4 ms·

For some reason all of these types of books/posts/theories frustrate me. I feel like a lot of them are willfully ignorant feel-good advice. There are just so m

For some reason all of these types of books/posts/theories frustrate me. I feel like a lot of them are willfully ignorant feel-good advice. There are just so many more facets to this than they are acknowledging. Like in a real conversation you ask somebody about themselves and they start humblebragging about their vacation, and then you suddenly have to make very real choices (do you start bragging yourself, do you pretend they didn't brag, do you say something completely vanilla like "Sounds like you really enjoyed your vacation", do you call it out with a joke?). Also I feel very basic things like -- is this person having a sh*t day probably matter 5x as much as smiling and using their name. Also things like their assumptions based on how you dress (e.g. they think you wear preppy clothes) are probably going to matter a lot. Basically I feel like most of these guides are written by people who couldn't genuinely befriend a construction worker, a banker, and a teacher. The only book that even touched on any of this type of thing (competitive bragging) that I've read is "Games people play," but I feel like even it wasn't really a practical guide for how to handle these situations.

sublinear 3y ago
I completely agree. People and their work are way more complicated and there's no silver bullet. Blind buying into toxic positivity and seeing people react with their trained fake kindness doesn't mean people actually love talking to you. Some of us have to get to work and these gloves get in the way. My favorite people to talk to just tell the truth and are reliable and responsible people. Not everyone has the luxury to play these games. That's probably better advice for anyone struggling with overcoming class or cultural divides.
- 082349872349872 3y ago
  > My favorite people to talk to just tell the truth and are reliable and responsible people. This is excellent advice, but unlikely to sell well in the "self-help" aisle. see also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39326423 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39326423 > ...even Games People Play wasn't really a practical guide for how to handle these situations. I found it a practical guide, in that when I recognise too many of its entries with a particular interlocutor, and attempting to jump out of the games doesn't work, I talk with other people instead. (a major advantage to living in a non-anglophone society is that here we expect everyone will be respectful with everyone else, but definitely don't expect everyone will be friends with everyone else)
  - zug_zug 3y ago
    > I found it a practical guide, in that when I recognise too many of its entries with a particular interlocutor, and attempting to jump out of the games doesn't work, I talk with other people instead. Well what I'd want to know from such a book is: do we consider every social interaction (including happy conversations) a game? is there some reason why asymmetric games are bad? is it reasonable to have a relationship that only has symmetrical and positive games? are people's preferences for games static or are they flexible? how to switch games gracefully?
    - 082349872349872 3y ago
      It's been a long, long time since I read it (ca.1970s), but IIRC Berne: (a) does not consider every social interaction a game, only the ones following scripts, of which he provides a few examples, (b) does consider that his games can also be played in positive manners (IIRC adult-adult ought to result in a positive conversation), and (c) does at least touch upon switching games. We probably think of "games" slightly differently than he does; "Scripts People Follow" or "Loops People Never Terminate" might be a more appropriate title for computer geeks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_People_Play_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_People_Play_(book) An example, one of the games he hilights is "Ain't It Awful", which basically has the script of all participants complaining about how nothing is good but making no attempt to discover either (a) why things might be the way they are, or (b) how one might at least ameliorate the awful things. We might say his players are getting dopamine hits from participating, but not really making any other progress. Eg: — Isn't it awful how Lisp has all those parentheses? — Yeah, and APL is completely unreadable! — But how about those pointers in C: complete footguns! — Don't forget the EnterpriseJavaFactoryFactoryManager... — oh, and wat about JavaScript? — No, PHP, now that's truly awful! — etc.
carlosjobim 3y ago
> and then you suddenly have to make very real choices (do you start bragging yourself, do you pretend they didn't brag, do you say something completely vanilla like "Sounds like you really enjoyed your vacation", do you call it out with a joke?). There's no decision to be made at all, because the option is always to say something vanilla. Why would you even think of any other option? Sometimes people aren't bragging, they're just excited about something. Could be their first time ever on a real vacation.
- sublinear 3y ago
  > Why would you even think of any other option? You don't want to seem cold or fake. Vanilla answers all the time will guarantee you get ignored when good things are happening to everyone else.
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    You don't have to be cold or fake, but a vanilla answer is better than some competition of words.
- zug_zug 3y ago
  > There's no decision to be made at all, because the option is always to say something vanilla. Why would you even think of any other option? I have no idea what you mean by that. There are plenty of people who are playing the "Who's trendier" game and who will like you more if you say, "oh yeah, Brussels, I was there last year but this year I went to [new trendy spot]." This is because some people genuinely do want to be trendy and do want to hang out with trendy people.
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    I guarantee that you won't have to compete verbally with anybody on who's more trendy. Silence is golden. Somebody will ask you if you like to travel. And if people aren't interested in you anyway, it's a blessing to let them do the talking.

sublinear 3y ago

I completely agree. People and their work are way more complicated and there's no silver bullet. Blind buying into toxic positivity and seeing people react with their trained fake kindness doesn't mean people actually love talking to you. Some of us have to get to work and these gloves get in the way. My favorite people to talk to just tell the truth and are reliable and responsible people. Not everyone has the luxury to play these games. That's probably better advice for anyone struggling with overcoming class or cultural divides.

082349872349872 3y ago
> My favorite people to talk to just tell the truth and are reliable and responsible people. This is excellent advice, but unlikely to sell well in the "self-help" aisle. see also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39326423 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39326423 > ...even Games People Play wasn't really a practical guide for how to handle these situations. I found it a practical guide, in that when I recognise too many of its entries with a particular interlocutor, and attempting to jump out of the games doesn't work, I talk with other people instead. (a major advantage to living in a non-anglophone society is that here we expect everyone will be respectful with everyone else, but definitely don't expect everyone will be friends with everyone else)
- zug_zug 3y ago
  > I found it a practical guide, in that when I recognise too many of its entries with a particular interlocutor, and attempting to jump out of the games doesn't work, I talk with other people instead. Well what I'd want to know from such a book is: do we consider every social interaction (including happy conversations) a game? is there some reason why asymmetric games are bad? is it reasonable to have a relationship that only has symmetrical and positive games? are people's preferences for games static or are they flexible? how to switch games gracefully?
  - 082349872349872 3y ago
    It's been a long, long time since I read it (ca.1970s), but IIRC Berne: (a) does not consider every social interaction a game, only the ones following scripts, of which he provides a few examples, (b) does consider that his games can also be played in positive manners (IIRC adult-adult ought to result in a positive conversation), and (c) does at least touch upon switching games. We probably think of "games" slightly differently than he does; "Scripts People Follow" or "Loops People Never Terminate" might be a more appropriate title for computer geeks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_People_Play_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_People_Play_(book) An example, one of the games he hilights is "Ain't It Awful", which basically has the script of all participants complaining about how nothing is good but making no attempt to discover either (a) why things might be the way they are, or (b) how one might at least ameliorate the awful things. We might say his players are getting dopamine hits from participating, but not really making any other progress. Eg: — Isn't it awful how Lisp has all those parentheses? — Yeah, and APL is completely unreadable! — But how about those pointers in C: complete footguns! — Don't forget the EnterpriseJavaFactoryFactoryManager... — oh, and wat about JavaScript? — No, PHP, now that's truly awful! — etc.

carlosjobim 3y ago

> and then you suddenly have to make very real choices (do you start bragging yourself, do you pretend they didn't brag, do you say something completely vanilla like "Sounds like you really enjoyed your vacation", do you call it out with a joke?). There's no decision to be made at all, because the option is always to say something vanilla. Why would you even think of any other option? Sometimes people aren't bragging, they're just excited about something. Could be their first time ever on a real vacation.

sublinear 3y ago
> Why would you even think of any other option? You don't want to seem cold or fake. Vanilla answers all the time will guarantee you get ignored when good things are happening to everyone else.
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  You don't have to be cold or fake, but a vanilla answer is better than some competition of words.
zug_zug 3y ago
> There's no decision to be made at all, because the option is always to say something vanilla. Why would you even think of any other option? I have no idea what you mean by that. There are plenty of people who are playing the "Who's trendier" game and who will like you more if you say, "oh yeah, Brussels, I was there last year but this year I went to [new trendy spot]." This is because some people genuinely do want to be trendy and do want to hang out with trendy people.
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  I guarantee that you won't have to compete verbally with anybody on who's more trendy. Silence is golden. Somebody will ask you if you like to travel. And if people aren't interested in you anyway, it's a blessing to let them do the talking.