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My stages of learning to be a socially normal person

(sashachapin.substack.com)
631 points eatitraw | 6 comments | 15 Nov 25 13:24 UTC | HN request time: 1.206s | source | bottom
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Aurornis ◴[17 Nov 25 20:24 UTC] No.45957863[source]▶
This post wasn't what I was expecting from the "socially normal" title. While there is a lot of self-reflection and growth in this piece, a lot of the points felt more like learning how to charm, manipulate, and game social interactions.

Look at the first two subheadings:

> 1: Connecting with people is about being a dazzling person

> 2: Connecting with people is about playing their game

The post felt like a rollercoaster between using tricks to charm and manipulate, and periods of genuinely trying to learn how to be friends with people.

I don't want to disparage the author as this is a personal journey piece and I appreciate them sharing it. However this did leave me slightly uneasy, almost calling back to earlier days of the internet when advice about "social skills" often meant reductively thinking about other people, assuming you can mind-read them to deconstruct their mindset (the section about identifying people who feel underpraised, insecure, nervous,) and then leverage that to charm them (referred to as "dancing to the music" in this post).

Maybe the takeaway I'd try to give is to read this as an interesting peek into someone's mind, but not necessarily great advice for anyone else's situation or a healthy way to view relationships.

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etangent ◴[17 Nov 25 21:16 UTC] No.45958403[source]▶
> a lot of the points felt more like learning how to charm, manipulate, and game social interactions.

A lot of stuff "normal" people do is charm, manipulate, and game social interactions. Except because they are not conscious about it, we give them a pass. One of the characteristics of autistic-spectrum individuals is that they must make a conscious effort to achieve goals that are achieved unconsciously by most of us. If we prevent such individuals from learning all that rarely-written-down stuff consciously because it seems "distasteful" to us, then we are disadvantaging such individuals socially.

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pseidemann ◴[17 Nov 25 22:17 UTC] No.45959001[source]▶
Agreed. It's the playbook of social interaction written out. Nothing offensive about that.
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ghurtado ◴[17 Nov 25 22:37 UTC] No.45959208[source]▶
I would take it further and say that the more light we bring to this subject, the less it becomes the exclusive domain of snake oil salesmen and the "sales tips 101" type books, and the more inoculated the general public becomes to manipulation.
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overfeed ◴[18 Nov 25 00:41 UTC] No.45960127[source]▶
Why dontou consider it "manipulation"? Would you consider what goes into you resume, or performance/promotion packet "manipulation"? In every interaction there are spoken and unspoken rules, and those who excel tend to be those who can understand the subtext and express themselves effectively.
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zozbot234 ◴[18 Nov 25 00:46 UTC] No.45960153[source]▶
It depends, of course. Some people might fill their resume with outright BS, and this would be widely regarded as manipulative.
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mewpmewp2 ◴[18 Nov 25 01:55 UTC] No.45960532[source]▶
Depends how you define outright BS. I bet most people at least cherrypick the best data points amongst thousands of possible, giving a look that doesn't really represent them as a whole. And then they omit some undesirable things. Similar to how people on social media will only post their best moments, giving inaccurate representation of their lives and themselves while overall causing others to feel like they are missing out, etc.

So here is the skill of being able to cherrypick data to give the best representation of yourself as opposed to true average honest overview of oneself. Then the skill of avoiding answering questions you don't want to answer to by answering by talking about what you want to talk about (think politicians).

Same is with real life interactions. Among 1000s of things you could say or do there is always some that are more effective than others in reaching a certain goal, whether it is getting a job, making a sale, convincing someone, making a friend or whatever.

Is it manipulative only if you make up something or if you are able to get people to do what you want by being able to cherrypick the most convincing ideas, arguments, facts etc.

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wybiral ◴[18 Nov 25 02:37 UTC] No.45960792[source]▶
If they have thousands of examples to cherry pick from... That's a signal of experience. So it's not entirely manipulation. If you can pick from your experience and find the best examples and you have several... You have experience.
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mewpmewp2 ◴[18 Nov 25 02:41 UTC] No.45960822[source]▶
It really depends on the topic. You can do a lot by cherrypicking and omitting stuff. Simple example, I can talk about all the stock trades where I hit big and leave an impression that I am super good with picking the right stocks, but not talk about my losses. This is super obvious example, but in real life there is infinite nuance to all of it. The stories I choose to tell and stories that I choose to leave out.
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wybiral ◴[18 Nov 25 02:44 UTC] No.45960834[source]▶
But in the context of job interviews.. It applies. But also that applies in trading, if you have a bunch of experience winning or losing, that's useful experience and I want your input on my team. The fact that you cherry picked is built into the evaluation. You have experience. Whether or not you have some innate talent for it is aside. I care about your experience.
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1. mewpmewp2 ◴[18 Nov 25 02:54 UTC] No.45960897[source]▶
Yes in interviews it is expected and people do cherrypick. But the ability to cherrypick can show a lower skilled person in better light compared to a higher skilled person who may not cherrypick as well or tends to not like cherrypicking the best examples since it doesn't feel honest. Sometimes this honesty can work well, sometimes not. Sometimes if honesty doesn't work well it just means the job wouldn't have been a good fit anyway, but other times it is just putting you at a huge disadvantage.

I have a friend who is somehow super good at that, it is fascinating to me. But he can't be bothered to do actual work. He performs extemely well in interviews, gets high paying job, and then stays there for 3 months, gets bored. Of course he doesn't put that on his resume. He doesn't really lie, but he definitely cherrypicks, embellishes etc. I am kind of the opposite of him. I have stayed at the same place for years and am naturally passionate about software eng, but troubled socially. He is very confident and has no shame.

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2. wybiral ◴[18 Nov 25 03:01 UTC] No.45960937[source]▶
I don't know how to filters those people. But I'd say in general if people have positive things to show... It doesn't mean they don't have negatives. They can be hiding all kinds of negatives... That's hard to test. But if you have several good examples you probably have some experience. I assume you pick the best. Maybe that's problematic. Maybe some hyper-honest people try to pick a mixture that better represents their skills. But I don't know how you balance for that. I want them to represent themselves and sell themselves.

But job applications aren't the same as normal life so this is probably a tangent. In normal life, though, I kinda assume I'm seeing what people want me to see. But if it looks really good it probably means they have good sample of experiences to cherry pick from.

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3. mewpmewp2 ◴[18 Nov 25 03:10 UTC] No.45960984[source]▶
Yeah, I mean it is tough, but I guess my main point is that it is never super clear what is manipulation, what is persuasion, what is bs, what is honest, etc. Many people cherrypick and omit intentionally, consciously, many people subconsciously and naturally. Many will simply remember only the good things about themselves and radiate only that, others are extremely self critical of themselves, and radiate that. Sometimes one works better than the other.

Two different people can have the same achievement and one thinks it is the most awesome and special achievement ever, and embellishes it, the other thinks it is not even worth mentioning or words it completely differently.

E.g. for job interviews when are you considered to be "mentoring" someone? Someone might do few code reviews and claim they have mentored juniors, other one can have 1 on 1s giving valuable career advice, tech advice, but still not think of themself as a mentor.

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4. wybiral ◴[18 Nov 25 03:17 UTC] No.45961017{3}[source]▶
I agree. I don't know which segment you fall into... But for applications and interviews I would recommend to radiate... Find your best work. Open source or otherwise. And sell yourself.

That doesn't mesh with normal human behavior. It feels weird. But the corporate world and the private social worlds are disconnected. For me at least. So it's weird. Actually ... That's a weird concept.

I guess I recommend having two minds... One with friends and one with the corporate world. And they don't play by the same rules.

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5. mewpmewp2 ◴[18 Nov 25 03:24 UTC] No.45961062{4}[source]▶
Yeah, agreed here. Ideally you want to have friends who you can be authentic with just so you can have actually meaningful discussions about each other lives and thoughts. Corporate and career can be totally different. Early dating can be a mixed bag etc. And of course there are some other social events too, different types of people you may need to navigate around etc.
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6. wybiral ◴[18 Nov 25 03:30 UTC] No.45961094{5}[source]▶
I don't know if this is a toxic thing to say or not... But I enjoy my tech friends and I value our discussions. But I most value my science nerd friends outside of tech. Like.. I kinda don't want my friends to be peers. Not because of competition or anything like that. But I want them to nerd out to me about things I'm not steeped in. And I want to get to nerd out to them about computer science and the boundaries of philosophy and math and logic. But having a friend group is central.