3 ms·

Interesting. I had to make a conscious effort to go the other way around, i.e.: to talk more about me. I grew up reading too many books aimed at the extroverts

Interesting. I had to make a conscious effort to go the other way around, i.e.: to talk more about me. I grew up reading too many books aimed at the extroverts among us ("There's a reason we have 1 mouth and 2 ears!"; "Silence is golden!"). It's hard to underestimate missed opportunities because a shy introvert (me back then) took and (mis)applied advice meant for extroverts who were already unable to stop talking about themselves. I became virtually invisible. Not good for my career, for my social life, or for my success with women. I realized much, much later, that to advance in my career, to have a social standing within a group, to be accepted and to have my opinions valued, I HAD to speak up. I HAD to sometimes convey forcefully a personal point of view. That's what makes a person interesting. Nobody remembers a nobody who "listened to me all night long". That only works if you're already somebody that people wouldn't expect to listen to them all night long in the first place! Sadly, very seldom this kind of advice comes with the correct nuances, in which situation it applies, etc.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago
To add to your experience, there's also a group of people that grew up and lived their adult life so isolated that they will start dumping on anyone that shows a little interest, smothering them. I know I'm guilty of that sometimes.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  Then there are those among them with enough self-reflection to find a therapist to subject to the story of their life, instead of some random civilians. But when even the therapist can't keep up and starts being sucked down the whirlpool of criss-crossing plot threads, what then?
mewpmewp2 3y ago
Exactly. I was also given feedback I should talk and express my opinion more, only later in my life. I was given this professionally, and it's possibly been one of the best advice I've received in terms of my life, it's weird it took me to get to the position of having a career and no one else before that thought to give it. When growing up I also listened to those statements as you said, in addition I would like to bring out the very common "better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt". This type of sentiment actually gave me performance anxiety. Thinking people are constantly evaluating you, and at any given time if you speak you could significantly lose that rating. In which case it's always best to stay with the "neutral" or whichever rating. I thought it would be okay to kind of be this "strong, smart, mysteriously silent type". Unfortunately if you actually follow this strategy, you will be left behind, because people who do talk, and say things that are stupid, are more likely to learn to talk better than anyone staying silent. Eventually they will say fewer stupid things, their communication skills will improve. If I hold a stupid belief or opinion, and I never voice it, there's no one ever who could make me understand why the belief/opinion is stupid, meanwhile I'm wasting all this time with the bad belief. These types of advices are, as one would also expect listened only by people who shouldn't listen to the advice, and people who should, won't listen to it in the first place. So in the end it's people frustrated with other people talking too much giving out this type of advice without any thought on the consequences. The "better to remain silent..." to me is worst of them all due to the mindset it brings to the social situations. As if it's a constant performance who is able to give a smarter impression, while a better mindset is that social situations and conversations should be about learning, improving, connecting and having fun. Sharing your thoughts, making mistakes, saying stupid things, arguing, are all part of this. As a teenager I used to perceive most social situations as this sort of competition/performance, so I could never enjoy those situations since naturally the strategy I followed didn't make me become better at the competition. Only way I could've become better is if I actively participated and was okay with losing at least for a while. Now I'm trying to perceive social situations as something where I try to achieve the aforementioned goals (learning, improving, connecting and having fun) for the group as a whole rather than having a competition within the group. If I ever have a kid and if that kid gets natural disposition to being introvert or on the autistic side, which could be likely due to how genes work, I will make sure to do my best to inject the mindset I believe is more productive.
dvcolgan 3y ago
I relate very much to this. I have autism and in-person social interactions have been challenging at times to understand. So, I became a student of the human social experience and read a bunch of books about how to speak human, which I think indeed sometimes were more for extroverts. I have been learning how to gracefully interrupt, how to start conversations, how to have an opinion that is different from the others in the group, etc. Though in the process I learned a lot about how many peoples' minds work, so that's been useful still.
- bobmaxup 3y ago
  How do you measure success with something so subjective?
  - mettamage 3y ago
    There are some baseline metrics that are obvious right? For example, if you have 0 conversations in a given week on average, then having 1 or 2 neutral conversations per week already feels like something better. Why? The goal is now to make those conversations feel slightly positive. You don't need to prove your success to anyone else, so scientific rigorousness isn't needed. What's needed is your own evaluation of how things are going based on metrics you find important. The metric I gave is just an example, there are many metrics one could choose from. It really depends on the outcome you want.
  - serial_dev 3y ago
    Why do you want to measure it? If you feel you are improving, that's good enough in personal life. Also, sometimes, the improvement is just so great (or paraphrased, the baseline is so low), that you don't need scientific rigor to see that things got better.
    - bobmaxup 3y ago
      It seems that a subjective state of mind isn't a great way to tell if you are inconviencing others. For example, an individual can feel great while being social on a narcotic, all while hurting others around them and being completely oblivious to it.
rendaw 3y ago
I think this happens a lot with other advice too. Diet/health advice like the constant barrage of "eat less fat" and "eat less salt", dating advice like "don't focus on looks", etc. I get it, in one way... there are people out there who are unable to listen to the end of a sentence that starts with any qualification at all, and barely listen anyways so it needs to be repeated, forcefully. But this is optimizing for them at the expense of the people who do listen and end up internalizing the message too well.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

To add to your experience, there's also a group of people that grew up and lived their adult life so isolated that they will start dumping on anyone that shows a little interest, smothering them. I know I'm guilty of that sometimes.

TeMPOraL 3y ago
Then there are those among them with enough self-reflection to find a therapist to subject to the story of their life, instead of some random civilians. But when even the therapist can't keep up and starts being sucked down the whirlpool of criss-crossing plot threads, what then?

mewpmewp2 3y ago

Exactly. I was also given feedback I should talk and express my opinion more, only later in my life. I was given this professionally, and it's possibly been one of the best advice I've received in terms of my life, it's weird it took me to get to the position of having a career and no one else before that thought to give it. When growing up I also listened to those statements as you said, in addition I would like to bring out the very common "better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt". This type of sentiment actually gave me performance anxiety. Thinking people are constantly evaluating you, and at any given time if you speak you could significantly lose that rating. In which case it's always best to stay with the "neutral" or whichever rating. I thought it would be okay to kind of be this "strong, smart, mysteriously silent type". Unfortunately if you actually follow this strategy, you will be left behind, because people who do talk, and say things that are stupid, are more likely to learn to talk better than anyone staying silent. Eventually they will say fewer stupid things, their communication skills will improve. If I hold a stupid belief or opinion, and I never voice it, there's no one ever who could make me understand why the belief/opinion is stupid, meanwhile I'm wasting all this time with the bad belief. These types of advices are, as one would also expect listened only by people who shouldn't listen to the advice, and people who should, won't listen to it in the first place. So in the end it's people frustrated with other people talking too much giving out this type of advice without any thought on the consequences. The "better to remain silent..." to me is worst of them all due to the mindset it brings to the social situations. As if it's a constant performance who is able to give a smarter impression, while a better mindset is that social situations and conversations should be about learning, improving, connecting and having fun. Sharing your thoughts, making mistakes, saying stupid things, arguing, are all part of this. As a teenager I used to perceive most social situations as this sort of competition/performance, so I could never enjoy those situations since naturally the strategy I followed didn't make me become better at the competition. Only way I could've become better is if I actively participated and was okay with losing at least for a while. Now I'm trying to perceive social situations as something where I try to achieve the aforementioned goals (learning, improving, connecting and having fun) for the group as a whole rather than having a competition within the group. If I ever have a kid and if that kid gets natural disposition to being introvert or on the autistic side, which could be likely due to how genes work, I will make sure to do my best to inject the mindset I believe is more productive.

dvcolgan 3y ago

I relate very much to this. I have autism and in-person social interactions have been challenging at times to understand. So, I became a student of the human social experience and read a bunch of books about how to speak human, which I think indeed sometimes were more for extroverts. I have been learning how to gracefully interrupt, how to start conversations, how to have an opinion that is different from the others in the group, etc. Though in the process I learned a lot about how many peoples' minds work, so that's been useful still.

bobmaxup 3y ago
How do you measure success with something so subjective?
- mettamage 3y ago
  There are some baseline metrics that are obvious right? For example, if you have 0 conversations in a given week on average, then having 1 or 2 neutral conversations per week already feels like something better. Why? The goal is now to make those conversations feel slightly positive. You don't need to prove your success to anyone else, so scientific rigorousness isn't needed. What's needed is your own evaluation of how things are going based on metrics you find important. The metric I gave is just an example, there are many metrics one could choose from. It really depends on the outcome you want.
- serial_dev 3y ago
  Why do you want to measure it? If you feel you are improving, that's good enough in personal life. Also, sometimes, the improvement is just so great (or paraphrased, the baseline is so low), that you don't need scientific rigor to see that things got better.
  - bobmaxup 3y ago
    It seems that a subjective state of mind isn't a great way to tell if you are inconviencing others. For example, an individual can feel great while being social on a narcotic, all while hurting others around them and being completely oblivious to it.

rendaw 3y ago

I think this happens a lot with other advice too. Diet/health advice like the constant barrage of "eat less fat" and "eat less salt", dating advice like "don't focus on looks", etc. I get it, in one way... there are people out there who are unable to listen to the end of a sentence that starts with any qualification at all, and barely listen anyways so it needs to be repeated, forcefully. But this is optimizing for them at the expense of the people who do listen and end up internalizing the message too well.