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ITT: People who don’t understand that other people are socially awkward and actually need to be taught skills like this (ranging from regular nerds to those on
by orev 8y ago
ITT: People who don’t understand that other people are socially awkward and actually need to be taught skills like this (ranging from regular nerds to those on the spectrum), who don’t realize that “just be yourself” is terrible advice to anyone asking questions on how to be social.
It’s not just a modern problem caused by phones.
Maybe if you think about this in context of tech conferences, that will help you get more use out of it.
- moate 8y agoI mean, the weirdest thing for me is that these types of articles have been written forever. I remember being a kid 20 years ago and reading articles about how to be charming and make friends. I'm sure they were written 20 years before that as well. It's kinda weird all the judgement.
- orev 8y ago“How to Win Friends and Influence People” was published in 1936.
- ivm 8y agoAlso, American party dynamics are different from many other cultures, so this guide is quite useful for foreigners. Coming from Eastern Europe, I was really clumsy socially during my first visits to the US because I didn't recognize the boundaries of small talk.
- abandonliberty 8y ago"Just be yourself" is the best advice. Unfortunately it's like a zen koan and takes many years to understand.
- orev 8y agoIf it takes many years to understand the point being expressed by some words, then those words aren’t being very effective at teaching the point to begin with. One might say that’s a pretty clear criteria for evaluating whether some advice is “the best” or not.
- combatentropy 8y agoThe bar for advice is the aftermath, having followed it, not how easy it was to understand or to do.
- smsm42 8y ago> who don’t realize that “just be yourself” is terrible advice to anyone asking questions on how to be social. To me that sounds like - "how do I learn to drive?" - "Just be yourself!" or "how do I train to run a marathon?" - "Just be yourself!". Yeah, thanks for the advice.