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I find it odd that nearly no one mentioned the issue that some people don't want to be talked to. Especially women tend to suffer from unwanted attention but it

I find it odd that nearly no one mentioned the issue that some people don't want to be talked to. Especially women tend to suffer from unwanted attention but it also applies to the general case. Just as you don't have want advertisers to spam your email address or call you without your consent you might not want randos to try to talk to you. Please don't reply with stochastic methods like trying to read the other person body language and other circumstances and making predictions about whether they would like to be talked to or not. These methods have a failure rate and if you are talking to a lot of strangers it means you will step on lot of toes even if you can keep the failure rate relatively low. Having a baseline dread about talking to strangers is just being a well-adjusted adult. Now there are social contexts like networking events where talking to stranger is encouraged and a good skill to have but I don't think people that are not good at this are necessarily defect. I feel like the general societal trend is more in the direction of talking to stranger becoming less socially acceptable, not to mention to mention that is already very unacceptable in many countries and would be seen at outright weird.

mettamage 4y ago
> I feel like the general societal trend is more in the direction of talking to stranger becoming less socially acceptable I agree with this. > not to mention to mention that is already very unacceptable in many countries and would be seen at outright weird. You're missing the fact that such weirdness will be overlooked if you have fun/humor, good looks or positivity to bring, or a shared perspective on the world. Two people told me as much when we were talking about psychedelics. They were like "this is weird but we're talking about really cool stuff." We even exchanged numbers. People can change their opinion on this quite rapidly. And some can't. > I find it odd that nearly no one mentioned the issue that some people don't want to be talked to. People can just say they don't want to be talked to. That's how you "figure it out". If they can't, at some point the conversation becomes so boring, it'll die a natural death.
- zajio1am 4y ago
  > People can just say they don't want to be talked to. That's how you "figure it out". Or they just don't want to be rude and would play along, even if they are not really interested in that talk.
karencarits 4y ago
True, and for me at least, my fear for conflict would make me try to look kind and welcoming even though every sentence is painful - making you think the failure rate is lower than it is

mettamage 4y ago

> I feel like the general societal trend is more in the direction of talking to stranger becoming less socially acceptable I agree with this. > not to mention to mention that is already very unacceptable in many countries and would be seen at outright weird. You're missing the fact that such weirdness will be overlooked if you have fun/humor, good looks or positivity to bring, or a shared perspective on the world. Two people told me as much when we were talking about psychedelics. They were like "this is weird but we're talking about really cool stuff." We even exchanged numbers. People can change their opinion on this quite rapidly. And some can't. > I find it odd that nearly no one mentioned the issue that some people don't want to be talked to. People can just say they don't want to be talked to. That's how you "figure it out". If they can't, at some point the conversation becomes so boring, it'll die a natural death.

zajio1am 4y ago
> People can just say they don't want to be talked to. That's how you "figure it out". Or they just don't want to be rude and would play along, even if they are not really interested in that talk.

karencarits 4y ago

True, and for me at least, my fear for conflict would make me try to look kind and welcoming even though every sentence is painful - making you think the failure rate is lower than it is