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A Rough Guide to Social Skills for Awkward Smart People

273 points by KennethMyers 15y ago

zafka 15y ago
Thanks! I know this stuff, but i keep forgetting. :)
ary 15y ago
Immediate up-vote for the flagrant flaunting of Godwin's law.
mrleinad 15y ago
Please, someone send this to Richard Stallman, fast.
- s00pcan 15y ago
  I watched a video of him picking something from his foot and eating it (during a question and answer setting full of people and, obviously cameras). But really, what does it matter if he doesn't mind?
  - flipp 15y ago
    The video in question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I25UeVXrEHQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I25UeVXrEHQ
    - marshray 15y ago
      I feel ill. Wait a minute, I've just been cured of nail-biting. I feel the glory! Stallman is truly a saint!! All hail St. Ignucius!
- Jach 15y ago
  And Linus Torvalds. Oh wait, he's rude and publicly successful, a counter-example to this post. Oh well. All hail the post!
pathik 15y ago
The old One-Two or UPOD (Underpromise and Overdeliver) really works. But only for the first time.
- Shamiq 15y ago
  A bit more semantic on "first time": It contiunes to work until the recipient actually begins to pay attention to who you are and what you're doing. At which point, the approach may need tweaking to retain efficacy.
Gaussian 15y ago
I've found the smartest people I know tend to embrace the ethos of this piece almost instinctively. As for those who have to be spoon-fed these strategies? Well, in short: they're not as smart.
- sidek 15y ago
  Now, I would argue that you can't necessarily measure this; those you are convinced are the smartest could be significantly less smart, but may be able to trick you into thinking they are the smartest through social skills. In any case, though, I agree to some degree- the smartest can adapt well to most situations, including social ones.
- ElliotH 15y ago
  I'd agree. It's quite easy to question the intelligence of someone who tries to socialise, finds it fails again and again, notices that everyone else has no difficulty but assumes the problem is with everyone else.
- Skalman 15y ago
  Well - I guess "smart" is just a word that's difficult to define. I think the definition used by the OP is something along the lines of being better at academical subjects, which clearly isn't your only criteria. I for one used to be quite awkward, but had awesome friends that pointed out what (not) to do. Am I less smart for not having figured that out on my own? Perhaps, but I don't think it's relevant how skills are obtained.
- joelmichael 15y ago
  Is this ironic? The article is about not calling people idiots and treating them with respect. Is what you said respectful of people who need to be "spoon-fed" these ideas?
- entangld 15y ago
  The dilemma of defining smart as "can figure out what to do" is that it puts no limitations on intelligence. Some of these skills are not mastered for multiple reasons: emotional ones like fear and apprehension or lack of familiarity with cultural differences, expectations, etc... Smart people still have limits.
jwuphysics 15y ago
I wish that people had told me earlier that it's possible to be both smart and not awkward. Circa sixth grade, I gave up my academic life for my social life. Now I'm in CMU desperately trying to get above 50th percentile.
- sp332 15y ago
  CMU? 50th percentile? Congratulations on finding a community of people who are amazing enough to make you look normal :)
  - jwuphysics 15y ago
    I'm making strides but it's still a far cry from high school, where I was easily one of the smartest kids without ever trying. Coming to CMU definitely humbled me quite a bit! But that aside, I'm still not content with being normal. When I sold out my intelligence, it meant years of hard work on socializing and stuff (seriously. It's hard work). Now that I'm stepping back into academics, I'm aiming for the top again. But it's so much harder the second time around :(
    - asrk 15y ago
      It's actually the first time if you never had to try before. I think this is an issue that lots of people having an easy time in HS have, we actually need to learn how to study once things get more complex.
      - jwuphysics 15y ago
        I actually don't think I was ever "naturally intelligent". My current grades prove that. But the reason I could cruise through high school was because my parents drilled me with algebra, vocabulary quizzes, geography, and Montessori school when I was 4-9 years old. That undeniably put me ahead for the next ten or so years.
- nostrademons 15y ago
  I faced the same choice circa eight grade. Gave up my academic life for my social life. Miraculously made it into Amherst, then nearly flunked out of Amherst twice. Made the opposite choice when I was 23, giving up my social life for my academic/professional life. Worked great, wrote some popular computing stuff, got into Google, worked on high-profile & high impact projects. I was miserable. I'm still trying to figure out a balance between them.
tokenadult 15y ago
The submitted blog post is a humorous treatment of a topic studied in the scholarly literature. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=social+skills+gifted http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=social+skills+gifted http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=social+adjustment+profoundly+gifted http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=social+adjustment+profou... The submitted examples are almost frighteningly true-to-life. I gained perspective on social skills from travel. ("The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.") In my school days in the United States, I read a short story by Philip K. Dick that gave me and many of my contemporaries the idea that IQ difference between two persons is an unbridgeable social barrier. An expression of the same idea by a different author is "The child of 180 IQ has one of the most difficult problems of social adjustment that any human being is ever called upon to meet." But when I went to live in east Asia as I studied Chinese, I discovered that this view is largely confined to Western culture. Confucius said, "三人行，必有我師焉" ("where there are three persons walking, surely my teacher is among them") and expected to learn from anyone in his environment. Ancient Chinese culture didn't differ at all from ancient Western culture in noticing that people differ in ability, but it expected high-ability people to use their ability to get along with other people. That was a refreshing idea to me when I first heard of it. It's an idea I try to share with all my smartest friends in the West. And of course Lewis Terman, developer of the first IQ test widely used in English-speaking schools, the Stanford-Binet test, wrote, "There are, however, certain characteristics of age scores with which the reader should be familiar. For one thing, it is necessary to bear in mind that the true mental age as we have used it refers to the mental age on a particular intelligence test. A subject's mental age in this sense may not coincide with the age score he would make in tests of musical ability, mechanical ability, social adjustment, etc. A subject has, strictly speaking, a number of mental ages; we are here concerned only with that which depends on the abilities tested by the new Stanford-Binet scales." (Terman & Merrill 1937, p. 25) Update after noting a helpful comment by another participant: Yes, it can be helpful for learners who learn readily and find school easy when they are young to find other young people of similar ability to spend time with. That helps all those learners learn that they still have plenty to learn, and are likely to have opportunity to keep on learning from other people all their lives. School settings with underchallenging curricula in the interest of "self-esteem" and with prohibitions on ability grouping don't allow this valuable form of social learning. As Richard Rusczyk puts it, "If ever you are by far the best, or the most interested, student in a classroom, then you should find another classroom. Students of like interest and ability feed off of each other. They learn from each other; they challenge and inspire each other." http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/articles.php?page=calculustrap http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/articles.php?pa...
JanezStupar 15y ago
Disarm. Don't be an ass. Be weak. Be self-deprecating. Build Ethos. Bullshit. Building ethos has nothing to do with playing it down. As long as you do and talk only what you are sure and confident of and politely abstain from what you are not. Then you have disarmed and conquered. Ethos is your projection on other people. And self-depreciation is not a way to impress other people. It shows that you are insecure and frankly, dumb. A smart person never points out his weaknesses, you may show that you are vulnerable - but any kind of drama ruins it. There are countless strategies for social interaction. But none of the winning entail hiding in the corner and weeping.
- sp332 15y ago
  I think "be weak" only meant "be humble", or to put it another way, don't make a show of strength. Also, I think by ethos he meant https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ethos#Rhetoric https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ethos#Rhetori...
  - JanezStupar 15y ago
    But one can be courteous and gentle and strong at the same time. A gentleman if you will. Humility is for peasants not for those whom they aspire towards. And this is exactly the ethos I am talking about. Doing anything self-deprecating is hurting your value proposition if you will. Thus one must strive to appear powerful, yet abstain from insulting the observers. Humility has nothing to do with winning peoples respect - quite the contrary.
- hrabago 15y ago
  Based on your comment here, and your comments on other posts, I think you're among the target audience of this post.
  - JanezStupar 15y ago
    huh? Would you care to explain what I did wrong? I chose to disagree with one of the points of the blog. And I chose so because it is incredibly bad advice. If you have problem with the tone of my opinion - I have to say that advice was incredibly lousy and thus the tone of my comment reflects that. The biggest problem audience like HN's (a lot of smart and socially awkward people) has is the one of lack of self promotion skills. These people are already too humble and too weak. What you might misconceive of me is - that I am not commenting here for self-promotion. I am commenting here to share my knowledge and to receive feedback - just like yours. So from my viewpoint I am trying to increase S/N ratio by cutting down on courteousness. I can afford to do that since most of HN audience is well educated enough to know that opinions are ones own and thus know not to take things personally. Also another strategy I use is the one of provocation. The provocation aimed at the kind of person I am hoping to entice here - leads to a more frank and to the point debate. The side cost is that there is a lot of emotion intermixed - but the sought information is usually still there. So while some people tend to exchange niceities and shallow conversation amongst wide circle of people - I want to hear opinions from people who have them.
lloeki 15y ago
This is why the term "clue-bat" rejoices my nerd mind so much, as we all know deep inside that it's an oxymoron. One cannot forcibly insert clue into someone by wielding metaphorical instruments head on. The most effective LART is not a bat, it's lead poisoning. Yup, leading someone closer to truth (whatever that means) is something that requires patience and subtlety. It's a puzzle in itself, only sometimes the problem at hand needs no derailing towards enlightenment of clueless folks, for various constraints of time and complexity are prevailing, thus you wish you had some magical tool at hand, skipping the hand-holding process altogether, so that finally, can we move forward now, please? Yet sometimes, the inexperienced, naive mind comes in and utters words of magic, triggering the process towards a brilliant solution that could have not emerged from our overarching minds, clouded by our experience and knowledge. This kind of emergence is one that we should learn to recognize and not mistakenly quench before it had time to bloom. Maybe we're smart dorks, but we should be open-minded ones.
citricsquid 15y ago
This isn't about social skills, it's about not being a dick. I am socially awkward, I struggle to talk to people and I can't maintain eye contact, but I sure as hell know "You're a moron and your beliefs are idiotic" isn't a nice thing to say. Are there seriously people who think that this is appropriate (and use "Sorry I'm socially awkward" as an excuse)?
- michaelochurch 15y ago
  I don't think people (except for the most abrasive) actually say "you're a moron and your beliefs are idiotic". It's more smug and subtle than that, but yes, there are a lot of people who palpably write others off as inferior because of such beliefs. I had this experience as a liberal in a conservative social group at one point in my life. Where it's most jarring is with religion. I don't object if people believe or don't believe in a God, but I do find it bizarre how many people out there will automatically write someone off as a moron just because that person has any religious beliefs. Sure, there are a lot of moronic religious beliefs and idiotic religious people, but not everyone who has religious beliefs is an intolerant idiot.
  - eitland 15y ago
    And to take it one step furter: Being intolerant idots seems to be unrelated to religious beliefs. Earlier on, when more people had religious beliefs, most intolerant people of course were religious. Now, not so much.
    - michaelochurch 15y ago
      What impresses me as I get older is how little, good or bad, is correlated to a person holding religious beliefs. A fair number of people think that a belief in God makes them a better person. That may be, but there are a lot of great people who don't believe in any higher power or afterlife, and I don't see a correlation either way. My suspicion is that most good people who believe in God would still be good people if they didn't believe in God or an afterlife. There are others (on the atheistic side) who argue that belief in God is unreasonable and a sign of a feeble mind, but there's no evidence for that either. I do think certain strains of belief (i.e. fundamentalism) appeal to the worst of humanity, but these don't account for most religious believers. I think one of the major issues is that the common religious labels (Christian, atheist, Buddhist) are so broad as to be effectively meaningless. You can be a smart, liberal, universalist Christian, a spiritual atheist who believes in life after death, an observant Jew who believes in reincarnation, or an intolerant, conservative Buddhist. (For each of those descriptions, I can name at least a few meeting them.) So any claim made about "atheists" or "Christians" or "Muslims" as a group is going to be nearly meaningless. I definitely think there is a lot in religion that has immense transformative power (for good and bad) but the mere matter of whether a person has religious beliefs or not or belongs to a religious organization seems to say very little about that person.
Psyonic 15y ago
The focus on being a spy is useful but ultimately misguided. The real problem is being so cocksure to begin with. You DON'T know everything, and other people generally do have something to offer.
- cageface 15y ago
  Exactly. The thing I find fascinating about human social interaction is its richness. It's confusing not because it's trivial, but because its so complex and approximate, unlike the rigid and hyper-rational world we techies like to inhabit. If you're patient enough to probe beneath the surface, it's not just a debate of the merits of Justin Bieber, it's an incredibly nuanced group negotiation of power and identity, with rules far more complex than those of any software stack.
michaelochurch 15y ago
Meh. This "one-two" thing seems disingenuous. It's good to be slightly self-deprecating in the sense of knowing what you don't know and having a sense of humor, but presenting oneself as an idiot is just dumb. I think it's best to take the attitude of, "I'm good, but this person might be smarter, or at least know something I'd benefit to learn". What I think smart people could be better at is separating stupid ideas from stupid people. Most smart people have stupid ideas on occasion, and I've certainly had my share. It happens.
- Zak 15y ago
  I wish I could agree with you here, but there's a lot of distrust of smart people especially in some parts of the US. If you are immediately and obviously smart, some people will tend to think you will use your intelligence to trick or manipulate them or that you have a hidden agenda. It's unfortunate, but it does make sense to view someone more intelligent than you with a little bit of suspicion if they're trying to persuade you of something. The reason is that if they're trying to trick you, they have a head start due to the disparity in intelligence. Of course, someone with superior social skills is even more dangerous in that sense.
rkon 15y ago
The problem isn't with intelligence, it's the fact that gifted kids are often left in average classrooms rather than placed among their peers. Everyone is liable to develop awkward social habits if they grow up outside their peer group, regardless of how intelligent they are. Also, a lot of the traits people mention when talking about smart, awkward people are common signs of Asperger's...
- ChrisMac 15y ago
  In my experience I haven't seen much link between gifted students being with their peers and their social awkwardness. I knew people in the program at my school, as well as several kids who qualified for it but their parents kept them in the regular stream. There were awkward and non-awkward people in each category. The biggest determinant seemed to be what their personality and interests were already like going in.
pw 15y ago
Neologism alert: "Doing this in the wrong way Schrutes your whole mission. Doing this in the right way makes you Ani Difranco, or Bob Dylan."
aj700 15y ago
http://www.succeedsocially.com/intellectual http://www.succeedsocially.com/intellectual was more helpful to me.
- mousa 15y ago
  None of this nor the OP applies to me. Not just the smart part, but when I see the work awkward, I think of a different set of problems. I get along with people just fine and I'm not confrontational, but I can never really relax when I'm around people without an agenda because I don't know what I'm supposed to be talking about. That's what I'd hoped to read about.
- lhnz 15y ago
  I actually found some of that quite annoying. It described the behaviour of many intellectuals, and kind of inherently made it all out to be mistakes, like this: "They may have a mentality where it just feels 'wrong' to let a mistake slide. They may feel they just have to say something, and get a sense that they're restoring balance to the universe by sharing the Truth with others." But who's to say it's not wrong to let a mistake slide? If everybody acted exactly as the author recommended nothing would ever get done...
  - ChrisMac 15y ago
    I think what the article is saying is not that never correcting a mistake is bad, but that pointlessly correcting people about minor things in the wrong context can be annoying.
shuaib 15y ago
Wait a second... there is something wrong with that One-Two. One: Be self-deprecating!? Show you are weak and clueless? In short, a false image? Two: Be brilliant, and prove you were being a dick with the first step. Giving a false image, be it over valuing yourself or the opposite, knowingly, belong to the same category in my belief. It is the silent, humble, but brilliant opponent/partner that has my highest regards.
feral 15y ago
I notice most comments broadly support this message. Well, I think you are all stupid and wrong ;P (kidding!) But I do believe there is a big difference between being humble, and being falsely humble. I believe in being humble, to a point, but typically not in being falsely humble. Being humble is generally good. Maybe you are better at maths than someone, or better at arguing logically. It is good to be humble, and to realise that even if you are smarter than someone in one dimension, they may still have plenty to teach you, and that there may still be a lot of worth to what they say. As a result, its a mistake to write off their beliefs, or to come out and perhaps tell them you are smarter 'overall'! But I think its ethically problematic when you decide to 'one-two' other people, by deliberately downplaying your abilities. The author is effectively saying "You know you are smarter - but you should hide that, so you can effectively manipulate others." I don't think this is a good attitude. For one, I think it shows the very social cluelessness that the author is accusing others of. Your human relationships should not be treated as if you were a spy behind enemy lines. If you think this is an appropriate framework with which to reason about your human relationships, you are doing something /very wrong/. I think the attitude expressed in the blog post, is, frankly, condescending, manipulative, and very patronising to the people the author chooses to mislead. If someone did that to me, I'd lose respect for them. Now, I must make two things clear: While I think its good to strive for honesty in human relationships, obviously you have to take care for other peoples feelings. It is, of course, necessary, to give gentle feedback, or to sometimes leave things unsaid, for the greater good. But this should ideally be done with their interests in mind - not yours. And sometimes - perhaps you are in a critical business context, where some one who genuinely is a moron in the ways that matter, and not a nice person, and is going to cause your company a lot of damage, unless you massage their ego - or perhaps you are, indeed, a spy; in which case it is necessary to use techniques like the authors 'one-two'. But this should be used only when its unavoidable. Its not a desirable state of affairs, and its not what we should aspire to in our interpersonal relationships. If you build this culture in your startup, for example, you'll have a situation where people won't know they can trust each others opinions. The author writes: >"Even after you know it was a lie, the false-humility still gives you warm feelings. Now when this guy later turns around and says "Aw, naw, not really; well, I guess kind of I dabble in the Ultimate Truth", I'll probably listen." Well, I'd instantly be suspicious that whatever he was telling me about the ultimate truth, was to serve his own ends. Be nice to people, definitely - but strive for honesty, and don't set out to manipulate.
lnanek 15y ago
The article talks about the importance of being a spy, as it calls it, as a social skill. Another important facet of that is to realize that other people often act as spies, but don't mean any harm by it. They'll say super nice things and say them over and over again and often not add any new useful facts or say anything outright. Throw in polite excuses and white lies where they won't actually say what is wrong or why they won't do something or where they'll say obvious lies that you aren't supposed to question. This makes it very difficult for someone who just wants all the facts on the table, feelings be dammed, so they can make a decision. It can seem like the spies are lying manipulators, but their intention is often just to be friendly and get along with others. They consider being friendly more important than being factually correct.
dhughes 15y ago
I once heard someone say something along the lines of "not accepting praise for being skilled isn't humility it's arrogance". Know when you're good and accept a compliment don't feign being stupid.
- tokenadult 15y ago
  Know when you're good and accept a compliment don't feign being stupid. This is standard advice that I would readily accept in a Western cultural context. (For these purposes, HN is a Western cultural context, even though it has participants from all over the world.) But please note that in some cultures, declining compliments is not false modesty, but simply the standard form of politeness. For example, when speaking Chinese, if someone has just told me that I speak Chinese well (which would be a compliment, perhaps not deserved), the standard polite way for me to reply would be to say, "I speak Chinese poorly." The most striking example of this pattern of politeness, which extends not only to the speaker personally but to persons closely associated with the speaker, was when I met the Korean husband of a Korean woman who had been my classmate already for several months by the time I met her husband. The conversation, conducted in Chinese, consisted of some other person saying to him, "Your wife is quite beautiful," to which he replied, IN HER HEARING, "No, she is very ugly," contrary to fact, for politeness. If the cultural context is clear, everybody knows how to interpret such statements (with both the effusive praise and the denials by the praised persons being counted as conventional politeness) and no one is offended on either side.
  - dhughes 15y ago
    That's quite interesting, a bit horrifying to anyone learning a new language which I guess shows knowing a language doesn't mean knowing the culture. I'm always worried about hand gestures now I have to make sure I know the code of the culture.
daimyoyo 15y ago
I guess I'm not as socially awkward as I'd thought. Within 5 minutes of meeting most people I've decided that they're idiots(usually they don't try to hide it) but I'm smart enough to keep my opinions to myself. There are two reasons why: First, I realize telling people that they're wrong and exactly why isn't likely to inspire anything but contempt; and more importantly, I understand that when you argue with an idiot you don't lift the idiot up, they drag you down. So why bother? Perhaps this blogger isn't smarter than everyone else, he's just a dick and isn't self aware of his condition.
giberson 15y ago
I'm an awkward smart guy, but I'm not an egotistical ass. I'd really love a guide for social situations that would actually be of use. Mainly it would address: -When in a social situation, other than silence, how am I suppose to participate or excuse myself from participating in a discussion about american idol or some other topic to which I have no knowledge and may perhaps despise? Neither being quite, admitting I don't follow said topic are well received. Isn't there a positive way out of this dilemma? -When some one brings up something sad or bad that has happened is "I'm sorry to hear that" or "Don't worry, it will get better" really enough of a response? Frankly I find it hard to offer these "words of comfort" when I find no comfort in them myself. As a realistic person, I realize that sentiment does not alter a situation so it's hard to be encouraging. Should I just say them regardless? -When discussing something with some one there are occasions when I'm genuinely curious as to why they have a certain line of reasoning. I want to ask "why do you think that?" but it always comes off condescending. This is especially true when perhaps we are discussing a problem and I know the solution and they do not. I want to know what the reasoning behind their solution is rather than just telling them it's wrong or what the correct solution is--however when trying to ask them their reasoning I can't come up with a way to do it without sounding condescending. Should I not bother? -When walking leaving my office and entering the hallway, how close should a person be entering the hallway from the opposite direction be before I wave or say hello. If I wait to long, they think I ignore them. If I do it to early, then theres a great length of time that we are both still walking down the hall and having used my throw-away "Hey" I have nothing left to offer them. It's awkward. -Is there a method/statement for suggesting an attempt at becoming friends with some one? "Hey, want to be friends" is unutterable for me. No matter how I imagine saying that line it feels pathetic. If I don't drink beer or coffee is there anything else to ask someone out to do in order to have some bonding time? -How to accept a compliment. Thanks or agreement feels egotistical. Trying to act as humble by playing it down doesn't seem to be received well either.
- tokenadult 15y ago
  When some one brings up something sad or bad that has happened is "I'm sorry to hear that" or "Don't worry, it will get better" really enough of a response? You ask a very important question, because we all have occasion to hear other people's announcements of bad news. Expressing some sympathy is better than doing nothing, and is (if my experience is any guide) comforting to the person who announced the bad news. Among my several hundred Facebook friends (many of whom I know mostly via common subscription to email lists discussing parenting issues), there are friends who I don't know WELL, and whom I am unable to give any practical help, who nonetheless seem to appreciate me saying things like "Get well soon" or "I hope you get over that in a while" or even just "That's rough." Just acknowledging a fellow human being's common trouble from being part of the human condition seems to help somewhat. Perhaps I haven't given you a great deal of practical help by this reply, but I did want to reply to acknowledge that you are grappling with a tough problem.
pbreit 15y ago
Two points: 1) "Smart" people should be able to figure this out. 2) Great answer to "What does it feel like to be the smartest person in the room? I'm in the wrong room."
s00pcan 15y ago
No one has mentioned this book yet? It's what I expected this article to be like. Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PUHbK9h-44 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PUHbK9h-44
erikb 15y ago
Isn't it interesting to seee, that this thread got so many points, without actually beeing a good post? Every comment I read is actually disagreeing with the author. And yet the topic is so interesting to everyone that the result is exciting for everyone and the post a success for the author. There is a big lecture here for everyone. You can actually do something awkward if the direction is somehow important to the other people around you. Because in the end your social success is not about you. It is about what is important for the other people.
Read_the_Genes 15y ago
The smartest man in the room is a fool if he makes others look foolish. -Ancient Chinese proverb
- lhnz 15y ago
  Source? I can't find it on Google.
  - westicle 15y ago
    Probably ancient China.
Hawramani 15y ago
I'm socially awkward and after reading lots of books on this topic I've come to realize that social skills are just that, skills. You get better at social situations the more time you spend in them. You'll never get good at them by sitting at a computer reading books about how to get good at them. Most of us geeks do not have social skills because we haven't spent as much time as 'normal' people interacting with others. I have spent thousands of hours on computers, time I could have spent doing things with other human beings. Instead of being great at interacting with others, I'm predictably good at interacting with computers. There is no shortcut for gaining social skills[0], and no book is going to solve all of our 'problems', or even a quarter of them. I'd say if you read a book on better friendships or public speaking and this improves your skills by 3% then it must have been a truly fantastic book. The only solution is for us to engage in a lot of interactions with others, if for some reason we deem it worthy of our time. For example, if a guy is terribly shy during business lunches, the only solution is for him to keep throwing himself into that situation again and again. After 100 or 200, or 1000 lunches most of his business lunch awkwardness will have gone away. But is getting better at interacting with people worth the time we could have spent getting better at interacting with computers[1]? Maybe for some[2]. [0] None that I have found. [1] Through learning more about a programming language or an OS, etc. [2] For example if you decide to choose a career that greatly depends on effective human interaction.
- wallflower 15y ago
  > But is getting better at interacting with people worth the time we could have spent getting better at interacting with computers I can attribute almost all my freelance work to direct personal relationships. That formed through working on projects together and sharing (many) beers. The secret about the iOS contracting world is that most people are capable of doing the work once they are competent - but if they do not know people who know people at small and big companies - they won't get some contracts. Referrals are huge.
solarlion 15y ago
This is great advice for teachers also. I have noticed that the best teachers I have encountered are masters of both self-deprecation and storytelling - generally mixed together. When you subsequently get schooled by them, somehow you don't feel so beat up by the process. ... "well, I guess kind of I dabble in the Ultimate Truth" classic.
mrkva 15y ago
Yesterday I was thinking about exactly same thing, and buuum here I go :). Thanks!
nametoremember 15y ago
Somewhere along the line of my life, I sacrificed some smartness for social skills. I am glad I did when I read some things on here.
- nametoremember 15y ago
  Did I offended someone? I developed my social skills around 15/16. Before that I was set to be socially awkward and I was quite shy. I put my self in situations were I could mature socially - which I did. My grades dropped because I wasn't studying all the time but I am glad of it. I read things here like "I'm not sure when to wave", "How do I leave a conversation?" etc. Those things are natural to me now.
k7d 15y ago
Anyone feeling socially awkward should read Dale Carnegie
known 15y ago
Learn how to accommodate/appreciate adverse/diverse people.
iAinsley 15y ago
Are you still consider smart if you cannot recognize social cues, Or are you just a gifted savant?
mkr-hn 15y ago
I'm surprised at all the light derision toward American Idol in this thread. I would think a show about average people putting themselves out in front of millions for a shot at something bigger would be appealing to people who hang out here.
compuerase38278 15y ago
State Space Dimensions: intelligence, social skills, hard work, honesty 1.)most folks are lazy and anti - hard work because of 'learned helplessness. Your car is stuck on ice. so you spin your tires and create more water and ice. 2.)not smart enough to program? can't get a job? then, cheat and avoid honesty. 3.)make up for it in social skills. Be everybody's BEST FRIEND like the politicians. shake hands, kiss babies. 4.)Be intelligent. Keep asking tough questions and studying. Alas, the world, especially in the U.S.A. is anti-intellgectual and ANTI-intelligence. so the stags are: 1.)intelligence and NOT honest. - pretend to be surprised at how good you are. 2.)intelligence and social skills. Great career as actor or politican. Manipulate others, so that others share your strong mind. quote: Star Wars: These are NOT the droids you are looking for. 3.)intelligence and hard work. Pretend to be lazy and even sloppy. Obviously, never talk about religion and politics. Get elected, win the lottery and make BIG MONEY, with no hard work. The girl is NOT interested in how ou REWIRED HER CAR for hands free music or diagnosed the subtle vacuum leak via computer codes. SHE LOVES THAT YOU HAND WAXED the car, so she can show it off to her friends. Nice that the girl knows you are working on 'the next big thing to google's pagerank algol.' SO WHAT! The real estate broker (who dropped out of high school) charms her with his BIG ROLL OF CASH. For you younger geeks aka awkward smarty pants. Get the small onsulting gig/contract with WALL STREET, New York City. Gals love an I-banker - investment banker. or in LA its the same as FOREIGN FILM DIRECTOR to actresses. arrogant? or being honest? abrasive and judgemental? or being provacative, and analytical-critical? School is weak and often irrelevant. Read some of the PhD thesis (my hobby) online. some garbage and some DRIVEL. criticism often is just speaking TRUTH. Einstein and a few folks I know (maybe me) have corrected teachers with their WRONG and INACCURATE questions. Many of the SAT exams have AMBIGUOUS questions, so theoretically there is a score above the top score of 800. This means YOU ARE SMARTER than the rules/exam!
Jach 15y ago
This post is ironic in that it's smug and insulting (though in a typically passive-aggressive way--few are ever direct with "you're ugly and stupid"), and without actually analyzing the beliefs of anyone who disagrees it lumps the "beliefs" into one category. Quotes like: "Great. Good luck with that. Oh, and by the way, your cause will die, I promise." and "I can hear your retort, oh ye smart and lonely." don't make me want to read further. False humility? Screw that. http://lesswrong.com/lw/gq/the_proper_use_of_humility/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/gq/the_proper_use_of_humility/ As others have noted, this post has nothing to do with bad social skills. If you want to learn how to manipulate people, fine, and one could argue that's an aspect of social skills. Figuring out how to avoid awkward silences with people who aren't comfortable with them? Wondering how to invite people over to your home? Wondering what verbiage to use when asking someone out on a date? This post won't help you there.
mannicken 15y ago
I used the one-two in my job applications. Cover letter that describes how I'm a high school drop-out who will probably od in a very near future, then a resume that blows the mind.
onan_barbarian 15y ago
Awkward 'smart' people could improve their prospects a great deal by not spending so much time thinking about how 'smart' they are, not to mention incessantly posting on-line about it. I am still mildly horrified about how frequently discussions like this turn into thinly (or not so thinly) veiled self-praise... "oh, the reason I have such problems socially is because I'm so goddamn smart". Good luck with that, pal. Here's a tip: Stop. Being. So. Fucking. Smug. My experience with the 'smartest guy in the room' syndrome is that it seems to be most rife amongst people that haven't exactly been seeking out rooms full of smart (or smarter) people.
rvkennedy 15y ago
This should really be a wiki - tricks, techniques and shortcuts for all kinds of social situations for the autistically spectralized.
tkahn6 15y ago
This is a comment I made.
- throwaway1818 15y ago
  This is a reply.

273 points by KennethMyers 15y ago

zafka 15y ago

Thanks! I know this stuff, but i keep forgetting. :)

ary 15y ago

Immediate up-vote for the flagrant flaunting of Godwin's law.

mrleinad 15y ago

Please, someone send this to Richard Stallman, fast.

s00pcan 15y ago
I watched a video of him picking something from his foot and eating it (during a question and answer setting full of people and, obviously cameras). But really, what does it matter if he doesn't mind?
- flipp 15y ago
  The video in question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I25UeVXrEHQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I25UeVXrEHQ
  - marshray 15y ago
    I feel ill. Wait a minute, I've just been cured of nail-biting. I feel the glory! Stallman is truly a saint!! All hail St. Ignucius!
Jach 15y ago
And Linus Torvalds. Oh wait, he's rude and publicly successful, a counter-example to this post. Oh well. All hail the post!

pathik 15y ago

The old One-Two or UPOD (Underpromise and Overdeliver) really works. But only for the first time.

Shamiq 15y ago
A bit more semantic on "first time": It contiunes to work until the recipient actually begins to pay attention to who you are and what you're doing. At which point, the approach may need tweaking to retain efficacy.

Gaussian 15y ago

I've found the smartest people I know tend to embrace the ethos of this piece almost instinctively. As for those who have to be spoon-fed these strategies? Well, in short: they're not as smart.

sidek 15y ago
Now, I would argue that you can't necessarily measure this; those you are convinced are the smartest could be significantly less smart, but may be able to trick you into thinking they are the smartest through social skills. In any case, though, I agree to some degree- the smartest can adapt well to most situations, including social ones.
ElliotH 15y ago
I'd agree. It's quite easy to question the intelligence of someone who tries to socialise, finds it fails again and again, notices that everyone else has no difficulty but assumes the problem is with everyone else.
Skalman 15y ago
Well - I guess "smart" is just a word that's difficult to define. I think the definition used by the OP is something along the lines of being better at academical subjects, which clearly isn't your only criteria. I for one used to be quite awkward, but had awesome friends that pointed out what (not) to do. Am I less smart for not having figured that out on my own? Perhaps, but I don't think it's relevant how skills are obtained.
joelmichael 15y ago
Is this ironic? The article is about not calling people idiots and treating them with respect. Is what you said respectful of people who need to be "spoon-fed" these ideas?
entangld 15y ago
The dilemma of defining smart as "can figure out what to do" is that it puts no limitations on intelligence. Some of these skills are not mastered for multiple reasons: emotional ones like fear and apprehension or lack of familiarity with cultural differences, expectations, etc... Smart people still have limits.

jwuphysics 15y ago

I wish that people had told me earlier that it's possible to be both smart and not awkward. Circa sixth grade, I gave up my academic life for my social life. Now I'm in CMU desperately trying to get above 50th percentile.

sp332 15y ago
CMU? 50th percentile? Congratulations on finding a community of people who are amazing enough to make you look normal :)
- jwuphysics 15y ago
  I'm making strides but it's still a far cry from high school, where I was easily one of the smartest kids without ever trying. Coming to CMU definitely humbled me quite a bit! But that aside, I'm still not content with being normal. When I sold out my intelligence, it meant years of hard work on socializing and stuff (seriously. It's hard work). Now that I'm stepping back into academics, I'm aiming for the top again. But it's so much harder the second time around :(
  - asrk 15y ago
    It's actually the first time if you never had to try before. I think this is an issue that lots of people having an easy time in HS have, we actually need to learn how to study once things get more complex.
    - jwuphysics 15y ago
      I actually don't think I was ever "naturally intelligent". My current grades prove that. But the reason I could cruise through high school was because my parents drilled me with algebra, vocabulary quizzes, geography, and Montessori school when I was 4-9 years old. That undeniably put me ahead for the next ten or so years.
nostrademons 15y ago
I faced the same choice circa eight grade. Gave up my academic life for my social life. Miraculously made it into Amherst, then nearly flunked out of Amherst twice. Made the opposite choice when I was 23, giving up my social life for my academic/professional life. Worked great, wrote some popular computing stuff, got into Google, worked on high-profile & high impact projects. I was miserable. I'm still trying to figure out a balance between them.

tokenadult 15y ago

The submitted blog post is a humorous treatment of a topic studied in the scholarly literature. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=social+skills+gifted http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=social+skills+gifted http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=social+adjustment+profoundly+gifted http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=social+adjustment+profou... The submitted examples are almost frighteningly true-to-life. I gained perspective on social skills from travel. ("The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.") In my school days in the United States, I read a short story by Philip K. Dick that gave me and many of my contemporaries the idea that IQ difference between two persons is an unbridgeable social barrier. An expression of the same idea by a different author is "The child of 180 IQ has one of the most difficult problems of social adjustment that any human being is ever called upon to meet." But when I went to live in east Asia as I studied Chinese, I discovered that this view is largely confined to Western culture. Confucius said, "三人行，必有我師焉" ("where there are three persons walking, surely my teacher is among them") and expected to learn from anyone in his environment. Ancient Chinese culture didn't differ at all from ancient Western culture in noticing that people differ in ability, but it expected high-ability people to use their ability to get along with other people. That was a refreshing idea to me when I first heard of it. It's an idea I try to share with all my smartest friends in the West. And of course Lewis Terman, developer of the first IQ test widely used in English-speaking schools, the Stanford-Binet test, wrote, "There are, however, certain characteristics of age scores with which the reader should be familiar. For one thing, it is necessary to bear in mind that the true mental age as we have used it refers to the mental age on a particular intelligence test. A subject's mental age in this sense may not coincide with the age score he would make in tests of musical ability, mechanical ability, social adjustment, etc. A subject has, strictly speaking, a number of mental ages; we are here concerned only with that which depends on the abilities tested by the new Stanford-Binet scales." (Terman & Merrill 1937, p. 25) Update after noting a helpful comment by another participant: Yes, it can be helpful for learners who learn readily and find school easy when they are young to find other young people of similar ability to spend time with. That helps all those learners learn that they still have plenty to learn, and are likely to have opportunity to keep on learning from other people all their lives. School settings with underchallenging curricula in the interest of "self-esteem" and with prohibitions on ability grouping don't allow this valuable form of social learning. As Richard Rusczyk puts it, "If ever you are by far the best, or the most interested, student in a classroom, then you should find another classroom. Students of like interest and ability feed off of each other. They learn from each other; they challenge and inspire each other." http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/articles.php?page=calculustrap http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/articles.php?pa...

JanezStupar 15y ago

Disarm. Don't be an ass. Be weak. Be self-deprecating. Build Ethos. Bullshit. Building ethos has nothing to do with playing it down. As long as you do and talk only what you are sure and confident of and politely abstain from what you are not. Then you have disarmed and conquered. Ethos is your projection on other people. And self-depreciation is not a way to impress other people. It shows that you are insecure and frankly, dumb. A smart person never points out his weaknesses, you may show that you are vulnerable - but any kind of drama ruins it. There are countless strategies for social interaction. But none of the winning entail hiding in the corner and weeping.

sp332 15y ago
I think "be weak" only meant "be humble", or to put it another way, don't make a show of strength. Also, I think by ethos he meant https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ethos#Rhetoric https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ethos#Rhetori...
- JanezStupar 15y ago
  But one can be courteous and gentle and strong at the same time. A gentleman if you will. Humility is for peasants not for those whom they aspire towards. And this is exactly the ethos I am talking about. Doing anything self-deprecating is hurting your value proposition if you will. Thus one must strive to appear powerful, yet abstain from insulting the observers. Humility has nothing to do with winning peoples respect - quite the contrary.
hrabago 15y ago
Based on your comment here, and your comments on other posts, I think you're among the target audience of this post.
- JanezStupar 15y ago
  huh? Would you care to explain what I did wrong? I chose to disagree with one of the points of the blog. And I chose so because it is incredibly bad advice. If you have problem with the tone of my opinion - I have to say that advice was incredibly lousy and thus the tone of my comment reflects that. The biggest problem audience like HN's (a lot of smart and socially awkward people) has is the one of lack of self promotion skills. These people are already too humble and too weak. What you might misconceive of me is - that I am not commenting here for self-promotion. I am commenting here to share my knowledge and to receive feedback - just like yours. So from my viewpoint I am trying to increase S/N ratio by cutting down on courteousness. I can afford to do that since most of HN audience is well educated enough to know that opinions are ones own and thus know not to take things personally. Also another strategy I use is the one of provocation. The provocation aimed at the kind of person I am hoping to entice here - leads to a more frank and to the point debate. The side cost is that there is a lot of emotion intermixed - but the sought information is usually still there. So while some people tend to exchange niceities and shallow conversation amongst wide circle of people - I want to hear opinions from people who have them.

lloeki 15y ago

This is why the term "clue-bat" rejoices my nerd mind so much, as we all know deep inside that it's an oxymoron. One cannot forcibly insert clue into someone by wielding metaphorical instruments head on. The most effective LART is not a bat, it's lead poisoning. Yup, leading someone closer to truth (whatever that means) is something that requires patience and subtlety. It's a puzzle in itself, only sometimes the problem at hand needs no derailing towards enlightenment of clueless folks, for various constraints of time and complexity are prevailing, thus you wish you had some magical tool at hand, skipping the hand-holding process altogether, so that finally, can we move forward now, please? Yet sometimes, the inexperienced, naive mind comes in and utters words of magic, triggering the process towards a brilliant solution that could have not emerged from our overarching minds, clouded by our experience and knowledge. This kind of emergence is one that we should learn to recognize and not mistakenly quench before it had time to bloom. Maybe we're smart dorks, but we should be open-minded ones.

citricsquid 15y ago

This isn't about social skills, it's about not being a dick. I am socially awkward, I struggle to talk to people and I can't maintain eye contact, but I sure as hell know "You're a moron and your beliefs are idiotic" isn't a nice thing to say. Are there seriously people who think that this is appropriate (and use "Sorry I'm socially awkward" as an excuse)?

michaelochurch 15y ago
I don't think people (except for the most abrasive) actually say "you're a moron and your beliefs are idiotic". It's more smug and subtle than that, but yes, there are a lot of people who palpably write others off as inferior because of such beliefs. I had this experience as a liberal in a conservative social group at one point in my life. Where it's most jarring is with religion. I don't object if people believe or don't believe in a God, but I do find it bizarre how many people out there will automatically write someone off as a moron just because that person has any religious beliefs. Sure, there are a lot of moronic religious beliefs and idiotic religious people, but not everyone who has religious beliefs is an intolerant idiot.
- eitland 15y ago
  And to take it one step furter: Being intolerant idots seems to be unrelated to religious beliefs. Earlier on, when more people had religious beliefs, most intolerant people of course were religious. Now, not so much.
  - michaelochurch 15y ago
    What impresses me as I get older is how little, good or bad, is correlated to a person holding religious beliefs. A fair number of people think that a belief in God makes them a better person. That may be, but there are a lot of great people who don't believe in any higher power or afterlife, and I don't see a correlation either way. My suspicion is that most good people who believe in God would still be good people if they didn't believe in God or an afterlife. There are others (on the atheistic side) who argue that belief in God is unreasonable and a sign of a feeble mind, but there's no evidence for that either. I do think certain strains of belief (i.e. fundamentalism) appeal to the worst of humanity, but these don't account for most religious believers. I think one of the major issues is that the common religious labels (Christian, atheist, Buddhist) are so broad as to be effectively meaningless. You can be a smart, liberal, universalist Christian, a spiritual atheist who believes in life after death, an observant Jew who believes in reincarnation, or an intolerant, conservative Buddhist. (For each of those descriptions, I can name at least a few meeting them.) So any claim made about "atheists" or "Christians" or "Muslims" as a group is going to be nearly meaningless. I definitely think there is a lot in religion that has immense transformative power (for good and bad) but the mere matter of whether a person has religious beliefs or not or belongs to a religious organization seems to say very little about that person.

Psyonic 15y ago

The focus on being a spy is useful but ultimately misguided. The real problem is being so cocksure to begin with. You DON'T know everything, and other people generally do have something to offer.

cageface 15y ago
Exactly. The thing I find fascinating about human social interaction is its richness. It's confusing not because it's trivial, but because its so complex and approximate, unlike the rigid and hyper-rational world we techies like to inhabit. If you're patient enough to probe beneath the surface, it's not just a debate of the merits of Justin Bieber, it's an incredibly nuanced group negotiation of power and identity, with rules far more complex than those of any software stack.

michaelochurch 15y ago

Meh. This "one-two" thing seems disingenuous. It's good to be slightly self-deprecating in the sense of knowing what you don't know and having a sense of humor, but presenting oneself as an idiot is just dumb. I think it's best to take the attitude of, "I'm good, but this person might be smarter, or at least know something I'd benefit to learn". What I think smart people could be better at is separating stupid ideas from stupid people. Most smart people have stupid ideas on occasion, and I've certainly had my share. It happens.

Zak 15y ago
I wish I could agree with you here, but there's a lot of distrust of smart people especially in some parts of the US. If you are immediately and obviously smart, some people will tend to think you will use your intelligence to trick or manipulate them or that you have a hidden agenda. It's unfortunate, but it does make sense to view someone more intelligent than you with a little bit of suspicion if they're trying to persuade you of something. The reason is that if they're trying to trick you, they have a head start due to the disparity in intelligence. Of course, someone with superior social skills is even more dangerous in that sense.

rkon 15y ago

The problem isn't with intelligence, it's the fact that gifted kids are often left in average classrooms rather than placed among their peers. Everyone is liable to develop awkward social habits if they grow up outside their peer group, regardless of how intelligent they are. Also, a lot of the traits people mention when talking about smart, awkward people are common signs of Asperger's...

ChrisMac 15y ago
In my experience I haven't seen much link between gifted students being with their peers and their social awkwardness. I knew people in the program at my school, as well as several kids who qualified for it but their parents kept them in the regular stream. There were awkward and non-awkward people in each category. The biggest determinant seemed to be what their personality and interests were already like going in.

pw 15y ago

Neologism alert: "Doing this in the wrong way Schrutes your whole mission. Doing this in the right way makes you Ani Difranco, or Bob Dylan."

aj700 15y ago

http://www.succeedsocially.com/intellectual http://www.succeedsocially.com/intellectual was more helpful to me.

mousa 15y ago
None of this nor the OP applies to me. Not just the smart part, but when I see the work awkward, I think of a different set of problems. I get along with people just fine and I'm not confrontational, but I can never really relax when I'm around people without an agenda because I don't know what I'm supposed to be talking about. That's what I'd hoped to read about.
lhnz 15y ago
I actually found some of that quite annoying. It described the behaviour of many intellectuals, and kind of inherently made it all out to be mistakes, like this: "They may have a mentality where it just feels 'wrong' to let a mistake slide. They may feel they just have to say something, and get a sense that they're restoring balance to the universe by sharing the Truth with others." But who's to say it's not wrong to let a mistake slide? If everybody acted exactly as the author recommended nothing would ever get done...
- ChrisMac 15y ago
  I think what the article is saying is not that never correcting a mistake is bad, but that pointlessly correcting people about minor things in the wrong context can be annoying.

shuaib 15y ago

Wait a second... there is something wrong with that One-Two. One: Be self-deprecating!? Show you are weak and clueless? In short, a false image? Two: Be brilliant, and prove you were being a dick with the first step. Giving a false image, be it over valuing yourself or the opposite, knowingly, belong to the same category in my belief. It is the silent, humble, but brilliant opponent/partner that has my highest regards.

feral 15y ago

I notice most comments broadly support this message. Well, I think you are all stupid and wrong ;P (kidding!) But I do believe there is a big difference between being humble, and being falsely humble. I believe in being humble, to a point, but typically not in being falsely humble. Being humble is generally good. Maybe you are better at maths than someone, or better at arguing logically. It is good to be humble, and to realise that even if you are smarter than someone in one dimension, they may still have plenty to teach you, and that there may still be a lot of worth to what they say. As a result, its a mistake to write off their beliefs, or to come out and perhaps tell them you are smarter 'overall'! But I think its ethically problematic when you decide to 'one-two' other people, by deliberately downplaying your abilities. The author is effectively saying "You know you are smarter - but you should hide that, so you can effectively manipulate others." I don't think this is a good attitude. For one, I think it shows the very social cluelessness that the author is accusing others of. Your human relationships should not be treated as if you were a spy behind enemy lines. If you think this is an appropriate framework with which to reason about your human relationships, you are doing something /very wrong/. I think the attitude expressed in the blog post, is, frankly, condescending, manipulative, and very patronising to the people the author chooses to mislead. If someone did that to me, I'd lose respect for them. Now, I must make two things clear: While I think its good to strive for honesty in human relationships, obviously you have to take care for other peoples feelings. It is, of course, necessary, to give gentle feedback, or to sometimes leave things unsaid, for the greater good. But this should ideally be done with their interests in mind - not yours. And sometimes - perhaps you are in a critical business context, where some one who genuinely is a moron in the ways that matter, and not a nice person, and is going to cause your company a lot of damage, unless you massage their ego - or perhaps you are, indeed, a spy; in which case it is necessary to use techniques like the authors 'one-two'. But this should be used only when its unavoidable. Its not a desirable state of affairs, and its not what we should aspire to in our interpersonal relationships. If you build this culture in your startup, for example, you'll have a situation where people won't know they can trust each others opinions. The author writes: >"Even after you know it was a lie, the false-humility still gives you warm feelings. Now when this guy later turns around and says "Aw, naw, not really; well, I guess kind of I dabble in the Ultimate Truth", I'll probably listen." Well, I'd instantly be suspicious that whatever he was telling me about the ultimate truth, was to serve his own ends. Be nice to people, definitely - but strive for honesty, and don't set out to manipulate.

lnanek 15y ago

The article talks about the importance of being a spy, as it calls it, as a social skill. Another important facet of that is to realize that other people often act as spies, but don't mean any harm by it. They'll say super nice things and say them over and over again and often not add any new useful facts or say anything outright. Throw in polite excuses and white lies where they won't actually say what is wrong or why they won't do something or where they'll say obvious lies that you aren't supposed to question. This makes it very difficult for someone who just wants all the facts on the table, feelings be dammed, so they can make a decision. It can seem like the spies are lying manipulators, but their intention is often just to be friendly and get along with others. They consider being friendly more important than being factually correct.

dhughes 15y ago

I once heard someone say something along the lines of "not accepting praise for being skilled isn't humility it's arrogance". Know when you're good and accept a compliment don't feign being stupid.

tokenadult 15y ago
Know when you're good and accept a compliment don't feign being stupid. This is standard advice that I would readily accept in a Western cultural context. (For these purposes, HN is a Western cultural context, even though it has participants from all over the world.) But please note that in some cultures, declining compliments is not false modesty, but simply the standard form of politeness. For example, when speaking Chinese, if someone has just told me that I speak Chinese well (which would be a compliment, perhaps not deserved), the standard polite way for me to reply would be to say, "I speak Chinese poorly." The most striking example of this pattern of politeness, which extends not only to the speaker personally but to persons closely associated with the speaker, was when I met the Korean husband of a Korean woman who had been my classmate already for several months by the time I met her husband. The conversation, conducted in Chinese, consisted of some other person saying to him, "Your wife is quite beautiful," to which he replied, IN HER HEARING, "No, she is very ugly," contrary to fact, for politeness. If the cultural context is clear, everybody knows how to interpret such statements (with both the effusive praise and the denials by the praised persons being counted as conventional politeness) and no one is offended on either side.
- dhughes 15y ago
  That's quite interesting, a bit horrifying to anyone learning a new language which I guess shows knowing a language doesn't mean knowing the culture. I'm always worried about hand gestures now I have to make sure I know the code of the culture.

daimyoyo 15y ago

I guess I'm not as socially awkward as I'd thought. Within 5 minutes of meeting most people I've decided that they're idiots(usually they don't try to hide it) but I'm smart enough to keep my opinions to myself. There are two reasons why: First, I realize telling people that they're wrong and exactly why isn't likely to inspire anything but contempt; and more importantly, I understand that when you argue with an idiot you don't lift the idiot up, they drag you down. So why bother? Perhaps this blogger isn't smarter than everyone else, he's just a dick and isn't self aware of his condition.

giberson 15y ago

I'm an awkward smart guy, but I'm not an egotistical ass. I'd really love a guide for social situations that would actually be of use. Mainly it would address: -When in a social situation, other than silence, how am I suppose to participate or excuse myself from participating in a discussion about american idol or some other topic to which I have no knowledge and may perhaps despise? Neither being quite, admitting I don't follow said topic are well received. Isn't there a positive way out of this dilemma? -When some one brings up something sad or bad that has happened is "I'm sorry to hear that" or "Don't worry, it will get better" really enough of a response? Frankly I find it hard to offer these "words of comfort" when I find no comfort in them myself. As a realistic person, I realize that sentiment does not alter a situation so it's hard to be encouraging. Should I just say them regardless? -When discussing something with some one there are occasions when I'm genuinely curious as to why they have a certain line of reasoning. I want to ask "why do you think that?" but it always comes off condescending. This is especially true when perhaps we are discussing a problem and I know the solution and they do not. I want to know what the reasoning behind their solution is rather than just telling them it's wrong or what the correct solution is--however when trying to ask them their reasoning I can't come up with a way to do it without sounding condescending. Should I not bother? -When walking leaving my office and entering the hallway, how close should a person be entering the hallway from the opposite direction be before I wave or say hello. If I wait to long, they think I ignore them. If I do it to early, then theres a great length of time that we are both still walking down the hall and having used my throw-away "Hey" I have nothing left to offer them. It's awkward. -Is there a method/statement for suggesting an attempt at becoming friends with some one? "Hey, want to be friends" is unutterable for me. No matter how I imagine saying that line it feels pathetic. If I don't drink beer or coffee is there anything else to ask someone out to do in order to have some bonding time? -How to accept a compliment. Thanks or agreement feels egotistical. Trying to act as humble by playing it down doesn't seem to be received well either.

tokenadult 15y ago
When some one brings up something sad or bad that has happened is "I'm sorry to hear that" or "Don't worry, it will get better" really enough of a response? You ask a very important question, because we all have occasion to hear other people's announcements of bad news. Expressing some sympathy is better than doing nothing, and is (if my experience is any guide) comforting to the person who announced the bad news. Among my several hundred Facebook friends (many of whom I know mostly via common subscription to email lists discussing parenting issues), there are friends who I don't know WELL, and whom I am unable to give any practical help, who nonetheless seem to appreciate me saying things like "Get well soon" or "I hope you get over that in a while" or even just "That's rough." Just acknowledging a fellow human being's common trouble from being part of the human condition seems to help somewhat. Perhaps I haven't given you a great deal of practical help by this reply, but I did want to reply to acknowledge that you are grappling with a tough problem.

pbreit 15y ago

Two points: 1) "Smart" people should be able to figure this out. 2) Great answer to "What does it feel like to be the smartest person in the room? I'm in the wrong room."

s00pcan 15y ago

No one has mentioned this book yet? It's what I expected this article to be like. Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PUHbK9h-44 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PUHbK9h-44

erikb 15y ago

Isn't it interesting to seee, that this thread got so many points, without actually beeing a good post? Every comment I read is actually disagreeing with the author. And yet the topic is so interesting to everyone that the result is exciting for everyone and the post a success for the author. There is a big lecture here for everyone. You can actually do something awkward if the direction is somehow important to the other people around you. Because in the end your social success is not about you. It is about what is important for the other people.

Read_the_Genes 15y ago

The smartest man in the room is a fool if he makes others look foolish. -Ancient Chinese proverb

lhnz 15y ago
Source? I can't find it on Google.
- westicle 15y ago
  Probably ancient China.

Hawramani 15y ago

I'm socially awkward and after reading lots of books on this topic I've come to realize that social skills are just that, skills. You get better at social situations the more time you spend in them. You'll never get good at them by sitting at a computer reading books about how to get good at them. Most of us geeks do not have social skills because we haven't spent as much time as 'normal' people interacting with others. I have spent thousands of hours on computers, time I could have spent doing things with other human beings. Instead of being great at interacting with others, I'm predictably good at interacting with computers. There is no shortcut for gaining social skills[0], and no book is going to solve all of our 'problems', or even a quarter of them. I'd say if you read a book on better friendships or public speaking and this improves your skills by 3% then it must have been a truly fantastic book. The only solution is for us to engage in a lot of interactions with others, if for some reason we deem it worthy of our time. For example, if a guy is terribly shy during business lunches, the only solution is for him to keep throwing himself into that situation again and again. After 100 or 200, or 1000 lunches most of his business lunch awkwardness will have gone away. But is getting better at interacting with people worth the time we could have spent getting better at interacting with computers[1]? Maybe for some[2]. [0] None that I have found. [1] Through learning more about a programming language or an OS, etc. [2] For example if you decide to choose a career that greatly depends on effective human interaction.

wallflower 15y ago
> But is getting better at interacting with people worth the time we could have spent getting better at interacting with computers I can attribute almost all my freelance work to direct personal relationships. That formed through working on projects together and sharing (many) beers. The secret about the iOS contracting world is that most people are capable of doing the work once they are competent - but if they do not know people who know people at small and big companies - they won't get some contracts. Referrals are huge.

solarlion 15y ago

This is great advice for teachers also. I have noticed that the best teachers I have encountered are masters of both self-deprecation and storytelling - generally mixed together. When you subsequently get schooled by them, somehow you don't feel so beat up by the process. ... "well, I guess kind of I dabble in the Ultimate Truth" classic.

mrkva 15y ago

Yesterday I was thinking about exactly same thing, and buuum here I go :). Thanks!

nametoremember 15y ago

Somewhere along the line of my life, I sacrificed some smartness for social skills. I am glad I did when I read some things on here.

nametoremember 15y ago
Did I offended someone? I developed my social skills around 15/16. Before that I was set to be socially awkward and I was quite shy. I put my self in situations were I could mature socially - which I did. My grades dropped because I wasn't studying all the time but I am glad of it. I read things here like "I'm not sure when to wave", "How do I leave a conversation?" etc. Those things are natural to me now.

k7d 15y ago

Anyone feeling socially awkward should read Dale Carnegie

known 15y ago

Learn how to accommodate/appreciate adverse/diverse people.

iAinsley 15y ago

Are you still consider smart if you cannot recognize social cues, Or are you just a gifted savant?

mkr-hn 15y ago

I'm surprised at all the light derision toward American Idol in this thread. I would think a show about average people putting themselves out in front of millions for a shot at something bigger would be appealing to people who hang out here.

compuerase38278 15y ago

State Space Dimensions: intelligence, social skills, hard work, honesty 1.)most folks are lazy and anti - hard work because of 'learned helplessness. Your car is stuck on ice. so you spin your tires and create more water and ice. 2.)not smart enough to program? can't get a job? then, cheat and avoid honesty. 3.)make up for it in social skills. Be everybody's BEST FRIEND like the politicians. shake hands, kiss babies. 4.)Be intelligent. Keep asking tough questions and studying. Alas, the world, especially in the U.S.A. is anti-intellgectual and ANTI-intelligence. so the stags are: 1.)intelligence and NOT honest. - pretend to be surprised at how good you are. 2.)intelligence and social skills. Great career as actor or politican. Manipulate others, so that others share your strong mind. quote: Star Wars: These are NOT the droids you are looking for. 3.)intelligence and hard work. Pretend to be lazy and even sloppy. Obviously, never talk about religion and politics. Get elected, win the lottery and make BIG MONEY, with no hard work. The girl is NOT interested in how ou REWIRED HER CAR for hands free music or diagnosed the subtle vacuum leak via computer codes. SHE LOVES THAT YOU HAND WAXED the car, so she can show it off to her friends. Nice that the girl knows you are working on 'the next big thing to google's pagerank algol.' SO WHAT! The real estate broker (who dropped out of high school) charms her with his BIG ROLL OF CASH. For you younger geeks aka awkward smarty pants. Get the small onsulting gig/contract with WALL STREET, New York City. Gals love an I-banker - investment banker. or in LA its the same as FOREIGN FILM DIRECTOR to actresses. arrogant? or being honest? abrasive and judgemental? or being provacative, and analytical-critical? School is weak and often irrelevant. Read some of the PhD thesis (my hobby) online. some garbage and some DRIVEL. criticism often is just speaking TRUTH. Einstein and a few folks I know (maybe me) have corrected teachers with their WRONG and INACCURATE questions. Many of the SAT exams have AMBIGUOUS questions, so theoretically there is a score above the top score of 800. This means YOU ARE SMARTER than the rules/exam!

Jach 15y ago

This post is ironic in that it's smug and insulting (though in a typically passive-aggressive way--few are ever direct with "you're ugly and stupid"), and without actually analyzing the beliefs of anyone who disagrees it lumps the "beliefs" into one category. Quotes like: "Great. Good luck with that. Oh, and by the way, your cause will die, I promise." and "I can hear your retort, oh ye smart and lonely." don't make me want to read further. False humility? Screw that. http://lesswrong.com/lw/gq/the_proper_use_of_humility/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/gq/the_proper_use_of_humility/ As others have noted, this post has nothing to do with bad social skills. If you want to learn how to manipulate people, fine, and one could argue that's an aspect of social skills. Figuring out how to avoid awkward silences with people who aren't comfortable with them? Wondering how to invite people over to your home? Wondering what verbiage to use when asking someone out on a date? This post won't help you there.

mannicken 15y ago

I used the one-two in my job applications. Cover letter that describes how I'm a high school drop-out who will probably od in a very near future, then a resume that blows the mind.

onan_barbarian 15y ago

Awkward 'smart' people could improve their prospects a great deal by not spending so much time thinking about how 'smart' they are, not to mention incessantly posting on-line about it. I am still mildly horrified about how frequently discussions like this turn into thinly (or not so thinly) veiled self-praise... "oh, the reason I have such problems socially is because I'm so goddamn smart". Good luck with that, pal. Here's a tip: Stop. Being. So. Fucking. Smug. My experience with the 'smartest guy in the room' syndrome is that it seems to be most rife amongst people that haven't exactly been seeking out rooms full of smart (or smarter) people.

rvkennedy 15y ago

This should really be a wiki - tricks, techniques and shortcuts for all kinds of social situations for the autistically spectralized.

tkahn6 15y ago

This is a comment I made.

throwaway1818 15y ago
This is a reply.