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> Advice on how to connect better with people? Log off, touch some grass. Put yourself out there. Once you get a few people around you, it's relatively easy to
by bArray 5y ago
> Advice on how to connect better with people?
Log off, touch some grass. Put yourself out there. Once you get a few people around you, it's relatively easy to leaver yourself into other friends groups.
> But I've heard everybody talking about Halloween costumes in the past few days and realized I don't need one cause I'll be sitting inside alone on Halloween. I'd like to start fixing this but don't know how.
Just say yes to the next offer you get, you'll only make friends if you expose yourself to other humans. HN is unlikely to be the place where you make real friends.
Specifically about the parties: You can invite yourself easily enough to things - just get them talking about it (i.e. "oh I hear you're having a Halloween party, anything cool planned?") - if you sound interested and talk for a while most people will invite you.
The only way to get good at social interactions is to keep putting yourself in social settings.
- burlesona 5y agoI think this is good advice but it’s worth mentioning: 1. This kind of thing doesn’t come naturally for a lot of people (myself included) 2. It doesn’t always work even if you do it well. Perhaps the other people are also quite shy. So the important thing is practice, and to kind of brace yourself going in: “If it doesn’t click with these specific people, I don’t care. This is a practice run and I’ll practice again until it works.” I’ve found that, paradoxically, one of the things that makes relationships hard is wanting them. When you really desire a friendship or other relationship with someone new, you tend to come off as over-eager or awkward, and that’s off-putting for the other person. Conversely when you can be casual and unconcerned, it makes you seem confident and happy, which other people are drawn to. So there really is a “fake it till you make it” thing going on, which is quite hard to learn IMO, but can be learned with practice.
- pkhamre 5y agoLivestreaming on twitch and join discord-communities is a great place to practice social interactions.
- jtms 5y agoNot sure why others are downvoting, this is really great advice for people who have social anxiety - low risk, real enough to be meaningful, usually narrowly focused on a shared interest, prepares you for the real thing. Downvote me as well if you like, but I’d be curious why people don’t agree
- Smaug123 5y agoIt's not at all clear to me that it does prepare you for the real thing. I think one could very plausibly argue the opposite: it's so massively easy-mode that it gets you used to social interactions being easy and low-friction, and through habit it raises the barrier to practising the real thing.
- collegeburner 5y agoAgree, I think a simpler example of how this happens is remembering names. Everybody had zoom names on screen so had "easy mode" doing this for over a year, and most people I've talked to had some difficulty remembering names since.
- ungamed 5y agoThe phrase "touch some grass" makes me want to grab someone by the head and squeeze till it pops. I understand the context, it sounds so stupid.
- uuddlrlr 5y agoIt's really picked up steam in the past year
- mb7733 5y agoWhy does it make you angry?
- scollet 5y agoIt's usually loaded with condescension and reduction, a rarely actionable silver bullet that makes no consideration of circumstance.
- drlobster 5y agoSounds like you need to touch grass.
- collegeburner 5y agoI mean its sometimes a fair complaint, it can be kinda rude, just in this case its useful advice to get out and don't get too extremely online (which is a risk for people my age) Though I guess getting mad about it might be a valid reason to tell somebody to touch grass
- scollet 5y agoThe important consideration is grounding yourself with the people around you. Find that genuine interest in others' interests. You see them on the opposite bank and it's a lot easier to build a bridge cooperatively. Circumstances demand a personal approach, so no one can tell you how to build a bridge, only that you must.
- polalavik 5y ago> Just say yes to the next offer you get While they should be saying yes to opportunities to connect with people, I'm not sure if this particular advice is great. If I was in a similar situation to the author of the post, I would find this particular advice demoralizing. It assumes the author of the post has what they are stressing they do NOT have - friends and offers of things to do. If you are not connecting with people you will not magically have offers from people. It's about forcing yourself to get out there in controlled settings - clubs, volunteer, meetups, classes, and other places people are actively seeking connection.
- rhn_mk1 5y agoThis is too narrow a view. Social events are widely advertised, the offer does not need to be directed specifically at you.
- shaftoe 5y agoMaybe, but I have rarely experienced wide advertisement (that was intended to include me) and don't know where to begin. I agree that this is off-putting advice. Many social activities assume you're showing up with friends. If you have none, they're akward and depressing.
- collegeburner 5y ago^ This. I've gone to some big school events that arent really fun by myself, there's not a lot of talking with random people cause everybody else is there with a group.
- TheGigaChad 5y agoDumb idiot, get cancer and die squealing out of pain.