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People Like You More Than You Know
- noobiemcfoob 8y agoYeah, but none of that helps with me not liking them
- craftyguy 8y agoThat's exactly what I thought when reading this article. I avoid some social situations not because I care about what they think of me but because I don't care to talk to them (or already dislike them from some previous encounter).
- eiieirurjdndjd 8y agoI don’t think that everyone feels how the person in the article does. But from talking to my friends, most people think less of themselves, socially, than they think of others.
- borkt 8y agoI'm sorry and in honesty I am not sure which problem is worse. I really like being around a wide variety of people and hearing what interests them and about their lives etc. I also can't imagine how anyone could possibly be interested in listening to even the most interesting parts in my life. Seems like the two personalities are on opposite sides of the same spectrum.
- munchbunny 8y agoIf you listed and categorized the people you dislike, what would the breakdown look like? I personally found as I got older (not implying that you're young, just that I changed over time) that many people I previously disliked were now just people I felt neutral about. More specifically, I thought they were well intentioned but flawed as all humans are, and their flaws just happen to be the ones that bug me but not others. The people I actually dislike is now a much smaller group, and they almost all fall into three categories: 1. People who lack personal integrity 2. People who act smarter/more qualified than they are and hurt people as a result 3. People who consistently take things the wrong way. In the context of race and gender stuff, this is a hard line to draw, but in my experience the egregious cases of taking things the wrong way are rare and fairly obvious. I don't mind well intentioned people in the gray area. All three categories are just frustrating or tiring to be friends with or to work with, and they drag everyone else down with them.
- artpepper2 8y agoAs I get older, there are fewer people I actively dislike, but I also have less patience to spend on people I don't actively like.
- erikpukinskis 8y ago... which can lead to actually liking fewer people, because to meet new people you really like you generally need to spend time with people you only tolerate. The network effects work better with more overall socializing, and in my experience you can’t even hit the maintenance threshold (let alone the growth threshold) by only spending time with those you really favor.
- craftyguy 8y ago4. There are too many people and too few hours in the days to care about them all, so some got optimized out. This is how I generally feel when meeting people that I'm 90% sure I will never see/interact with again. For the 10%, that I do, I probably come across as uninterested in them or 'aloof', but, meh.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- finaliteration 8y agoIt takes me about 3-4 months of being around someone regularly before I’m convinced that they aren’t constantly annoyed by me and everything that I say. I hide it pretty well. Sartre was on to something with his comments about “the gaze of the Other”.
- InitialLastName 8y agoThat's funny. It takes me about 3-4 months of being around someone regularly before I'm not constantly annoyed by them and everything that they say. I hide it pretty well. I've had to learn the difficult way that my first impression of people is usually not an impression they deserve.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- x0 8y ago> It takes me about 3-4 months of being around someone regularly before I'm able to hold a conversation that's more than direct answers to direct questions. I had trouble with this for a time, I just tried to take my answers a tiny step further. If someone says "Wow, it's cold outside", instead of just responding with a "Yeah, it is cold", try and add your opinion on it. "Yeah it's cold, I love this weather", or "Yeah it's cold, I hope it gets warm for the weekend, because I was planning $outdoor_activity". Anything along those lines will make you seem more personable.
- shrikant 8y agoInteresting. I tried this for a while, then for some reason got really conscious that the over-use of "I" and "me" in the response made me sound too self-absorbed. So nowadays I'm usually slowly thinking through whether a statement like "Wow, it's cold outside" warrants mere concurrence or greater engagement.
- jschwartzi 8y agoThis is exactly how to start a good conversation. People make small talk as a way of signaling that they'd like a conversation. All you have to do is say something that keeps the conversation going. The best things to say are positive statements about how you feel or what your background is because it gives the other person a chance to relate to you.
- davesque 8y agoAnyone got a link to the paper referenced? I followed the link in the article but got hit with a login wall.
- jtsiskin 8y agoDoes this work for you? http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0956797618783714 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0956797618783714
- martey 8y agoFrom the website of the lead author: http://www.ericaboothby.com/s/The-Liking-Gap.pdf http://www.ericaboothby.com/s/The-Liking-Gap.pdf
- wafflesraccoon 8y agoThank you
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- eiieirurjdndjd 8y agoI need this taped on the ceiling above my bed, to my door, to my office, etc.
- sharkweek 8y agoI'm sure this is true. Another thing I'm sure of is how little time most people spend thinking about other people. Even the people in my life I don't care for, I rarely spend more than a passing moment thinking about them, even if they're in the same room. The ones I do think about a lot are the ones I love (wife, children, closest friends). Despite knowing this, though, I'll admit that I can spend a lot of time thinking about That One Dumb Thing I Said at Dinner Around My Friends - again, though, I'm 99% sure most people don't remember the dumb or embarrassing things others say or do.
- TimJYoung 8y agoThis is such a great insight, and is one that I came across later in life. Once you realize how little friends/acquaintances care about the minute details of your life, it is very, very freeing.
- oatsandsugar 8y agoThis reminds me of a fortune cookie I once had, that I first thought was aggressive, and then I found liberating: "You'd care less about what people think about you if you realized how little they do"
- wallflower 8y agoAnother related quote: “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”
- goldenchrome 8y agoAnother great one: “I am not what I think I am. I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am.”
- ListeningPie 8y agoHow do you interpret this quote, especially the last line. The first line is how I see myself, the second how you see me, then from who's perspective is the last line?
- badrabbit 8y agoCurious on how much cognitive dissonance is caused by this. "I believe they don't like me. I also believe I need them to like me."
- thanatropism 8y agoI saw a reference to this (not sure if the same article) idea about a week ago and started talking to people at work as if they want to like me if they can find a way to. I've been since feeling less alienated from the broader staff (outside our five-person technical team). I didn't have any reason to believe it, but thought it was a fun meme and the placebo effect might be pleasing. What, maybe I've begun going out of my way to charm people by believing this is what they want. I should reread "How to make friends and influence people" -- I remember it being a repetitive litany of "try to please people". But maybe this is the whole point -- people want to like you, but they may need some help.
- l9k 8y agoThis is especially true at work with your manager because he/she they placed a bet on you (by hiring you)
- tvanantwerp 8y agoIf I remember How to Make Friends and Influence People, it was more about showing people that you care about them. Not so much pleasing as showing interest and empathy.
- swingline-747 8y agoLiking, respect and depth of rapport are overlapping but different. Some people like a fool but don't respect them, and respect a criminal without liking them. Others have deep rapport with someone they're ambivalent about because of circumstances.
- sureaboutthis 8y agoThese are true stories. I don't wish to come across as bragging. The last day of a job I had for seven years, the director of engineering told me I was the best engineer he ever knew. And he worked for some pretty well known engineering firms. If he had told me that before, I might not have left. A woman came into my office--someone who didn't seem to want to give me the time of day--and the conversation got around to her telling me how depressed she was about her life and loves. After maybe 10 minutes, she thanked me for being such a good listener and said something about I was just so charismatic. I almost fell out of my chair. I taught electronics at a trade school to a morning class for a couple of years. There were hundreds of students, and I knew I was a good teacher, but I didn't think the students thought once about me when they went home. On my last day of work, one of the guys asked me to give a special last lecture on a topic. As I walked into the room, I was followed by students from my class, the afternoon class and the evening class! They filled the room and presented me with a fairly expensive bottle of whiskey. I've had a few girls tell me, after it was too late, that they always had a crush on me. Well, I was interested in them, too. If someone would have just said something sooner, life, for me, would be totally different now.
- draw_down 8y agoI can certainly relate. But the thing is, a lot of times people don't say anything. And life can sometimes require us to be a bit bolder than we otherwise would be, to get what we want.
- davemp 8y agoThis is why you shouldn't be afraid to give out (truthful) compliments folks. For a small communication effort, you may make a big enough impact for your compliment to be remembered for years. Maybe the person will even smile to themselves and write a nice HN comment about it! (or not quit your company)...
- edgarvaldes 8y agoAfter a presentation about the software we built the last year for internal consumption (something we do twice a year -the talk, I mean), this high-rank guy come to my office and told me I was a really good presentator and that "We are wasting your talents, you must give more talks or training". I did not expect that. I felt very grateful for his words.
- chrisweekly 8y agoThis reminds me of the saying, "We're not who we think we are. Nor are we what others think we are. Rather, we are who we think others think we are."
- ListeningPie 8y agoThe quote is also further up the thread and I'm repeating my comment, but how do you interpret the last line of the quote. The first line is how I see myself, the second how you see me, then from who's perspective is the last line?
- LandR 8y agoIt's confusing isn't it... I think it's you will become the person you think other people think you are? Like you might not be an asshole, people might not think you are an asshole but if you believe that people think you are an asshole you will become an asshole.
- thelasthuman 8y agoSo then "you're the average of the company you keep"?
- chrisweekly 8y ago1. how I see myself 2. how everyone else sees me 3. how I _imagine_ everyone else sees me
- slx26 8y agoyours: a bit of your paranoia, a bit of your misunderstanding about others, and a bit of what you actually got right. just work on minimizing the first two
- sigfubar 8y agoDoes it really matter what others think? Too much of our self-worth is tied up in the fleeting opinions of others. There are only two opinions that matter to me: my wife’s and my daughter’s. The rest of humanity is made up of people I interact with for a specific purpose, such as work, and those interactions are governed by certain rules. Within such frameworks we play our roles and go our separate ways after, and no one’s self esteem needs to be hurt.
- NoPicklez 8y agoYou might hold the opinions of your wife and daughter higher given your point in time, which I'd agree with. However, others opinions of course matter, no they shouldn't totally control how you think about yourself but they certainly do have an impact on how you perceive yourself. For those that perhaps don't have a wife or daughter, then the opinions of others of course have a higher weighting.
- javelin11 8y agoI can see how this is a natural tendency that we have all fallen victim to, but I wonder if the idea of self-worth has gotten twisted. In reality, people have misconceptions about other people all the time, and it does us no good to constantly worry that others’ impression of us may not be what we want it to be. Perhaps the better approach is living day in day out how you want to live and the people you’d want to be around will be naturally attracted to that in the long run after seeing who you really are. That way, you are not out there trying to impress others but being yourself, not giving an iota of a care about what others think, and trusting that they way you live will naturally bring you in contact with people who have respect for you and vice versa. Seems like a less stressful, healthier way to live, at least.
- mindentropy 8y agoThings don't happen "naturally". It takes effort/work to do anything. Therefore there is very rarely natural attraction. It takes work/effort to make people respect and like you.
- qubax 8y agoWhat does that even mean? I'm sure some like me more than I think and some hate me more than I think. But mostly 99% of the people don't care because they have their lives to lead. Are there people I like more than they know. Sure. Are there people I hate more than they know. Absolutely. But really 99.99% of the people don't matter. I don't think about them or them me. Ultimately, you care about your family and friends. Do people waste their time wondering if "people" like you or not?
- antonkm 8y agoThis is a bit out of touch with reality. People generally care a lot of what others think of them. Personally I can't even grasp as how one can think that 99.99% of people doesn't matter. They most certainly do to me. Why would I not care about "them"? I believe seeing others as a waste of time is probably not doing yourself or anyone else any good. This isn't to say I base my self-worth on what others believe to be true about me, but staying open to their perception makes it easier for self-growth. I get more input and can evaluate it and see if it's something that I should implement in myself or not.
- emodendroket 8y agoLife might be a little harder if all your colleagues couldn't stand you, for instance.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jcadam 8y agoOther than my wife, I really don't care if people like me anymore. I want to be respected and taken seriously. Anything beyond that is gravy.
- piazz 8y agoI transferred into my university as a junior. I was older than my peers, having trod a somewhat unconventional life path before transferring. My first year at the new university, I felt felt alienated and invisible. While I made a few close friends, I couldn't seem to really integrate into the larger social fabric of the place. People just didn't seem to care about me. Or, so I thought. One day at a party, after enduring this perceived ostracization for two semesters, a very drunk close friend pulled me aside to tell me that everybody thought I was this "mysterious transfer who thought he was too cool to talk to anybody". Everybody wanted to talk to me. Most everybody knew of me, a number of girls had crushes (!!!), and a few flattering (though unfortunately, untrue) rumors even circulated about my exciting life before coming to school. Everybody wanted to get to know me but I apparently exuded some aura of elitism that kept people at bay. I was stunned, to say the least. So yeah, we never know what others think of us. I never quite recouped my squandered social capital, but it was a huge wakeup call that I'll carry with me through life. We can rarely trust our internal critics when it comes to evaluating what people think of us, and sadly, we miss opportunities because of it.
- emersonrsantos 8y agoPeople too busy trying to look perfect, or thinking how to fix their problems, are too busy to think and praise your ego.
- toomanybeersies 8y agoIt's one thing to know this, but another to actually feel it. For a variety of reasons, I get quite bad paranoia sometimes that nobody actually likes me. I feel like at best they tolerate me, and at worst are using me. It's a really shitty feeling to feel. It's caused me to drift away from a lot of friendships because I think "they don't really like me", and then months or years later, I run into them and they ask me why I drifted away. It took me quite a lot of time to come to terms with the fact that it's just my brain fucking with me. I still can't shake the feeling sometimes, but at least I can recognise it and work around it. It's a weird cognitive dissonance to have, to know that all your friends like you and enjoy your company, but at the same time feeling like a piece of shit that nobody wants to be around.
- hfdgiutdryg 8y agoSounds like some combination of low-grade depression and anxiety. It's not helped by modern society generally not expressing gratitude or affection for each other. What you're feeling is pretty common.
- toxik 8y agoI get that feeling and I think it may be true sometimes. I had this especially with my childhood friends when we grew older, I felt like somehow I didn’t really count unless I had something to bring them. So I left for greener pastures. Worked great for me, I’d rather be alone than pretend to be liked.
- ghostbrainalpha 8y agoIf you don't like yourself, and you assume that others would be rational in not liking you as well, it is very easy to project those feelings onto them. I would also rather be alone than have pretend relationships. But make sure you really know what is happening. Because projecting your self hate is a much more common problem than being surrounded by actors. In fact if you already know that you dislike your self, it is almost certainly what is going on.
- 8y ago
- sulam 8y agoI have a much better reason for not “mingling” than that: It’s a colossal waste of time! 60s conversations that inevitably end just when they might get interesting is pretty much my definition of hell.
- andrew_ 8y agoThis is true of open source contribution as well. A few moons ago, I (relatively) quietly stepped away from a rather large open source project that I had contributed a fair amount of impactful projects to. There was no fan-fair made about my departure from any party, including myself. As time passes and people find out, they've reached out to say how much they appreciated what I had done - much more so than when I was active on the project. It's deeply satisfying on many levels to hear as much.
- andrew_ 8y agosmh. someone down-voted the good feels. I will find you, and I will hug you.
- madaxe_again 8y agoYeah, I left my business of a decade a few years ago as my health had gone to hell and I couldn’t continue - nobody, no colleagues, no clients, not even my co-founder, said goodbye, never mind anything else. Nobody cared that I ended up in hospital repeatedly, mortally unwell. If I bump into them in the street they don’t even recognise me - and we worked together for over a decade in some cases. Confirmation that you’re hated can be just as satisfying and cathartic.
- mywittyname 8y agoI sounds counter-intuitive, but it must be satisfying because you move from worrying/wondering to knowing. Not unlike finding out your partner has had an affair. Obviously that's a terrible thing to discover, but finally knowing allows you to start the process of healing.
- madaxe_again 8y agoYep, it’s pretty much the same feeling, having experienced that, too.
- CitizenTekk 8y agoI think it has also have something to do on how you look towards life. If you are more like to be optimistic about life, you're doing the same as much as you look towards other people. But if you have other reasons as for like you've gone through traumatic experience, I think it will have effect about on how you will connect to people thou some process like counselling may work things out for them it still depends on your status and outlook towards life. Financially, emotionally and physically.
- budadre75 8y agoIf we can just tell if others like us, like IOI from the seduction community, we wouldn't treat others as if they don't like us, so the self-fulfilling prophecy of the inner critic won't be the reality.
- nojvek 8y agoIt has two cookie notices that cover more than half the screen. Wow! Why do we present this horrible UX when the user has no course of action. You’ll be tracked anyway right ?
- forkerenok 8y agoOne question: Insecurities come before or after that? Is it a cause or an effect? Or neither?
- anitadig01 8y agoNice to read & very touching story!
- cyberferret 8y agoI spent the first 40 years of my life wanting to be liked by everybody. I would go out of my way to be polite, not to cause waves or friction, and to basically be the 'nice guy' that everyone would like and be comfortable around. It wasn't until I went to a personal development seminar, and the speaker was a very frank gentleman who said - "Look, whenever you walk into a room of 10 people you've never met, you will find 1, maybe 2 of them that you will like immediately and instantly get along with. 6 or 7 of the rest, you will probably become friends or acquaintances with through the course of time. The remainder will never like you no matter what you say or do." Understanding that was a huge shift for me internally. I stopped trying to impress everyone, but instead focused on people who showed interest in interacting with me in all social situations. My friendships tended to stay the same, but my personal happiness levels increased markedly, and I stopped feeling guilty or worrying about what I did wrong when the odd person was unfriendly or ignored me. I feel free enough to just be 'me' again. The old saying of "You can't please all of the people all of the time" certainly rings true.
- Moodles 8y agoAlso not wishing to brag. The craziest example of this I can think of from my own life is that during one particularly crazy house party during my graduate days I ended up super drunk and waking up in this girl’s bed the next morning. When I was sober I regretted it quite massively. But the morning was horrible. She said how she had liked me for ages and how everyone thinks I’m this great guy but I don’t even know it. It was truly bizarre because I never realised she liked me at all. In fact, we used to argue a lot about random topics like political things and so on. I thought I annoyed her. It was just a bizarre and awful morning. So I suppose a corollary of “people care about you more than you know” is that you need to treat people as well as they deserve.
- jacobush 8y agoInteresting that you felt horrible despite her saying she really liked you. There's a lot going on in the mind.
- peterlk 8y agoI imagine this will get buried in the comments, but this brings up a separate truth that I have only recently begun to discover. People just want company. I have a tendency to assume that I don't have a meaningful relationship with someone with whom I have not spoken to extensively. Or, similarly, that they don't like me if we don't speak when we're together. Something I've learned through traveling is that sharing silence with people is just as important as sharing words with them, and people like you either way. Sitting at a cafe or in a backyard having a drink quietly is all we need. We just want to feel acknowledged
- peter303 8y agoLife is too short to wallow in self-pity. Give yourself more credit.
- JepZ 8y agoI am sure it depends on the topic you are talking about. When I see something that doesn't match my ideals, I start talking about it, which creates some sort of a negative atmosphere. While I am sure the people around me value that perspicacity to some extent, I feel like sometimes they wish I would just shut up and let things be like they are without focussing on imperfections that surround us. So being positive probably is a better way to make people appreciate your presence.
- m3kw9 8y agoTo make that statement, it means people massively overestimate how much people hates them.
- Joe-Z 8y agoIs this really the problem though? The author claims her reason for not being able to „mingle“ with a room full of people is that she‘s afraid people won‘t like her. For me at least, the reason is more like missing relevance. Why should I talk to stranger X instead of stranger Y? And what would we even be talking _about_? That‘s what is holding me back from starting conversations. Sure, not being able to tell if people like you is a problem. But in my opinion this only comes into play _after_ you‘ve made first contact.
- sdfsdfffff 8y agoEven if I voted for Trump?
- therealdrag0 8y agoSource research: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30183512 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30183512 "The Liking Gap in Conversations: Do People Like Us More Than We Think?" Abstract: Having conversations with new people is an important and rewarding part of social life. Yet conversations can also be intimidating and anxiety provoking, and this makes people wonder and worry about what their conversation partners really think of them. Are people accurate in their estimates? We found that following interactions, people systematically underestimated how much their conversation partners liked them and enjoyed their company, an illusion we call the liking gap. We observed the liking gap as strangers got acquainted in the laboratory, as first-year college students got to know their dorm mates, and as formerly unacquainted members of the general public got to know each other during a personal development workshop. The liking gap persisted in conversations of varying lengths and even lasted for several months, as college dorm mates developed new relationships. Our studies suggest that after people have conversations, they are liked more than they know.
- hashkb 8y agoI highly doubt this is true. More likely, people won't officially admit how much they hate each other. But all you have to do is listen to any group talk about an absent friend to hear reliably negative feedback.