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This will seem counter-intuitive but work on opening up strangers in public places, and your friends will end up gravitating towards you. Gladwell observed in

This will seem counter-intuitive but work on opening up strangers in public places, and your friends will end up gravitating towards you. Gladwell observed in Tipping Point that most peoples' social circle is usually created by one high connection "maven" who connects many low connection end nodes. You want to try to move closer to how that maven operates. Concretely: If you go out with a friend, and end up becoming buddies with the waitress, and then also know of an after party you can bring the friend to, by virtue of your network, you will constantly be getting solicited to hang out. Even more quantitatively: if you can average +2 casual connections per day when you try, you'll be doing very well. But two connections in a day is very difficult for most people on HN; you'll have to work and experiment on how to achieve that.

xor1 8y ago
I'm kind of a maven, except all of my friends end up disliking each other.
- stillsut 8y ago
  Common misconception: having your finger in a lot of different pies is not being a Maven. If you joined an improv group, a church group, a softball team, and an MMA gym, you're at best a conglomerate, but more likely an overextended end node.
  - xor1 8y ago
    I don't meet people through groups, I just go up to them in public
taurath 8y ago
I call those social connectors - one of the biggest differences I’ve seen having moved from California to the PNW is that they have large groups with absolutely no connectors. Having usually been one (but between groups), it’s signifcantly detracted from the quality of relationships here - it takes so much effort to get “into” a group because there is no front door, just a long slow osmosis by proximity.
- meej 8y ago
  I lived in Seattle for seven years, and what I observed there was that people there are shy (not snobby or cliquish, as the "Seattle Freeze" stereotype implies), which means you need to approach them because they will never approach you. When I put energy into introducing myself to people, I always got good results and I made a lot of friends that way. In contexts where a conversation started before names were exchanged (like hanging out with the smokers outside), I noticed that people seemed relieved once I introduced myself. I've shared this with friends, some who have tried it with similar good results. Another interesting dynamic in Seattle is that people seem to assume all the people they know already know each other, which means nobody tries to introduce people. I have an old friend up there who used to insist I already knew people I hadn't met, which was frustrating. The result of this tendency is a social network with a highly connected center and a lot of poorly connected leaves. This structure really revealed itself when my social network was struck by a tragedy where several people were victims of a shooting -- there was a group of people who all had direct connections to at least one victim, and another group who didn't know any of the victims personally but a majority of their friends had. I was in the latter group and I found it very strange. It was a huge contrast when I moved to the Bay Area, where people assumed everyone was a transplant and went out of their way to do introductions. I was at a party once where I was reintroduced to the same person four times -- someone who I had already met years earlier.
- stillsut 8y ago
  Reminds me of the parable of the two shoe salesmen in Africa [0]. The point being, if there's all these isolated, lonely cliques, there's actually a huge opportunity for someone who can consistently connect with others starting out as a stranger. [0]:http://johnassaraf.com/goal-achieving-2/a-tale-of-two-shoe-salesmen http://johnassaraf.com/goal-achieving-2/a-tale-of-two-shoe-s...
  - taurath 8y ago
    The opportunity is there but in seattle you definitely have a huge barrier - people will instantly mistrust you if you do anything other than the slow and steady route.
musage 8y ago
Either your comment or the WP article must have it wrong. I didn't read the book so I wouldn't know which one it is, but what you're saying a maven is, the WP article says mavens work most effectively in collaboration with. > one high connection "maven" who connects many low connection end nodes. vs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maven https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maven > Gladwell described those who are intense gatherers of information and also impressions, and so are often the first to become aware of new or nascent trends. The word has since become widely used in particular contexts and journalistic accounts of markets. Gladwell also suggests that mavens may act most effectively when in loose collaboration with 'social influencers' - i.e., people who have a wide network of casual acquaintances who trust them, often a network that crosses many social boundaries and groups.

xor1 8y ago

I'm kind of a maven, except all of my friends end up disliking each other.

stillsut 8y ago
Common misconception: having your finger in a lot of different pies is not being a Maven. If you joined an improv group, a church group, a softball team, and an MMA gym, you're at best a conglomerate, but more likely an overextended end node.
- xor1 8y ago
  I don't meet people through groups, I just go up to them in public

taurath 8y ago

I call those social connectors - one of the biggest differences I’ve seen having moved from California to the PNW is that they have large groups with absolutely no connectors. Having usually been one (but between groups), it’s signifcantly detracted from the quality of relationships here - it takes so much effort to get “into” a group because there is no front door, just a long slow osmosis by proximity.

meej 8y ago
I lived in Seattle for seven years, and what I observed there was that people there are shy (not snobby or cliquish, as the "Seattle Freeze" stereotype implies), which means you need to approach them because they will never approach you. When I put energy into introducing myself to people, I always got good results and I made a lot of friends that way. In contexts where a conversation started before names were exchanged (like hanging out with the smokers outside), I noticed that people seemed relieved once I introduced myself. I've shared this with friends, some who have tried it with similar good results. Another interesting dynamic in Seattle is that people seem to assume all the people they know already know each other, which means nobody tries to introduce people. I have an old friend up there who used to insist I already knew people I hadn't met, which was frustrating. The result of this tendency is a social network with a highly connected center and a lot of poorly connected leaves. This structure really revealed itself when my social network was struck by a tragedy where several people were victims of a shooting -- there was a group of people who all had direct connections to at least one victim, and another group who didn't know any of the victims personally but a majority of their friends had. I was in the latter group and I found it very strange. It was a huge contrast when I moved to the Bay Area, where people assumed everyone was a transplant and went out of their way to do introductions. I was at a party once where I was reintroduced to the same person four times -- someone who I had already met years earlier.
stillsut 8y ago
Reminds me of the parable of the two shoe salesmen in Africa [0]. The point being, if there's all these isolated, lonely cliques, there's actually a huge opportunity for someone who can consistently connect with others starting out as a stranger. [0]:http://johnassaraf.com/goal-achieving-2/a-tale-of-two-shoe-salesmen http://johnassaraf.com/goal-achieving-2/a-tale-of-two-shoe-s...
- taurath 8y ago
  The opportunity is there but in seattle you definitely have a huge barrier - people will instantly mistrust you if you do anything other than the slow and steady route.

musage 8y ago

Either your comment or the WP article must have it wrong. I didn't read the book so I wouldn't know which one it is, but what you're saying a maven is, the WP article says mavens work most effectively in collaboration with. > one high connection "maven" who connects many low connection end nodes. vs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maven https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maven > Gladwell described those who are intense gatherers of information and also impressions, and so are often the first to become aware of new or nascent trends. The word has since become widely used in particular contexts and journalistic accounts of markets. Gladwell also suggests that mavens may act most effectively when in loose collaboration with 'social influencers' - i.e., people who have a wide network of casual acquaintances who trust them, often a network that crosses many social boundaries and groups.