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I may well be the most social person I know, which is weird because I consider myself to be an introvert. When I need to scratch that itch, I always have a tabl

I may well be the most social person I know, which is weird because I consider myself to be an introvert. When I need to scratch that itch, I always have a tablet or Kindle and headphones around to isolate. I can say that it is not pleasant to be around people when the conversation feels forced or awkward. And further that there really aren't any conversational or listening 'skills'. You just talk and listen. If you go read the very best and most selling books on the topic, they all share the same, basic, boring advice. Relax, exercise basic decency such as avoiding commenting on peoples' appearances, fake it until you make it if you have to, and if you're slightly awkward, that's not a big deal. If you've read one of these books, then you've read them all, there's nothing about the basic act of relating to another human being that isn't both discoverable and can be found to be pleasurable. The two big barriers are fear and ego. All relating 'skill' comes down to dealing with these two things. And to answer your question, there's an immense amount of life improvement that can be had by working on your ego and fear. Instead of taking passive approaches to dealing with interpersonal problems, you can develop assertive ones. You can ask for help more easily. You can stop trying to hold it all up yourself. You can start building up a network of friends, both the sort you go out of your way to spend time with, and also the sort that you share pleasant conversations with whenever you run into each other. And then finally you can start fixing problems in your relationships. Start having dates without fear, if you're unattached. Share ideas with friends about how to make your spousal relations better. Couples dates. Have neighbors around to help spread the childcare load with so you can go check in with each other and rekindle the romance. But it starts with the basic here and now act of being present in the moment, caring about the person in front of you, and doing your best to make it a pleasant interaction. Everything else builds on that basic feeling other people have when they're interacting with you, do I like this? If so, then there's always something new on the horizon. But if you let cynicism, fear and ego get in the way, then people aren't going to enjoy the ordeal of interacting with you. You'll gradually find yourself feeling excluded from the community. And none of these social possibilities will ever find their way to you.

solarmist 4y ago
> And further that there really aren't any conversational or listening 'skills'. This is absolutely not true. You just happened to learn them intrinsically. This is why most people make terrible language partners/teachers. You are right about most of the books, but that's because they find some technique or tool that seems like an aha to them, so they write a book. The real skills of conversation are at the how and why levels. Everything you write rings true to me now, but as someone who had to learn these skills explicitly, you sound like you don't get why people might have trouble with these things. Which is fine, but don't go to write a "why don't you just ..." post. It feels very dismissive. The list of things you wrote sounds like a bunch of unrelated and random advice to people who don't understand HOW to relate to others yet.
- vinceguidry 4y ago
  Thinking about relating to others in terms of skill development is a very good way to slow yourself down and never try a cleaner, more authentic approach that offers instant results. That’s my point. If you took a skill-based approach years ago and discovered a lot of hows and whys, that’s great for you. You’ve earned something special. My friend min-maxed online dating, and it resulted in a horrendous marriage that only lasted a few years and he never gets to see his daughter. I can see how my words might be dismissive of this approach, and I can’t deny that there is a slight amount of it there. But the reality of the situation is that humans are hardwired for connecting with each other, and it’s a million times easier to lean into this billion year old circuitry, than to try to reinvent that wheel. You absolutely can reinvent it, but don’t let the siren song of mastery distract you from good enough and getting better over time.
  - solarmist 4y ago
    My point is: "if their social skills are already messed up (through no fault of their own), your description offers no help or hope to those people." My counter is that it IS possible to learn these things. Still, it is important to keep digging deeper beyond techniques to find these hows and whys (I don't have a good description of how to do that, though. It took me 15 years and continues); otherwise, you end up in the situation your friend did. You are lucky. You seem blissfully unaware of how badly messed up "built-in" skills can get when ignoring (or actively countering) those skills is vital to surviving until adulthood. You are right. It is about letting go of fear and ego. But I was raised by my single father, who his father emotionally neglected. My father has the emotional maturity of a middle schooler with a large amount of unresolved trauma. As a result, I was severely emotionally and instrumentally neglected as a child (I had food, shelter, clothing, and hugs [that was the extent of my father's understanding of being a loving parent], but that was it) and suffered CPTSD caused by uncontrolled alcoholism and parentification (as a child, I was forced to ignore my needs and emotions to care for my father). I never saw what a functional and healthy relationship (family or friend) looked like until I was an adult. By then, I had lost the ability to be unguarded or trusting to others, except in unemotional contexts like school or work. So I could only observe the most public and visible interactions between people. So tell me how "You just talk and listen" would help me?

solarmist 4y ago

> And further that there really aren't any conversational or listening 'skills'. This is absolutely not true. You just happened to learn them intrinsically. This is why most people make terrible language partners/teachers. You are right about most of the books, but that's because they find some technique or tool that seems like an aha to them, so they write a book. The real skills of conversation are at the how and why levels. Everything you write rings true to me now, but as someone who had to learn these skills explicitly, you sound like you don't get why people might have trouble with these things. Which is fine, but don't go to write a "why don't you just ..." post. It feels very dismissive. The list of things you wrote sounds like a bunch of unrelated and random advice to people who don't understand HOW to relate to others yet.

vinceguidry 4y ago
Thinking about relating to others in terms of skill development is a very good way to slow yourself down and never try a cleaner, more authentic approach that offers instant results. That’s my point. If you took a skill-based approach years ago and discovered a lot of hows and whys, that’s great for you. You’ve earned something special. My friend min-maxed online dating, and it resulted in a horrendous marriage that only lasted a few years and he never gets to see his daughter. I can see how my words might be dismissive of this approach, and I can’t deny that there is a slight amount of it there. But the reality of the situation is that humans are hardwired for connecting with each other, and it’s a million times easier to lean into this billion year old circuitry, than to try to reinvent that wheel. You absolutely can reinvent it, but don’t let the siren song of mastery distract you from good enough and getting better over time.
- solarmist 4y ago
  My point is: "if their social skills are already messed up (through no fault of their own), your description offers no help or hope to those people." My counter is that it IS possible to learn these things. Still, it is important to keep digging deeper beyond techniques to find these hows and whys (I don't have a good description of how to do that, though. It took me 15 years and continues); otherwise, you end up in the situation your friend did. You are lucky. You seem blissfully unaware of how badly messed up "built-in" skills can get when ignoring (or actively countering) those skills is vital to surviving until adulthood. You are right. It is about letting go of fear and ego. But I was raised by my single father, who his father emotionally neglected. My father has the emotional maturity of a middle schooler with a large amount of unresolved trauma. As a result, I was severely emotionally and instrumentally neglected as a child (I had food, shelter, clothing, and hugs [that was the extent of my father's understanding of being a loving parent], but that was it) and suffered CPTSD caused by uncontrolled alcoholism and parentification (as a child, I was forced to ignore my needs and emotions to care for my father). I never saw what a functional and healthy relationship (family or friend) looked like until I was an adult. By then, I had lost the ability to be unguarded or trusting to others, except in unemotional contexts like school or work. So I could only observe the most public and visible interactions between people. So tell me how "You just talk and listen" would help me?