, try asking them for a small favor rather than offering one first* (or, for example, making random small talk about the weather). Most people love to help and feel useful. If you're new to the gym or want to learn a new exercise, you can simply ask for help. It's something we'naturally do if we weren't so afraid of approaching strangers.
*just paraphrasing a famous quote
I have heard this repeated across books and podcasts for years but I’ve only seen it fail in person.
Maybe it might not fail if the “favor” isn’t really a favor at all but instead something almost completely effortless like asking for the time or directions to the bathroom.
However when someone is at the gym and another stranger asks them to stop and do a favor that takes time out of their gym visit it’s just annoying, not a friendship starter.
Respectfully, I think you're looking at this from a bad angle. You wouldn't go up to someone in the middle of a set, wearing headphones, and ask them to stop what they're doing to help you. Instead, you find someone who's finishing a set/exercise and politely say something like "hey, I'd like to try this exercise and you seem to know it well, would you mind taking a moment to give me a hand?".
I've personally done this twice this year (I genuinely wanted to learn, I'm not using it as a strategy) and it worked very well. I suppose culture plays a role but I'm in one of those countries where people don't usually socialize with strangers and it still works.
I’m typing this comment from the gym, actually. I’m on the friendlier end of the spectrum and really don’t mind helping out when someone could use some actual help. Giving a quick spot or a quick exchange of advice is common.
What I don’t enjoy is when someone ropes me into doing something for them when it becomes clear that they had other intentions for the request. It’s the ulterior motive part that can have the opposite of the intended effect.
When you realize someone asked the favor not really because they needed it but because they thought it would be an opening to get you into conversation, you start wondering what their real motive is. In this case it may be benign enough, but it’s not a great way to start a conversation
Yeah that's fair and I see it the same way. For example, when I visit the US and a waiter/waitress is extremely friendly (even asking about my personal life and complimenting whatever) it's usually clear (in most cases anyway) what they're after. But obviously I'm not talking about those situations, I was instead giving examples of genuine requests for help, not tricking people.
You need to find a better gym then...
"Hey man, can you spot me?" Is a pretty universal request, and frequently honored. Once you are done with your set, offer to spot them, and while you are both resting after your respective sets, start up some small talk. If small talk works, continue to bigger conversations.
I’m typing this comment from the gym, actually! Spotting someone is common and I’m happy to do it.
That’s not what I was talking about. The part that fails is when someone asks for a favor but then it becomes apparent that they didn’t actually need the favor, they were just trying to find a way to talk to you. Like when someone requests a spot and then you come over and realize the weight they’re lifting is so light that there is no reason they needed a spot other than as a conversation starter.
If you actually need help then asking is fine.
If you don’t need help but you’re coming up with reasons to trick someone into giving you help so you can talk to them, that’s a situation with an ulterior motive. People are good at identifying ulterior motives and it doesn’t set you up for conversational success.
If someone just wants to talk, I don’t recommend playing these mind games. Just learn how to strike up conversation. The honesty will be appreciated and it won’t trigger other people’s ulterior motive detectors.
No. Don't start up some small talk right then, unless they are clearly inviting it. Leave them alone, they did what you asked. After a couple of workouts, you know their name, they know your name, you are familiar to each other, then maybe you start asking what they do or getting to know more about them.
At least that's what I do. If someone I don't know at all asks me for a spot and then starts immediately hitting me with a bunch of questions/chitchat I'm suspicious. The last time this happened it turned out to be a guy who fancied himself a powerlifting coach and was looking for new clients.
Depends. I'm an introvert, but lifting is my second passion. I've noticed someone doing a lift I want to get better at and asked them for advice, form check, etc and they're usually excited to share the hobby. The reverse is true too.
: After astrophotography, before cycling
> However when someone is at the gym and another stranger asks them to stop and do a favor that takes time out of their gym visit it’s just annoying, not a friendship starter.
Might be the place you live; this is not my experience at all. I ask randos to spot me every week. People love to help out. Sometimes they'll even keep an eye on you in case you have another set and come offering.
I think you’re missing the point. The original advice wasn’t actually about the spot, it was about coming up with a “favor” to ask to trick someone into being friendly.
If you’re just asking for advice or a legitimate assistance and then moving on then there is absolutely no problem with that because it’s honest from beginning to end.
My point is don’t go out of your way to seek favors from people because you think it’s a hack to trick them into being more friendly with you.
Just be honest.
[delayed]
It's not 'coming up with a favor'. You're genuinely asking someone for help that they can provide. This one is more challenging with strangers, but with friends and newer relationships where you know the people better, asking them for help is a big deal. I think too many of us don't want to bother people, but it turns out people generally want to help others around them. As Simon Sinek says, don't take away your friend's ability to help you - it's selfish!
Often I get asked to spot someone while their lift and I don’t mind, maybe you had bad luck.
I was about to say this. Anyone who has spent any time at the gym will have zero problem spotting someone.
Yeah, that sounds like really bad advice.
Personally I would read this as a weak, but noticeable signal of being a person who is okay with taking advantage of others. Most people are too embarrassed to ask complete strangers for actual favours.
Your calibration is wildly off. Asking people for a spot is totally normal at any gym with free weights.
Spotting is a different thing, as you're communicating that you're entrusting your safety with that person.
Imagine someone instead asked you to wipe down the equipment for them or help putting the weights back. Different signal altogether.
That sends a different signal, because you're asking someone to do something you could do yourself but simply choose not to, which is essentially what you described above as "taking advantage of others". However this is quite different from what I described in my comment.
If you see every request for help as someone taking advantage of others, I'd encourage you to reconsider why you view everyone that way. It might also be preventing you from seeking help yourself, out of fear of being seen as a leech.
> If you see every request for help as someone taking advantage of others
Let me rephrase, because there seems to be some kind of misunderstanding here:
To me this advice applied broadly would take the appearance of such a signal, even if weak. The framing of "do it because people like to help" is something which wouldn't even occur to me as motivation to ask for help.
Those examples aren't something a person needs help on, I think that's the difference. I can't spot my own lift. I can't teach myself what a certain machine does if I don't even know what it's called. I can't understand a new lift I haven't seen before without asking the person doing it what it is and a little about it.
Ask people for help where help is actually needed, not to act as your servant cleaning up behind you.
The OP of this thread didn't specify the nature of the favours, just gave general advice which I think is not helpful.
I don't think so. Last week someone asked me if they could use one of my climbing equipment for a moment and I said sure. They asked me in a friendly manner and I had a positive feeling of them afterwards.
Jeez. It happens all the time in the normal world.
I learned about this technique from Owen Wilson’s character in the otherwise exceptionally forgettable movie “The Haunting (1999).” Paradoxically, you are the one doing them a favor by effectively giving them permission to ask for help in the future.
The Ben Franklin effect is real! My experience at conferences has improved significantly by ending talks on a personal note and explicitly saying that I have trouble approaching people but very much like being approached and chat about anything. This usually leads to interesting conversations in the breaks. Please give it a try if you are like me and aimlessly wander the hallways in between sessions otherwise.
This is a Benjamin Franklin hack right?
I have heard that this is called the Benjamin Franklin effect, and it appears to be an inversion of the principle of reciprocity coined by Robert Cialdini.
proper psychopath stuff this. seriously just be nice to people. OP gets it right.
It might be psychopathic behavior to make things up just to ask for help, but that's not what I'm saying (and you can see the rest of the thread for reference). What I mean is that one of the many ways relationships are formed is through collaboration, rather than small talk about irrelevant things that 99.9% of the time leads nowhere. Be the first to help, or ask for help when you genuinely need it. There's nothing psychopathic about that, this is as human as it gets - you'll observe the same behavior with certain animals.
Wonderful! There's a lot of advice online about how essentially evil it is to talk to strangers: They're busy, they have headphones in, they might think you're hitting on them (God forbid; nothing could be more evil than attraction). Ignore it. It often as not boils down to fear and neuroticism from terminally online introverts (and sometimes plain old misanthropists) raised in a hyper-individualist culture and glued to devices sometimes from infancy.
Fair enough if an introvert just wants to be left alone; we should obviously never force our company on anyone (nor do the mentally healthy among us have any desire to do so, because we have empathy). However, people like that will let us know that they don't want to talk when we approach them, either directly or via body language and the nature of their replies. For many others, they're starving for social interaction, and it might make their day for you to reach out. This is what makes outreach worth it, in the end, despite the risk.
I find it so bitterly ironic that the people whose opinions we read the most of - the terminally online Redditors and tweeters - are exactly the kind of people we should not be listening to.
Like you alluded to, the terminally online people who post the most tend to be those with neuroticism, isolation, severe anxiety, etc. There's a famous Reddit post about this I can't seem to find - "Everyone Online Is Insane" or something.
I really think this is why the past decade+ of American culture, politics, and society has been so off-the-wall insane. The Overton Window - another overused Redditism - of society has shifted towards the opinions of the neurotic and anxious. Those are the people whose words fill the comment sections and posts that we all read, which then infuse our minds to expect these thoughts as the baseline/median opinion of society.
Yes, this is a theory I've been thinking about too.
Explains the rise of various political leaders very well.
I find it funny that even the people who comment on the "Everyone Online Is Insane" post sound obsessive or outside the norm.
I find it messes with my mental health when I read too many comments. In the real world I normally find people to be nice and kind. But then I go online and the world is totally different - I have to keep in perspective that its just a small outsized fraction.
Post you mentioned (Most of What You Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People): https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9rvroo/most...
> I really think this is why the past decade+ of American culture, politics, and society has been so off-the-wall insane. The Overton Window - another overused Redditism - of society has shifted towards the opinions of the neurotic and anxious. Those are the people whose words fill the comment sections and posts that we all read, which then infuse our minds to expect these thoughts as the baseline/median opinion of society.
Why should anyone entertain this theory? You’re a comment box.
Edit: Thirty years ago us online freaks would just interact with other online freaks. Because normal people had real hobbies.
But now that we are all doomscrollers: why would normal people be interested in the comment boxes of online freaks? They’ve got YouTube shorts and whatever to watch.
That things like 4Chan has had an outsized effect is a different matter. It’s all mediated through twenty layers. It’s not normal people reading 4Chan and other freaks directly.
I will happily stop and chat with you if you demonstrate that it is worth the time and interruption (if I was lost in thought, that will take at least 5-10 minutes to get back to).
If not, I will not let you know. I will just fume, blame and judge you for some time after.
"Hey sorry, I've got some things on my mind right now and can't really talk. Have a nice day though".
That takes less than 10 seconds to say, let's you protect your time and peace of mind, and as a bonus there's no need for fuming, blaming, and judging that the other person won't ever even know about.
>let's you protect your time and peace of mind
Not even close.
"(God forbid; nothing could be more evil than attraction). " - is it sarcasm?
In this Northern European country of mine, I’ve got as much of a neutral third party that I can think of: a friend born and raised to adulthood in the Third World. They’ve got more “extrovertism” in them than 99.9% of the natives. Yet this advice from socializing entrepeneurs with One Weird Trick doesn’t seem to hold up. People here are not all hypnotized by their screens and low self-esteem, or whatever, and then lifted up when their poor social-starved selves get attention from a kind stranger. We are just... like that. Not genetic. Not immutable. But it runs deep. Very deep. Deeper than what an “extrovert” all by themselves can penetrate.
So if there is a cultural pathology it takes way more than what socializing entrepeneurs seem to think.
> Fair enough if an introvert just wants to be left alone; we should obviously never force our company on anyone (nor do the mentally healthy among us have any desire to do so, because we have empathy). However, people like that will let us know that they don't want to talk when we approach them, either directly or via body language and the nature of their replies. For many others, they're starving for social interaction, and it might make their day for you to reach out. This is what makes outreach worth it, in the end, despite the risk.
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> However, people like that will let us know that they don't want to talk when we approach them, either directly or via body language and the nature of their replies. For many others, they're starving for social interaction, and it might make their day for you to reach out. This is what makes outreach worth it, in the end, despite the risk.
Nope.
Normal people—not freaks like me—in my culture will fume in private. Yes: any slight by a stranger will be relegated to complaints to your friends. Much more likely than sending any bad vibes. We’re cowards like that.
I’m reminded of some anecdote about Westerners being struck by how helpful Japanese people are. (This is from memory and may be wrong.) The context is that they are tourists. Well, apparently Japanese people have very strict social norms about being polite and helpful. This is amazing for tourists: they get all of the social upsides while not having to pay anything in return (because they are oblivious to it).
This was excellent.
If I may toss out another recommendation: Volunteering is one of the best ways I have found to meet people.
A food pantry, house of worship, the library, a community theater, a political group, an environmental service group, local writers group, homeless shelter, women's center, whatever - there are so many things to choose from.
I found several advantages to making friends this way:
1. no/low stress because you are doing them a favor showing up. Any volunteer-based organization NEEDS people. YOU are people. They NEED you. Don't be stressed because you might not know what's going on. They will be GLAD to see you.
2. Volunteer onboarding processes force other humans to be nice to you and get to know you in order to place you in a service group or provide you an assignment. The people that most organizations have doing this are outgoing and friendly. I'm generalizing, but having served with a bunch of volunteer organizations, I have found this to be the rule. I was often one of them.
3. If you are volunteering for something that you care about / believe in / are passionate for, then you INSTANTLY know that you are meeting people with something in common. This gives you both something to talk about or bond over.
Source: I met my wife and many friends volunteering in different organizations.
Acts of service.
I was at a Gurudwara (Sikh house of Worship) yesterday for a wake and everyone who enters the cafeteria perform shevas, that is, you take a turn serving everyone else food. It was very nice to do.
Recently I went to the grocery store and as I entered the alcohol section, I saw a guy stacking the shelves. His hand slipped and the beer can jumped out but he showed impressive reflexes and caught it after couple of fumbles. There was no one else but him and me in the aisle.
I enthusiastically pointed out, "I saw that! That was amazing, great reflexes!" and added that sometimes no one sees these but I will definitely remember it. He was beaming and while I was checking out my stuff, I saw him excitedly pointing towards the aisle and me while chatting with a cashier. Where I am at, it is not the usual to throw loud and vocal compliments at strangers - so I guess he wasn't used to it.
I usually don't compliment people this enthusiastically but I guess the mood and time was right and I felt as good giving the compliment as he must have felt receiving it.
I think a big part of this is that men don't typically receive genuine compliments that often, especially from strangers or acquaintances. When it (rarely) does happen I feel like it can have a significant impact on their mood.
I've always had an easy time talking to strangers and striking up conversations. I think this line is the key one:
> But over time, I came to accept that it’s ok if they didn’t want to talk to me. That’s just one of the things you have to expect when you do something like this.
People are complex! They have a lot going on. You almost never get someone responding with the same attention you are giving. That's just how it is.
What he is doing is developing a practice of friendliness. This won't develop close friendships - close friendships are what happen after you're successfully friendly to people who are good fit. But it will set you up to do well in semi-public spaces like the gym or your friends' party where you don't know anyone. It's an extremely good skill to practice and, unlike what I would have said at twenty, it does not reflect a lack of depth. Understanding that not everyone wants to have a deep conversation at every moment is maturity - doubly so if you can recognize it in yourself.
I have always been good at this and I am pretty introverted. You don't want to force conversations, just start by saying 'What's up?"'. Keep doing it over and over. The is all proved our in social psychology and proximity theory which in a nutshell means you are more likely to get to know people you see more often. You just need to let people know you see them and over time raise the bar.
I've been going to the gym for decades, and to my current one for about a decade. There's a cadre of fairly serious people who have been there for that long or longer who all know each other. Even if we don't necessarily know someone's name, we can usually give a short description, and everyone will know who we're talking about.
The downside is you get sucked into the operational drama. The guy who started the gym lives there and has developed obvious memory problems, while the business partner basically stole the business from underneath him. His now-ex-wife took all of his savings, including an insurance payout from when he was struck by a semi during a traffic accident and was forced to medically retire from being a policeman. I believe most of that money went to frequent Disney trips. The business partner is trying to drive him out by charging him rent to stay there and watch the place, changing the hours so he can't get quiet, and she also stopped paying him altogether.
We usually just commiserate on who and what we can't stand and the degradation of general gym etiquette: people screaming like they're having sex while working out, people sitting on equipment and playing with their phones, people so checked out they take the exact piece of equipment you were on, despite it being a large gym with duplicate machines for most things. These are evergreen discussion topics.
Good 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!
The other thing with climbing gyms, especially bouldering is that you only spend maybe 20% of the time climbing. With 80% time off, that's a lot of opportunities for socializing.
You don't get that with the high intensity training like Crossfit where you spend maybe 70% of the time working out and 30% of the time dying.
And socialisation happens naturally. You're waiting and lots of other people are doing the same. You are working on problems and can exchange tips or complements or cheer people on. It's inherently social.
The gym is not inherently social unless you are actively spotting / alternating uses of a single machine. You either join that group of gym rats (who in my experience spend 80% of their time talking) or you put your headphones on and crack on solo.
I'll second climbing gyms. My entire core group of friends in my city (that weren't already friends prior to my moving here) are people I met from the climbing gym or yoga classes at the climbing gym.
Its a great space to meet new people, there are inherent breaks in the activity, shared problems to work on, and its a non-competitive space. Everyone just wants everyone else to send hard.
+1 from me. I always find it very challenging to speak to strangers, but not at the Boulder gym. There's just so many opportunities to start a natural conversation:
- new climbers asks you for advise
- you can ask a new climber if they'd like some technique tips
- you finally top your project and someone commends you for it
- someone tops your project and you ask them for advise
- you're trying to top a boulder on a new set and are solving it with others
- you're _constantly_ in the gym so staff starts talking to you
I love when I'm climbing alone and working on something really hard for me and some random people just start cheering as I get near the top. :)
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 good climbing partners outside as opposed to in the gym.
I now do crossfit and while I know it's not for everyone, it's a decent community. I still don't talk to folks in the gym, I don't want to but I like that we're all in it together and pushing ourselves pretty hard. I feel connected in that way.
I would really not like a stranger tapping me on the shoulder in the gym. That's my "alone time". That's just me though.
I can see why people would be irritated by 1 and 2 and they happen to me too, but I have just reframed how I think about them.
If someone jumps on something I'm struggling with, I take it as an opportunity to really pay attention to what they're doing and try to learn. They might just be way stronger, but they probably also have some better technique ideas.
For #2, I just take it as a slightly awkward attempt to reach out and socialize. Advice isn't harmful. At worst it's a mild spoiler (oh well), or just wrong (then ignore it). At best it's a great chance to learn something.
I'm awkward and it's rare for me to start a conversation, so I just take someone else talking to me as an opportunity to connect without having to make the awkward first step, and try to spend a minute or two (at least) talking with the person.
You know the old adage about if you meet one jerk in a day, it's them, but if everyone you meet is a jerk...anyway I'm glad you like CrossFit, if climbing weren't my thing, I'd probably do something in that category instead :)
haha not the first time I've been called a jerk. Probably why I like to keep to myself ;)
I completely agree with climbing gyms!
I'm lucky enough that I live in a city that has a newbie-friendly group that climbs every week and goes for dinner and board games afterwards.
I consider myself an introvert, but after going for a while, I got to figure out who are regulars, and they recognise me as a new regular too, at which point they're more open to socialising more, even outside the weekly meetups.
Even when I'm bouldering alone, I've had random people cheer for me when I'm about to send, or show me the beta for a route I'm struggling with, or ask for help with a problem. It just provides a very natural conversation starter, at which point you can pivot to other topics, provided they seem open to talking more.
I relate a lot OP's situation but every time I think about trying to talk to someone else I just get worried that if it does go "bad" (i.e. very awkward) then it will become to mentally hard to stay at the gym for the rest of the session or even come back and since its a place I actually like being in I end up never trying anything in fear of ruining a place I like. I don't know if anyone else feels like that but I just felt like leaving this comment.
As long as you don't bring up politics, religion, or money, you would be hard-pressed to make it so bad you wouldn't be able to stay or even come back. If things are SUPER awkward, just move to the other side of the gym or go to the bathroom for a little bit (~5-10m or so) then feel free to return, just don't talk to that person again other than a simple "hi" if warranted.
It’s probably mostly your social anxiety speaking there. If you go in not expecting anything in return it won’t get that awkward just go alright I’ll let you get back to it and go back to doing your thing.
I had like 20 years of social anxiety and it’s actually very anti-climactic when you can have a normal short conversation with a stranger. Not dramatic and no one’s traumatized
It’s a similar thing for me at coffee-shops that I frequent quite often and where I often see recurring faces. In a way it’s natural, “making contact”, so to speak, would only help transform those third spaces into potential-friends spaces, which might be good for some, but which might also seem less desirable for others.
Liverpool (near OP who’s in Syracuse) has a fantastic very friendly climbing gym with Auto Belays; easy to go solo.
+1 for climbing gyms. In my experience the people there are really open and welcoming. Most are down for a quick chat.
I feel, like a lot of 21st century life is trying to do things artificially. Going to the gym, talking to strangers at the gym, ... these are both artifical replacements for human activity that is missing. You go to the gym because your daily routine isn't active enough. You try to form friendships with strangers because your daily routine lacks real and fulfilling interactions with other people.
Also it's kind of odd how nowadays everyone goes to the gym. Growing up as a late-stage millenial, gym goers were a niche subculture. Now it marketed to everyone everywhere as this integral part of modern daily life.
> "Going to the gym, talking to strangers at the gym, ... these are both artifical replacements for human activity that is missing."
As opposed to what, our ancient hunter gatherer lifestyle? Going to the gym and talking to strangers at the gym isn't an "artificial replacement", it's a genuine activity lots of people do.
> "You try to form friendships with strangers because your daily routine lacks real and fulfilling interactions with other people."
How do you think people make friends? They make friends by interacting with people at shared spaces and activities.
> Also it's kind of odd how nowadays everyone goes to the gym. Growing up as a late-stage millenial, gym goers were a niche subculture. Now it marketed to everyone everywhere as this integral part of modern daily life.
GenX here and I feel the same way. To me, "The Gym" has always been a place where bodybuilders and muscle heads go. In my mind, it will always be a niche hobby like autocross racing or horseback riding. And I know that I'm wrong! Everyone and their mom seems to go to The Gym now! But, it's hard to change the culture and learnings that you grew up with.
I think it's because the general public figured out they'll die in their 50s if they don't. Modern life is too easy -- a substantial portion of the population spends their white-collar lives flying a desk, "socializing" via sitting around eating and drinking, hiring people to do their landscaping and housework.. hell, you don't even need to walk to get food anymore, both restaurant meals and groceries are delivered. Sure, you might get out to a hike every weekend but that's simply not enough. For health it's pretty much a non-negotiable to go do some strenuous activity every other day, and going to the gym is the path of least resistance to getting that done.
I think about this a lot too. There always seems to be a fitness trend involving classes like aerobics, yoga, pilates, Taibo, Zumba. But if we're talking about weight training, it is definitely having a moment now.
I wonder if all the instructional content on Youtube makes training with weights and weight machines more accessible than ever. I was intimidated by weights and figured it would be boring. A guy I knew was talking about his weight training and I asked if he plans things out with friends/workout buddies and he said he learns about it on YouTube. So when I finally pushed myself to try weights, I found a video. It was a petite woman (I'm a dude) and I thought, ok she looks better than I do and this routine is a nice start. And I went from there, in my forties.
My funniest theory is that dating has been getting more competitive and strength-training is good for confidence.
> Going to the gym... artificial replacements for human activity that is missing
Compared to what? Even the ancient Greeks and Romans spent a significant amount of time in gymnasiums. Or are you comparing modern times to cavemen?
I'll take a shot at this one:
Compared to a life rhythm that was intrinsically social: recurring gatherings of your community (which used to mean proximity, not hobby) at a building, being invited to others' houses, a social expectation to be social and host things, recurring interaction with the same people due to a smaller circle. Contrast: today we're expected to leave a group of people to go to school, leave those people to move to a job, leave those people for hobbies and romance, and to never let those circle overlap.
Gym wise: compared to life being heavy, and relatively full of physical effort. (Even just working on a car/wood/metal/house/farm with hand tools for example). Cycling to work has done wonders to bridge this gap for me. I think also the current beauty/attraction aesthetic is hard to approach without dedicated weight training. At the top end of lean muscle mass modern life just isn't heavy enough to stimulate enough muscle growth, and in preferred proportions, unless you're willing to do tons and tons of reps which is exceedingly painful compared to banging out 5-15 of a rep range appropriate weight.
Boomers and Gen X are riddled with diseases associated with a sedentary lifestyle and poor nutrition/diet. I would like to think the generations are learning from the mistakes of their predecessors. A lot of science has come out about the benefits of resistance training as well, along with the normalization of women doing resistance training in large part due to CrossFit
Indeed, it's the underlying principle of "division of labor".
Karl Marx' coined the term "Alienation" for describing most of the negative societal/human consequences of this principle, leading to isolation of humans "from themselves" (their natural will to construct something whole meaningful, not just complete a task in a process, but also isolation between humans themselves)
If only those treadmills and spinning and repetitive activities could be harnessed to generate electricity or pump water, and really close the loop!
I 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, and would meet in person once in a while. Now as a solo founder I've just been working from home and I noticed that when I was leaving the house to buy groceries or work out that was my "break time" and I somehow just wanted to be more alone so I always had my headphones on.
That meant that I became someone who's running away from social interaction the more I actually needed it. And that when placed in a social situation I'm suddenly anxious whereas before this all came very naturally to me (I've also spoken in public very often etc).
How I'm coping:
- Got a WeWork membership
- Leaving the house without headphones
- Striking up conversation with uber drivers, cashiers, etc
- Making an effort to go to events (even flying somewhere at my own expense to speak at a small event for the first time in years)
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 feeds that are completely unique to you and detached from the community around you.
It’s really quite dystopian and anti-human if you ask me. We’ve already lost so much shared mediums—nobody watches the same shows, reads the same media, etc. which in isolation is completely fine. But something has to be shared with other real physical humans and it has to be more than just occasional grocery store visits, run-ins at the park, etc.
I dunno quite how to articulate it very well though. It’s just remote work has a nasty side effect of making humans even more isolated from people not like themselves. It makes us all increasingly divided and “othered”. And that isn’t good for anybody.
I think the important thing here is you weren't just approaching completely cold but people who you've seen a few times before, which then somewhat makes sense. I think if someone approached completely cold in gym it might not come of as well.
Post College friendships can be hard. Friendships before graduations are almost all completely spontaneous and natural. No one has to _really_ know how to be the initiator. My experience suggests that it doesn’t really get better as you age, either.
My wife and I took on that role after college. Neither of us is particularly outgoing, but we’re not cripplingly shy either.
Meeting new people is about realizing you’re not alone in feeling lonely. When we pick up on positive vibes we just ask for a phone number “can I have your phone number? You seem cool, and I’d love to ___. (Fill in the blank with one of “get a cup of coffee/beer”, “take a walk,” “invite you to a [thing I host].” It’s not significantly different from the dating scene except it’s so much lower stakes. I recommend sticking to same sex or group invites for this reason. Rejections are rare, and almost certainly don’t reflect on you.
Secondly we start things on schedules. Things that happen regularly are super low pressure ways to start friendships: “hey, we cook an elaborate dinner and then hang out and play instruments/sing/watch a movie/hang out at the beach/take a hike once a month/week/whatever, join us!”
This makes it easy to invite anyone without it feeling like a date.
I say all this knowing that none of this is _easy_, but it is a kindness. You’re not alone feeling lonely. With a little bravery you can totally be the person who makes it better for your new group of friends.
> Friendships before graduations are almost all completely spontaneous and natural.
They are mainly from proximity. You see people in class, you live near them, and you're near the same age. It's the same reason in person work would generate friendships/relationships. The challenge in today's remote world is proximity now has to be intentional.
I'm not sure how true that is...I'm not clear if the modern workplace has ever been the primary source of relationships.
Places of worship, community spaces like libraries/clubs - sure...but I had to develop these skills years before I moved to remote work.
I loved the writing, in particular this line, but the whole piece was strangely endearing:
I loved it too. I audibly laughed at this one:
"Korean girl Short I didn't know how to start a conversation with her, so I just asked if she was Korean and she said yes. Then I made her guess what kind of Asian I am. Then I rambled about being Asian in Syracuse before leaving. I initiated one more conversation but now we don't interact"
So endearing!
You can easily continue this into a conversation, FYI: "Oh, lol - you did X, and I knew another Canadian who did X, so I thought that might be a Canadian thing. Where are you from then?"
I think picking up people at the bar is easier than making friends at the gym - what you want is to join a crossfit gym, or something that has a stronger community culture to it. Not the gym.
But I hear that with Gen Z and Alpha they dont really go to bars but they do tend to go to the gym, and so the gym is becoming a more social space. So maybe OP is on the right track?
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/15/why-gym-plac...
at least in the US, gen alpha wouldn't really be allowed in any bars which is honestly part of the problem
source: I'm on the younger end of gen z and I can't drink yet
> I can't drink yet
being on the older end, I can ASSURE YOU that you do not miss anything if you do not drink/cant drink right now.
Though, it took me some decades to realize this :-(
There's a pub in my city where the staff greet you when you walk in and actively encourage you to sit at a table that's already occupied. If you come in alone you'll probably end up sitting at a two person table where inevitably there will be a stranger right across from you, with a couple similar tables right next to it. Of course if you want to be alone you can go sit in a corner somewhere.
Needless to say everyone starts talking to each other after a drink or two. This bar is enormously popular. I've never seen it not be packed. It's an incredibly successful strategy for them. With all the complaints about the death of third spaces, I'm baffled that more places don't do this. I see no reason a cafe couldn't do it as well.
All this to say I think it's a great loss that younger people aren't going to bars as much. I wouldn't say they're the best way to form deep connections, but I have zero fear of ever lacking random social interactions, because I know I can just go to a reasonably busy pub in the evening, sit at the bar, and sooner or later either I'll start a conversation or someone else will. It's also a great way to get good at handling opinions that are different from yours - if you have a thin skin or live in a bubble, being subjected to drunk people from every walk of life will rectify those issues quickly lol.
i think this can also depend on location. I live in a military town and have been a powerlifter for several years, i routinely have men come up to ask about my routine. a handful of times its turned into real friendships.
I have a ton of "gym friends." And this is a commercial gym. We know each other's names, will help out with spots, have small conversations. None of those have yet led to hanging out outside the gym, but if you go to the gym at the same time every day, you're bound to at least start to recognize people, and it's really easy to say, hey I've seen you around a lot, my name is...
Bars are a common place, but do you really want to meet the type of person who hangs out in a bar? Sure if you only want a one night stand what they do with the rest of their life doesn't matter. However if you want a relationship you probably don't want to start with a high odds of finding a borderline alcoholic.
You have some rather uncommon prejudice towards people who go to bars. Unless of course your culture is significantly different from mine.
But where I am from: - bars are 'a third place' where people hang regularly without getting wasted - bars serve dozens of different non-alcoholic drinks - most people in the bar are not "looking for a one night stand" but for some socializing, fun, and a chance to meet interesting people
But as I said, maybe your part of the world has bars that attract different clientele.
You don't need to get drunk regularly to be a near alcoholic.
There are a lot of "regulars" in most who need to "get a life". I won't object to those who are visiting once in a while, but there are far more bars everywhere I've been than could exist if people "had a life", my general observation is 5-10% of the population is a regular.
> but do you really want to meet the type of person who hangs out in a bar
Wow, ok. There is a huge space between alcoholic at the bar every night and someone who likes to have a drink with their friends on a Saturday night.
Not all bars have the same "type" of people. Also if you're looking for camaraderie or friendship, it's a pretty good place to have talks of all kind - the silly ones are the best!
But even if I don't drink? Seems like a bar is not a place I would want to go. I know there can be other things to do there than drink, but still.
I find camaraderie is excellent through sports leagues and board game events, stuff like that.
Go to a 'bar' in Italy and people are just as likely to get a coffee as they are wine at night.
Second this. CrossFit is fantastic for community. Not so sure about my knees though!
This is great! Good on you for putting together a plan and taking action.
One thing I noticed when I was doing salsa dancing is that there's a normal distribution for how you "click" with people. With salsa dancing, you change partners frequently so I may have interacted with dozens of people in one night of dancing. I noticed how most people fall in the middle of being fine to dance with and then you get a few outliers where they are either terrible to dance with or are amazing.
It looks like OP found something similar. Out of 35 encounters, he had 5-6 advance to the "prioritization" stage (~14%) and 2 (5%) ended up moving into building a relationship outside of the normal environment you usually interact at. I think that is very relatable. Most people you interact with will be fine to chat with but only a small percentage will be people that you really gel with.
> I asked him a question, he answered and left. I guess he didn't want to talk
If you have anxiety about talking to strangers, just remember that 99% of the time when someone doesn't really want to talk, this happens. Not really that scary after all
My fear is I’m socially awkward, I might do or say something I genuinely didn’t know was awkward, and that person will make a TikTok video of me and ruin my life. I’ve seen videos from people posting about “creeps at the gym” and it’s just a guy looking in the direction of the girl taking the video, and it seems like just looking in the general direction of someone for too long could make you a public example of a creep, and that’s basically my nightmare.
And people might say “well if you know you didn’t do anything wrong so you shouldn’t be worried” but I’ve gotten into trouble many times for things I knew weren’t wrong but you can’t rationally argue with herd mentality when a group of people decide something is a faux pas.
You’re basically so petrified of bricking prod and getting fired that you refuse to even start on your first ticket. The catastrophic outcome is low probability and not worth fretting over.
Going out and risking embarrassment is the price of admission for leaving the house. If you do say something silly, you have the opportunity to learn from it and grow a little bit.
Those TikTok videos are usually fake or bait. 99% of people do not think you’re weird or creepy for existing.
> ruin my life
What trouble have you gotten in for doing what exactly?
The stupid things you see on TikTok are (nearly?) all fake.
Great timing. I used to see a guy at the gym for a few months, we always go at the same time, and one day he approached me to correct my form, we had a chat and we kept meeting in the gym for a few months after that and until yesterday I mustered the courage to even ask him his name. Literally didn't even know his name for months, so yesterday I asked and got his number to catch up later.
I want to congratulate the author for getting out of his comfort zone to tackle a hard problem. But being able to make friends at a gym is not a universal experience.
I joined a gym partially to get fit and partially to meet people with similar fitness goals. Working out alone just feels sad. I tried to be friendly with people, would smile and say "hi," when I walked past someone. I would ask someone a non-confrontational question about their workout. In months of trying, maybe a handful of people who at least said anything back. Zero conversations. The rest either responded with a blank stare or pretended to not hear me at all. Nobody ever approached me or said hi first the whole time I was there, except sometimes the people behind the counter.
I'm socially deficient but not THAT awkward and have no problem talking to people in other situations. I'm not sure if it was the kind of gym I was at, or just the wrong time of day, or if people in the gym only want attention from those who won the genetic lottery. But I didn't have much success.
Different gyms do have different cultures and probably time of day matters too. Absolute worst is right after work it’s so packed and everyone’s still kind of stressed and looking to get done and head out on to the next chore
I'd highly suggest joining a Brazilian jiu jitsu gym. They tend to be filled with other computer nerds (although not only) and people are very friendly in a genuine way.
BJJ is very social because you can't train alone. It also mostly weeds out assholes because no one wants to train with jerks (usually there's a single gym in an area that ends up with all the jerks lol). The other thing that quickly forms relationships is that you're trusting other people not to hurt you and vice versa. Giving and receiving this trust tends to cause relationships to build quickly.
And yes, many gyms are filled with nerds. Once you get past the basics, it's very much a thinking sport.
I go to my gym alone and it seems to me 90% of people there are alone. Also all are wearing headphones.
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 I'm part of their hidden social experiment.
Key word: rarely
It’s a numbers game with very low stakes to the downside and very high to the upside
I thought the same thing. This was really uncomfortable for me.
Imo talking to strangers at the gym is hard. I made friends there just by saying 'Hi', waving to them when we started to see each other working out often enough. Then once you're using the same equipment or get dressed in the locker room you have a conversation about whatever and there you go.
Anyway, the fastest way I made friends outside of school was at a language course, where you have to speak a lot about something. You can switch partners during the course, so you can talk to other people. Another thing is sports clubs, it works out the same as the gym.
So the answer is, I guess, just going to gatherings where people learn new things with an instructor.
100% this. As you say, language courses need content so a lot of it is talking about your life/opinions. Super easy to make friends after a few weeks of that if you make a tiny bit of effort
I enjoyed this read, the energy, and the detailed positive outlook. However, what am I supposed to take away from "5 weeks / 35 people / no new recurring friends"? Every time I go out I feel this personally, and I never understood why so many people have such thick shells to crack.
I live in a small town and I have noticed that I just have be outside and look available. I may be gardening, washing my car or just hanging, and people will randomly stop to start conversations, or just say "hey". That reminds me of our grandparents and how they used to just sit on the front porch and someone would see them, start chatting, and maybe come in and have tea. We've lost those moments of availability.
> “Ignored people I knew from class instead of saying hi because I didn’t know for sure if they remembered me even though the class had only 10 people in it”
This amuses me because it’s the exact reverse of my anxiety. I’m pretty bad at remembering the identities of people I may have briefly interacted with a few times in a situation like class or work, so I’m afraid of the “person from class” remembering me and me not remembering them and being offended. Like, “How about that exam last week” and me being like, “uhhh do we have a class together?”
> there’s a number of people [at the gym] who want to be left alone and can be irritated if you interrupted their workout to talk.
This one is pretty easy. Look for the people who spend more time yapping than working out. They generally love to meet new people. The opposite case is pretty obvious too. Don't approach someone just as they are preparing to start a set or if they're going hard on a treadmill or bike. Generally, if someone is not talking to anyone and seems locked in, earbuds in, etc. probably leave them alone. But asking for a spot when they're between sets is an easy excuse to at least get their name. Nobody is going to really mind that, and you'll pick up pretty quickly whether they're talkative or not.
Is kind of sad reading the aftermath "never saw em again" kind of thing or "don't interact"
Shared interest is a main driver and frequency of interaction/seeing each other... like you become friends at school since you see each other everyday kind of thing
Shared interest, I've recently gotten into cars though I still ride the clapped out POS and someone was showing me their Porsche, sat in it, pretty cool.
But I see that person at work. In general work people don't become friends but sometimes... one of em I go over to their house, when I used to drink I'd drink with them. I do find I have to do more message initiation myself to keep things going so idk. One old friend of mine sends me reels almost everyday on instagram random dumb shit idk. Right now though I only have like 5 real friends that I talk to almost everyday. When I was younger 10s/100s but yeah that goes away as you get older. Also doesn't help I moved away to another state so lost all my IRL friends. And real friends I mean one time when I was really in a bad spot my friend loaned me 10 Gs which not trying to say money is friendship but yeah.
Meeting and talk to people is a learned behavior. It took me a while in my 20s to get comfortable talking to new people. I'm determined to not let my kids struggle with the isolation that can come with social anxiety. My wife and I are working with my 14 year son to develop those skills. Between a couple books and his therapist (everyone should have one!) he's working through it, and has gone from being one of the shy-est kids to having the confidence to go up to a person and startup a conversation. He has a couple openers he uses to get a conversation going. It's finally clicked how much a small compliment can break the ice with boys and girls. He likes the feeling he gets when he gives someone a compliment and they brighten up.
> “do your hobby with other people, frequently”.
I think it's decent advice, but from my experience, it can take years to make friends that way. I practiced various sports my whole life in the context of sport clubs (martial arts, climbing, snowboarding, swimming...). The way it worked for me is that after months, sometimes years of chitchatting with same people over and over, I barely made any good friends from that context. I did make a bunch of "acquaintances". Definitely better than staying home, but not a silver bullet.
Yes it's very easy to just let things sit at the "acquaintance" level. You know people at the gym, or at work, or at whatever recurring thing that brings you together. But to extend that to friendship, you need to invite them to do something outside of that. Get lunch, come over for dinner, game night, movie, whatever you're into. And then they need to reciprocate at least somewhat evenly. If this doesn't happen it's not really a friendship. And (in my experience) it's very rare for adults to progress beyond the "acquaintance" stage.
The unstated bit is that you have an incidental excuse to talk to them (compared to cold approaching in other contexts) but you still need to talk to them. Everything depends on you making the effort.
Compared to a gym, the class setting almost forces you to talk to people. I wouldn't see myself talking to people in a gym, but in a snowboarding club or martial arts class, or a group hike, it's difficult not to. Once you exchanged a few words, even for the sake of an exercise, the ice is already broken. At the very least, you'll say hi the next time you see that person.
I find that most people don't reach out to previous friends if they haven't been contacted in a while. For whatever reason, I don't have that internal programming. Whenever I remember, I will ping my friends or old coworkers going back 20+ years and go out for lunch, and it's always a great time. It's best to not have too much pride over it, life is too short in my opinion.
And I almost never get a no when I make the effort. One of the people I spend the most time with as an adult is one of my childhood friends who we just randomly went for beers once after not seeing in 15 years and now meet up every month or two since we still had the same chemistry as we did as kids
>however, according to Reddit, there’s a number of people who want to be left alone and can be irritated if you interrupted their workout to talk.
My suggestion would be not to read social advice on public websites on the internet, especially on Reddit, because per public internet, everything is not okay/forbidden, everyone should mind their own business, choose the safest and the most inoffensive action in every possible social situation. Public places such as reddit are full of terminally online socially awkward people who are very unrepresentative of people in real life. Also, there are incentives to recommend the safest course possible because then you won't get downvoted by haters. I don't even say to take advice there with a grain of salt. I say it's probably better not to read such stuff because your brain might subconciously internalize that people think like this even though actully, in real physical world, it works differently.
> activities suggested by r/Syracuse like volleyball ... require you to already have friends.
False! Find a gym with open hours and just show up! I used to do this all the time with my friends, but there were always a few people there on their own. There is always someone a couple players short for their team, so just ask around ("Hey, you need anyone else on your team?") and you'll find some people to play with. Keep coming back week after week and you'll make some friends eventually.
I assume this works equally well for most team sports that can be played casually such as basketball, soccer, and others.
1. Its all in your head. 2. Lead with your heart and instincts- nurture this and the magic happens. 3. Dont take any negative reactions personally- they may be "somewhere" else dealing with shit in their head. But the "wave" you sent them will do its job anyway. 4. The level of creativity that can be applied to this problem is endless! For example.. the idea of them coming to you (harder than going to an existing group/event) but has its benefits.
Experiment that worked for me : I now live in Buenos Aires , and missed playing ultimate frisbee.. so i posted around in various expat groups and craigslist.. "Ultimate Frisbee en Palermo! Beginners wanted - Experts welcomed" link to a youtube explainer vid.
Experiment 2: random street portraits with phone or digital handheld camera - followed up with a "who are you?" existential question (off record)
5. Always say thank you
I realized with the people where I really care about leaving a good impression or hoping to become friends with, it's really hard and scary to do any kind of interaction. If I on the other hand have no desire for a friendship with someone but a chance occurs to chat, I talk to them like I know them for decades and am fully relaxed and don't really have any kind of anexiety.
Seems that the more you want something, the more you are able to sabotage yourself getting it.
If you want to make friends, water your friend seeds.
Everybody knows a bunch of people by name, and nothing else, from various contexts. You go to matriculation, there's a bunch of people introducing themselves, too many to get to know. You work a job, there's 50 people whose name you know. You go to a party, your friends introduce you to 10 new people, and you don't have time to talk to them all.
The ones you don't talk to much, they are your friend seeds.
You move to a new town, and you know nobody, other than that one guy you never spoke to after the first week of university. Contact that guy.
I've been going to the gym for the past year after exclusively running in solitude. I am still introverted at the gym .. it's sort of my time. But I do appreciate overhearing the conversations which occur.
It's been nice to hear 60-something retirees chat about their health, quitting alcohol, sorting out the pickleball schedule, and sometimes politics (although honestly much more rare relative to the others listed)
I love the community some folks create in the gym.
I've started the same, but instead of the gym I go to random meetup events. Which feels easier since most of them are exactly for talking to strangers. Also went bars sometimes with people from the group. I have to get more confident about exchanging contact information though, only did that twice.
Such a cute read (I mean that in the best way possible). I'm quite a social person and it's really cool to see someone be so systemic about it. But I would not have the balls to just talk to random people in the way you did it, and I really admire that about you!
This is cool. The plan written as algorithm. Pro-activity is the key. Usually, people like to stay in their comfort zone. This guy was searching for his, and found it.
I wonder, why he did not have any friends from the years of studying. Usually, this is the place friendship forever happen :)
I am happy for him :)
my two best friends from BA and MA moved away, so I can clearly explain why someone might not have friends from university time (-:
Am I too pessimistic, or did anyone else notice the fact that you got everything you wanted with 'the only other asian guy'. Race matters in friendships more than we realize? I feel if it was a gym full of asian people (or a neighborhood with more asians) it would be way easier for you to socialize and make new friends.
It's more they share a unusual trait that is easy to bond over.
Could be anything really, race, disability, height, metallica t-shirt or whatever.
This was a delightful read. I have a few relationships with people on the autism spectrum who struggle with socializing, despite recognizing the desire to be more social. I can point them to this blog.
Hell yeah.
Observation: people act like this challenge is unique to the young generation, but it certainly affected me (millennial). It was a long, scary process of getting comfortable talking to people. It's still hard! And I have to re-learn it in different phases of life:
>talking to people at school
>talking to people in college
>talking to girls at bars
>getting over the idea that I don't/shouldn't talk to girls at bars anymore, post-marriage
>talking to other parents, male or female, once becoming a parent
all different lessons, all challenging. all worth the effort.
I agree but unfortunately there are more and more young people who seem to think that not doing this challenge is okay :(
1. I just spent the weekend with a mens wellness group called "Fishing for Good" highly recommended if anyone wants to make new friends.
2. I love this.
3. It is hard to make adult friends! I loved this post.
I relate to the amount of `I didn't know what to say so I left` in this post and don't know what to do about it.
I spent several years living in Mississippi. As someone who was fairly introverted upon arriving in the Deep South, I had that hammered out me pretty quickly, during every opportunity for social interaction. It's just part of the culture to engage. I think my time in that area was a bit of a mixed bag, but that one change was for the better, and it has led to wealth of relationships since. Most people yearn for some bit of connection, and it's not that difficult to be the catalyst.
Instead of a gym another options are joining volunteer groups, a fraternity order (Oddfellow / Rebekahs), a local D&D meetup or local motorcycle club. Sharing a common interest is the easiest way to make new friends.
> “do your hobby with other people, frequently”
>
> On paper, the gym seemed like the perfect opportunity to meet people since I would go there nearly every day
Yeah, the gym is the authors interest.
You should try this in Germany. You'll probably get arrested.
OP, if you're up for trying something different, curling is an extremely social sport that welcomes newcomers. There's a very active club in Utica. https://sites.google.com/uticacurlingclub.org/uticacurlingcl...
This came across as a little odd and nerdy, but I'm actually really glad you shared your internal dialogue around this. It gives me more empathy for socially anxious (or just socially inexperienced) folks. Although the way you're starting out is kind of nerdy and overanalyzing, I'm sure these interactions will come naturally if you keep it up. Connecting with people is a very worthwhile effort and it's great that you're doing it.
In particular, the "rejection" will stop feeling awkward. I have random little one-or-two sentence exchanges with people several times per day, and usually it doesn't go beyond that, but I don't experience this as failure or rejection. I only engage further with the people who show (by words, body language, etc.) that they're genuinely interested in a conversation. For me, it's less than half.
The gym is an ok place, but not a great place, for what you're trying to do. Hiking clubs, running clubs, CrossFit gyms, rock-climbing gyms, and volunteer groups are all better options. The baseline level of socialization is very high in these places, whereas if you look around at a gym, most people have their headphones on, and are doing their own workout, so there's few natural opportunities to start a conversation.
Also, try to find people who are social and have lots of friends. If they like you they'll introduce you to their friends, which is a lot easier than starting cold. Don't be afraid to talk to women. Most of the people I know who are really good at connecting people are women.
This is how social life starts, dont wanna spoil it but its full of wonderful and confusing stuff. If i may i suggest you to try some rejection selftherapy where you walk to random spots u think will say no, who knows maybe u get a few yeses u thought were impossible. As u long as u are good and nice and ur intentions are pure, and if you are willing to correct the mistakes u will make in the future, to learn from them as much as possible, u will come far. Just dont forget to have fun.
> Pretended I didn’t know a childhood friend when they said hi because I didn’t know how to act around people I used to know
In high school because people thought I was a snob or something because of my social awkwardness. I love talking to people but absolutely hate initiating conversations. I love looking people in the eye when they're talking and hate looking at people as a I pass, so I usually don't even know who is walking near me. It's kind of crippling (and this is after it's gotten much better over time).
Very sweet story. Next, invite that guy and his girlfriend and maybe someone else over to your place, or out to do something. Reciprocation matters a lot.
> and maybe someone else
From my experience "connectors" make the most friends and do the most activities.
> activities suggested by r/Syracuse like volleyball and trivia night require you to already have friends.
Most big cities will have rec leagues that are popular with people in their 20s. Find a league that has a team happy hour after, I live in a transient city and I've made a few friends from people who get placed on my teams.
To me as someone also "deeply afraid of irritating someone or being in awkward situations", it sounds like this project is greatly expanding the surface on which awkward situations can happen? How do you decide if you should wave to the person or ignore them? Isn't it tiring? Don't you wish to be anonymous again?
I can't stop thinking about the amount of people they engaged with simply never to be seen again. Are gym membership commitments a lot less serious than I remember these days?
or the engagement spooked them
Weird seeing Syracuse here.
One thing I have learned is that there are inviters and invitees for friends groups. Most people kind of just sit around and wait for things to happen. Some other people will make plans and invite people. Taking the initiative and talking to people first is the way to go, and looks like it worked out.
Good advice generally. But please, not at the gym. All gyms have a different vibe but mine is almost strictly no talking. We go there to workout, not to chat. Everyone locked in, headphones on, no nonsense. I've been going for years and I can count on one hand the number of conversations I've witnessed.
But the flipside is, I see the same gym crowd at the coffee shop next door and we always have a good chat there. Context matters.
Thank you, I'm also lonely and this article gave me hope.
each place has different social dynamics. from my experience, working out at a gym isn't the exactly an easiest way to make friends. I've also frequented gyms in the past but there were moments that I needed to focus alone, otherwise couldn't get the gain I needed. the activity itself can become a social constraint in some cases.
when I've joined a social dance community, I was almost forced to talk and stand close with strangers. It is an emotional rollercoaster; it's all happy when I've met nice people but I've felt helpless when I had to dance/interact with people that I don't like, for whatever that is.
I've also practiced some type of acrobatics/solo dance for years and it is somewhere in between.
I think some type of intimacy heatmap can be made with all these activities.
I'm going to keep my response very simple. (and not talk about society, cell phones etc... )
This post WINS Hacker News for the month!
Pro tip: introduce your friends to your other friends. Build a network. Networks get stronger as the number of connections increases, i.e. as more people in that network know each other. People are more excited to hang, bc they know more people, and the hangs are more exciting. And hangs become more frequent, because more people can initiate. And it makes awkward moments less common, too.
This is much more durable, reliable, and (quite frankly) fun than the hub-and-spokes model of friendship, where you just have a bunch of 1-on-1 catchups with people who know you but not each other.
Also, it's somewhat easy to do! In this guy's story, this could be as simple as, "Hey I want to get a few of us from the gym together for dinner sometime. Would you be down?" People are usually more receptive to this than they are to a 1-on-1 invite, too.
> Old gay with tattoo of Osiris eye
Not sure if that's a typo or not in Week 3...
As the next one is
> Old guy who brought his own towel
Strong gaydar on this gentleman
This is the nerdiest way to go about this, I love it. Good job OP! If you're interested in old video games or trading card games, see if there are any card or used game shops near you. The people there tend to be cool
compliment people - if you're unlikely to see them again. just being kind goes a long way.
if you see them frequently - just acknowledgement at first goes a long way before saying something. i.e the head nod | smile
Good for the author for finding some success. I'd recommend seeking a significant other, somehow that sounds less daunting that making friends past 30. Cool roommates are friend-ajacent and help with loneliness; I had a cool roommate for a while until he moved in with his girlfriend, after which I was deeply lonely until I met my now wife.
Great writing - and happy for you that you seem to have made some friends!
I read this and feel happier for it. Keep it up OP! I like imagining a world where more people are curious, kind, and open to connecting.
I don't think is a viable strategy for building a social life. Gym attracts asocial weirdos (not an insult, I happen to be one). I would consider getting a really hobby or switching jobs. There's a lot of turnover in the food service industry, plenty of chances to meet new people. If you're an unemployed CS grad what do you have to lose? The best thing though would be finding a romantic partner and just devoting yourself to that person, instead of moving from one fleeting friendship to another.
"Guy who was doing exercise where you pick up barbell and lift it above your head."
For anyone curious it is called snatch
It could have also been an overhead press or a clean and press.
You go to the gym to lift. Not to talk. You may talk shortly if it is related to something you need to continue your workout. Apart from that you do not talk. End of story.
I used to authoritatively state rules that existed in my own head. I no longer do this.
Varies wildly. Some people are there with this attitude. For others it's more of a social time with occasional breaks to do a workout set.
I always liked busting through the little social candy shell in the gym. Offering to let people work in on a scarce piece of equipment could lead to chit-chatting about whatever. It's nice! When you have about 3 minutes to rest in between sets there's time to let someone else work and talk a bit.
Such a feel good post, thanks for sharing OP!
This is awesome lol I love the stories for each person. Great to see you trying OP!
This is absolutely bonkers to me. We're not here to be scientifically experimented on or to make you feel better about yourself. The very idea that OP learned about places and activities that people participate in explicitly to be social and, instead, chose to touch people when they're not clearly wanting to chat is just wild.
What do we have to do to discourage you from touching us?
I mean I guess I'm glad that you're trying to resolve your anxiety. Self improvement is good for some people. I just wish it weren't at the expense of others.
There was no mentioning of OP touching or taking advantage of others. I think you read this the wrong way.
So thankful that people do this and chronicle this...our society is getting more and more isolated, it feels. This (I FEEL LIKE, could be wrong, I'm kinda a boomer now haha) was more common 'back in the day' and now some people do it as a social experiment.
If you want to talk to men at the gym it's easy and no need for awkward scripts. Just ask for a spot. Most guys will feel honoured to be asked as you're showing trust in them. They'll spot you and then just talk about lifting. I met loads of guys this way.
Don't talk to girls you're attracted to, though. They can tell. If they want you to talk to them they'll give you signs. But that's a whole other thing.
The bullet point list in the intro was so relatable. It brought back some still painful memories. I often wish I could go back in time and do some of those things differently. I don't know what I was afraid of, but I missed out on so many connections.
> Don't talk to girls you're attracted to, though
Are you only supposed to date girls you're not attracted to?
Of course not. You only date girls you are attracted to. You just don't meet them at the gym.
Another trick is that people are usually nicer to you if you talk to them after having gone to the same place at the same time for a while. If you smile and waive at them a few times before you go and talk to them, you've built a bit of familiarity by nature of being a "regular" and aren't just cold approaching people you've never seen.
If talking to random strangers worked then people would be doing this more often.
The problem is that it's usually extremely unlikely that you actually have something in common with a random stranger. I mean it's fine if you enjoy popular things and do typical activities AND you like having lots of casual friendships, but if you have a distinct personality or you prefer to build deeper connections, then "send to all" approach doesn't work.
I started being nicer to people and I realized I found myself taking part in conversations that I simply did not enjoy.
what if your an engineer who likes his alone time >>> and a micro home gym? ))
Autism is a hell of a drug.
Just ask for a spot when you see someone available.
You humble yourself, you grow as a person by practicing communication, and you get to try to lift a little heavier as you know someone is there to help you when you eventually fail a rep (which is important if you're trying to bulk or get stronger). You thank them after and maybe even give/get a fist bump. That's it. Do this often while being mindful of people and their own workouts. One day, someone will ask YOU for a spot. Oblige.
Asking for a spot is absolutely a frequent and everyday occurrence at pretty much any gym. Most people are actually pretty honored when they are asked to spot someone's PR attempt.
You don't really have to make a ton of small talk unless both parties are open to it, but you'll get to know the regulars who will eventually talk to you.
Love this. Need more of this. This "don't talk to me, ever" is an absolute cancer in our society.
> Old gay with tattoo of Osiris eye
Was this a typo or … ?
OP doesn't strike me as judgmental so probably a typo.
It's obvious in hindsight but to me its really interesting you can collect data points on the community just by chatting with them. Maybe you could guess, by appearance or behaviour or something, whether most people at the gym are university students, or gym bros, or something else.
But by chatting with them, the world seems a bit bigger. And even if you don't see them again often, or don't chat again, its just nice that you have some level of familiarity and learn new things you wouldn't know unless you chatted with them. And although sometimes you have that awkward uncomfortable short conversation, every once in a while, you make a new friend. That is life, I suppose.
> One of these people is someone I will refer to as “the other Asian guy”. I got a lot closer to him than expected.
Oh those bromances ...
I am really shy and i dont touch grass, i would rather do some c++