Throwaway since this is a bit embarrassing. How to Win Friends and Influence People. Crucial Conversations. 5 Love Languages. The Way of the Superior Man. I'm

Throwaway since this is a bit embarrassing. How to Win Friends and Influence People. Crucial Conversations. 5 Love Languages. The Way of the Superior Man. I'm 37 and I'm a stereotypical geeky, low-social-capability guy. Coasted through life on being smart, to the exclusion of much else. I'd get pedantic and into pointless arguments, but justify it because I was right -- sorta being a dick though not intentionally, just emergent behavior. I did poorly on romantic relationships despite being married a decade. I'd stumble around conversations awkwardly or interject stupid facts and just overall sucked at the personal side of life. Learning to talk to people, to deal with people, learning the give and take of conversations and to try to be interested in people -- this has completely changed my life. It works in business, it works in personal relationships. People that I'd usually mock (think homeopathic hippy type folks), the kind of folks that'd usually dismiss me, they have actually said glowing things about me to other people, and I now have friendships with such folks. Even with guy friends: I'm constantly surprised how powerful a simple "How are you doing?" or "Did you get home OK?" -- just small displays of interest, really can strengthen relationships. The last book I mention, The Way of the Superior Man, I hesitate. Some of it is a bit silly. And it comes off VERY macho/chauvinistic. In fact, the first time I looked at it I tossed it in disgust. But damn, it'd have saved me so much grief. There are feminine/masculine differences (as personalities, not just sex or gender.) Just basic stuff like "held and heard": you don't need to try to solve her every problem[1], just listen and support her in what she does -- stuff as an engineer I wouldn't do at work and that bled over into personal life. Not attacking people when they say silly things... I've had a girl tell my family I'm the kindest guy she's ever dated. They all went silent and looked back and forth "... him?" 3 years ago I could never, ever, have imagined anyone saying that about me in any situation, let alone romantically. When people blow up and want to fight with me, I recognize the words don't really matter and it's just emotion and try to respond to that. Even my ex has ended up apologizing after yelling at me and saying I'm a good guy - another timeline I never thought I'd be in. And I know, this sounds like manipulation. But the bizarre thing is that after you set out to be like this and try to care, you actually end up caring and it's totally sincere. Life isn't C, being "lenient" on people and trying to think about them instead of picking at the specifics of what they said won't get you into trouble. [This might be relationships 101, but I know a lot of guys in a similar social situation and a few of them tried the same approaches and are way happier too. So maybe this will help someone.] 1: https://xkcd.com/306/ https://xkcd.com/306/