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This isn't for introverts its intended for people with social anxiety, they're different things. Introverts don't necessarily dislike networking they just need

This isn't for introverts its intended for people with social anxiety, they're different things. Introverts don't necessarily dislike networking they just need recharge time afterwards. At any rate it doesn't address the core concept. Anyone with anxiety (raises hand) will tell you that the worse thing you can do is care MORE about the thing you're anxious about, yet you've prescribed a bunch of rituals for someone to perform so that they do "well". The best way to network well is to stop giving a shit about doing it well.

eslaught 1y ago
Recently I was introduced to the distinction between anxiety and dread. Anxiety is, essentially, a form of fear. You fear a worst-case consequence that isn't actually that likely. If you put up with your anxiety and just go and do the thing (on average) you'll do just fine, or at least ok-ish. Over time your body learns that the anxious activity is ok and the anxiety is reduced. Dread is different. Dread is the expectation of a bad situation. It's not a worst-case scenario, it's a typical scenario. If what you are experiencing is dread, then pushing yourself into that situation will confirm to your body that, yup, it really is as bad as you thought, and will amplify the dread rather than diminish it. A classic example is that certain forms of neurodivergence create sensory overload in typical "social" environments. This is likely to result in dread rather than anxiety. Your body is literally telling you that this situation is problematic, and repeat exposure isn't going to improve anything. In our modern culture the language of anxiety is widespread but the language of dread much less so, and I think that's unfortunate because a lot of advice centers around "just get over it", which works only if what you're experiencing is anxiety. Personally, learning about this gave me permission to do "social" activities on my own terms and stop worrying about what other people think "social" means; turns out the social anxiety I had was relatively minimal and what I was experiencing was mostly the dread from environments where social activities often occur.
- shayway 1y ago
  Thank you for passing this on. I've been circling the concept but haven't ever heard it pinned down. One often comes with the other so it's difficult to separate the two, but at the same time the strategies needed to overcome / deal with them are very distinct.
- tootie 1y ago
  Introversion has nothing to do with anxiety or dread. They are orthogonal concepts.
  - bluefirebrand 1y ago
    You're not entirely wrong, but I don't think they are entirely orthogonal either. There is almost certainly a significant overlap between introversion and social anxiety/dread, even if they aren't 1:1 related If nothing else, many people with a lot of social anxiety will claim they are simply introverts in order to cover for their anxiety
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  - 9rx 1y ago
    The fear of reaching the point of social exhaustion, as introverts quickly do, is the anxiety.
    - tootie 1y ago
      Not really. Not for me at least. Do you feel anxiety over physical exhaustion?
      - 9rx 1y ago
        I would be in better shape if I didn't! Although I will posit that physical exhaustion is typically more manageable, so that helps. There are certainly exceptions, but by and large in our modern, sedentary world, physical exertion can easily be limited to controlled environments where one is able to stop when they reach the point of exhaustion. It is unlikely that stepping outside means that you will have to outrun a lion, unable to pause else become lunch. Chances are these days you will only ever reach exhaustion if you purposefully push yourself to (e.g. hitting the gym). But if I have reason to worry that I am going to find myself in a situation where I cannot meaningfully rest when I reach my physical breaking point, absolutely the anxiety will be running hot. Whereas social interaction can be harder to control. For example, reaching your social limit in the middle of the workday does not usually, for all practical purposes, enable you to remove yourself from the situation. You are expected to keep going until the end of the business day, no matter how you are feeling on the inside. Us techies might have enough individual work to slink away to, perhaps, but for many jobs there is no such luxury. Or you might come up against a Chatty Cathy who will continue pushing to keep the social engagement going even after you try to back away. There aren't all that many HN-esq situations in the real world where you can just magically pop in when you want to engage and then disappear as fast as you came. And where you might find something approximate, you are apt to find it much too limiting to be an exclusive social outlet.
- goopypoop 1y ago
  Does the sore head dread beat the sobriety anxiety?
- noman-land 1y ago
  There's definitely a "get over it" for dread and it's called stoicism (not an expert). Sometimes you have to do things whether you like it or not just to survive and "getting over it" will prevent you from dying.
  - crooked-v 1y ago
    Trying to just "get over it" with the neurodivergence example noticed is the kind of thing likely to result in a panic attack or other uncontrollable expression of emotion. It's not something you can change just by wanting it hard enough.
  - hhh 1y ago
    come on man telling someone with autism to learn stoicism and just got care
  - ball_of_lint 1y ago
    Even if this was true for neurotypicals (which it isn't) it wouldn't be true for neurodivergent folk. Can you hold a conversation next to a lawnmower? A jackhammer? A jet engine? At some point there's literally too much noise for you to communicate verbally anymore. That point is different for different people.
    - CharlesW 1y ago
      > Even if this was true for neurotypicals (which it isn't) it wouldn't be true for neurodivergent folk. Interesting take, are you neurodivergent? "Masking" is basically a "get over it" approach that the parent talks about. It is exhausting, to the point that neurodivergent people wil preemptively bail out of situations if they don't feel up for it. Tools associated with stocism can be helpful for neurodivergent people when they're used to support their needs rather than diminish them, in my experience.
    - fsckboy 1y ago
      let's say you are very afraid of heights. let's also say that your toddler climbed out a window and is now playing on the edge of the roof. you're just going to watch, or worse, hide your eyes? you replied to a comment that cited "survival", so to argue against it you need to also cite surviving, or not surviving in the case you bring up.
- xlii 1y ago
  TIL! I always joked that there’s nothing to fear about travel over plane. Nothing will fall, nothing will crash. The true horror is spending X hours without movement and a 2 day back pain afterwards. Seems that I rarely experience anxiety but I do experience dread more often. What you’re describing is my own self-developed strategy to deal with various stuff. Need to research dread topic more.
  - tuatoru 1y ago
    [flagged]
- uniqueusername7 1y ago
  This makes some amount of sense to me, but what if you dread approaching people? how would you resolve this with still wanting to approach people/form relationships?
  - eslaught 1y ago
    I'd try to find ways to stack everything else in your favor as much as possible. If X is difficult, you try to optimize Y, Z, etc. so that at least you're not coping with multiple adverse environmental factors at the same time. For me personally, the best-case scenario seems to be intentionally scheduled, one-on-one interactions in "clean" environments (i.e., quiet, unscented, no smoke/incense, dressed casually for maximum comfort, etc.). The next best would be some sort of group setting with structured, intentional sharing (i.e., not just doing something together but explicitly organized for the purpose of sharing). It can be a bit hit or miss to find these, so it can take some iteration to figure out what actually works. Otherwise, "escalating" (i.e., inviting someone into a deeper/more meaningful interaction) is a skill you can practice, but if you're dealing with the rest of it at the same time, you're basically playing with a handicap. So incrementalize your goals as much as possible, practice in small, regular intervals with sufficient breaks for recovery, and don't compare yourself to anyone else, no matter how tempting that might be. Hope that helps, and feel free to contact me on Keybase (in profile) or email (run the Perl script on my website) if you want help brainstorming. Disclaimer: not a therapist.
- weinzierl 1y ago
  "Personally, learning about this gave me permission to do "social" activities on my own terms and stop worrying about what other people think "social" means;" So much this. To have your own terms is always OK. If you think about it, what people think "social" means is not even fixed. It certainly changes with your age and your environment but even the consensus in a society about it changes. When I grew up it meant being in a deafening loud environment so much full smoke that you could barely breathe. Hated it, but only when I moved to the big city and started university I understood that I am not the only one. Nowadays the smoke is mostly gone and at least it has become accepted to wear hearing protection.
- iambateman 1y ago
  Any books or research to draw this out? It sounds somewhat relevant to my experience and I’d like to learn more.
- anton-c 1y ago
  This is enlightening as someone with severe... well anxiety and dread, I suppose. Thank you sincerely.
- amelius 1y ago
  I think in many cases there is a negative reinforcing aspect to anxiety that needs to be addressed. For example, anxiety can trigger certain physical symptoms like sweating excessively, tension leading to e.g. reduced loudness and loss of voice, clumsiness. This can spiral down and eventually the anxiety can be almost entirely about those physical aspects. This is just a different way of looking at it. What you do by addressing what you call dread is basically putting a halt to this feedback loop. (disclaimer: IANAMD)
  - lukaslalinsky 1y ago
    I was stuttering for my entire life, still dealing with it at 42. Kids in basic school gave me all kinds of abuse due to my speech. So I obviously developed social anxiety. The nastiest part about stuttering is, the more anxious you are, the more you stutter. I was given a lot of advice to just go to kids and talk. It only reinforced the anxiety and confirmed that if I really want to say something, it's impossible to say it. The only realistic solution came much later in life, when I realized I just can't give a fuck about whether people understand me. People who are interested will ask me again. People who are not, will just go away. That attitude lessened the problem, but didn't get rid of it completely. But it also requires me to give up on many things.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
strken 1y ago
I don't think it's intended for people with social anxiety either. I'm not socially anxious, but I could definitely benefit from following up on conversations from parties more often.
- moffkalast 1y ago
  Might work most for autistic people tbh, rigid rules to follow to the letter.
dartharva 1y ago
No, this is intended for everyone, but the purpose is wrong. Leil Lowndes' How to talk to anyone (the source) is not explicitly about expanding your network. It's just guidelines (or rather suggestions, or even better - hacks) on how you can start and hold conversations with people. What you choose to do with them is your own purview.
tootie 1y ago
I think a lot of people really don't get this. I relish alone time and rarely seek out contact. But I also used to do sales pitches and attend conferences and was never uncomfortable no matter how unfamiliar the crowd. I just found it really tiring.
pj_mukh 1y ago
Also FWIW, this is also not a guide to networking. It’s a guide to attending networking events. Those are not the same things. I wish someone would write a guide to what to do in the 2 weeks after the networking event when inevitably everyone forgets about each other.
clickety_clack 1y ago
“The best way to network well is to stop giving a shit about doing it well” is a quote for the ages.
- toast0 1y ago
  It's a great quote, but I don't think it's really true. I didn't give a shit about networking, and I don't have a way to contact most of the people I've worked with in the past. I'm sure I could get some good referrals through many of those people, but since I didn't give a shit, I can't and I don't think that's really doing networking well. This worked out fine for me, some people who are better at networking than me reached out to me when they had interesting work at a good time, but 'do whatever and hopefully someone will find a job for you' is pretty bad advice too. You've got to give some minimal level of shit, or you end up with a potential network instead of a network. I don't think going to 'networking events' is required; those always seem fishy, if your only connection is you wanted to make a connection, it's not a strong connection ... and probably the people going to these things don't have a very strong network or they wouldn't be going, so you're not getting much from the multiple hop networking either. There's probably exceptions, but trying to catch em all is not the right game.
konart 1y ago
>This isn't for introverts its intended for people with social anxiety This. Introverts (in general) have no problems with communication\networking etc. Introverts simply do not _need_ company. Extraverts, on the other hand, contrary to what people often think, _need_ company to do stuff, even though they may be not so hot on networking or partying.
djtango 1y ago
> The best way to network well is to stop giving a shit about doing it well. As someone who has played piano for over 30 years and by any sane person's assessment I play at least "adequately", I can attest that worrying about how you play is the least constructive thing you can do and I have many times over my life crashed and burned when trying to play on the spot and in those moments people would question whether I knew how to play at all. When I finally realised to stop caring (at least in the moment) everything got a lot better. Even if you screw up, owning it and laughing about it is better than curling up in fear and anxiety and making the moment worse and more awkward for everyone. "stop caring" sounds like such unhelpful advice but when one finally realises you have agency over that, its like having a superpower
- nkrisc 1y ago
  “Stop caring” sounds unhelpful because it might be difficult, but it’s basically the one thing you have that’s actually in your control that you can do about it. I think some people would rather keep searching for easier solutions than taking the difficulty one they can actually accomplish.
- MalbertKerman 1y ago
  The hard part is not realizing that one should stop caring. It's learning how to stop caring. For most of us, caring is an automatic, reflexive response, and changing it is not a trivial matter.
  - nativeit 1y ago
    The idea that finally clicked with me came from a narrated meditation session in the app “Headspace”. I think it’s probably a common metaphor, but it’s the only place I had encountered it: Imagine your mind is a highway, and your thoughts are cars that are driving along this highway in your mind. You, or rather your conscience, is sitting along this highway, and every time a thought comes along, you might try to stop it. Of course, this is foolish, you can’t stop those thoughts any more than you could stop a literal car on a highway. The trick comes once you realize that attempting to stop unwanted thoughts is a doomed and pointless exercise. But just because those thoughts have entered your mind, doesn’t mean you have to engage with them. You could instead simply let them pass you by. I don’t know why, but this worked for me. In the context of meditation, it freed me of the assumption that my mind should be blanked and free of thoughts, which always seemed impossible anyway. But it armed me with a useful mnemonic for recognizing when I am standing in the middle of the proverbial road, and the confidence to admit that I cannot do anything meaningful from such a precarious and hopeless position, so should move to the side, and focus on what’s possible.
zwnow 1y ago
Agree on the recharge part... People are always in disbelief when I tell them I even have to recharge from my SO.
skeeter2020 1y ago
My dad owned an auto dealership through my youth. He always had a least one "natural" salesman, who could just sell, but couldn't tell you how he did it. My dad was not a natural, and made up for this by consciously & relentlessly practicing the behaviours and actions: active listening, root cause analysis, identify the decision maker, respecting time & financial factors, attentive customer service, building connection & relationships. He became very good, but in a completely different way. Where his star salesman sold easily my dad had to work harder, but he then sold to the same person every few years, sometimes decades, and did better on the trade-ins than the new sales. Why the story? Because lots of things - including networking - sometimes come naturally to a few, but are more commonly learned. You can practice & must practice, and this can start with a short list of things like presented here. It's not about caring more about the Big Thing (tm) but focusing solely on a few small things that start you down the right path. In my experience a few easy things is a great way to displace the anxiety from big, complex, scary situations. Another brief anecdote I think helps illustrate this. I teach mountain biking, and the two biggest desires are 1. corner better, 2. learn how to jump. I suck at cornering but have logged a fair bit of air time. A common observation is people go very rigid in the air (called a "dead sailor"). This not only undesireable, it's dangerous. The fix? Get people to do any sort of movement when they are in the air; the smallest wiggle, shimmy or tweak unlocks their body AND their mind, and moves them forward. It both focuses and distracts. The list here feels a lot like a similar approach for certain social situations, and compared to your advice (stop caring and... just do it?) actually targets the root of anxiety "OK, but how?". YOLO is often part of it, but makes a terrible strategy.
- marklubi 1y ago
  Rigid in the air is akin to crashing. Same goes with snowboarding. It's a weird 'what do I do now?' situation because they're not sure how to finish. Have a plan, finish it.
brandall10 1y ago
Stop giving a shit is similar advice to "be yourself". It's confusing enough advice on a date, and it's esp. not helpful here. Networking is a skill beyond simple vibing and should be treated as such. For those with social anxiety, having a script/plan at least allows one to be on autopilot so they don't have to in fact give a shit. Also introverts definitely tend to not like networking or any group activity w/ a bunch of strangers (edit: I mean tend to like the 'idea' of them, but once there, can enjoy them). I think you meant that they can do it without fear.
- _benton 1y ago
  I'm introverted and I enjoy networking and group activities and also meeting and chatting with strangers. I just can't do it all day every day, I need breaks. Having social anxiety is different from not knowing how to talk to people and make friends. Bill Russel would get so worked up before games he would throw up. But he could also perform. I think it depends on what you're anxious about. Being scared that people will dislike you is different from being scared of embarrassment and it's different from being scared you don't know what to do in the moment. Of course all of those can be helped by simply exposing yourself to the situation over and over again. You learn that if you do embarrass yourself or if people dislike you, the world doesn't turn to ash.
  - brandall10 1y ago
    I probably should draw the distinction between enjoying and looking forward to them - I never look forward to them (unless there's several friends there or it's for a fun activity), but yes, if you give it some effort, they can be enjoyable.
    - _benton 1y ago
      I find it really fulfilling to meet strangers but I need to be in the right headspace and it needs to be the right atmosphere. "Every person you look at, you can see the universe in their eyes -- if you're really looking." -- George Carlin
  - 1y ago
Xmd5a 1y ago
"Almost more even than the extraverted is the introverted type subject to misunderstanding ... because the style of the epoch in which he himself participates is against him. Not in relation to the extraverted type, but as against our general occidental world-philosophy, he finds himself in the minority, not of course numerically, but from the evidence of his own feeling. In so far as he is a convinced participator in the general style, he undermines his own foundations, since the present style, with its almost exclusive acknowledgment of the visible and the tangible, is opposed to his principle. Because of its invisibility, he is obliged to depreciate the subjective factor, and to force himself to join in the extraverted overvaluation of the object. He himself sets the subjective factor at too low a value, and his feelings of inferiority are his chastisement for this sin. Little wonder, therefore, that it is precisely our epoch, and particularly those movements which are somewhat ahead of the time, that reveal the subjective factor in every kind of exaggerated, crude and grotesque form of expression. I refer to the art of the present day. The undervaluation of his own principle makes the introvert egotistical, and forces upon him the psychology of the oppressed. The more egotistical he becomes, the stronger his impression grows that these others, who are apparently able, without qualms, to conform with the present style, are the oppressors against whom he must guard and protect himself. He does not usually perceive that he commits his capital mistake in not depending upon the subjective factor with that same loyalty and devotion with which the extravert follows the object By the undervaluation of his own principle, his penchant towards egoism becomes unavoidable, which, of course, richly deserves the prejudice of the extravert. Were he only to remain true to his own principle, the judgment of ‘egoist’ would be radically false; for the justification of his attitude would be established by its general efficacy, and all misunderstandings dissipated. " Jung -Psychological types "You want to be understood? That’s all we needed! Understand yourself, and you will be sufficiently understood. You will have quite enough work in hand with that" Jung - Red book
- _benton 1y ago
  I really should read Jung. So much wisdom in that.
drdaeman 1y ago
Nah, this is not for social anxiety people either. Or however we can call folks who don't normally feel like talking to others if they can. All the recipes there are basically for people who don't have "natural" interpersonal skills and need to emulate it as a formal conscious process instead. That's it - nothing in the article touches any aspects of willingness to engage with others, or ways to break out of maladaptive behaviors like social evasion.

eslaught 1y ago

Recently I was introduced to the distinction between anxiety and dread. Anxiety is, essentially, a form of fear. You fear a worst-case consequence that isn't actually that likely. If you put up with your anxiety and just go and do the thing (on average) you'll do just fine, or at least ok-ish. Over time your body learns that the anxious activity is ok and the anxiety is reduced. Dread is different. Dread is the expectation of a bad situation. It's not a worst-case scenario, it's a typical scenario. If what you are experiencing is dread, then pushing yourself into that situation will confirm to your body that, yup, it really is as bad as you thought, and will amplify the dread rather than diminish it. A classic example is that certain forms of neurodivergence create sensory overload in typical "social" environments. This is likely to result in dread rather than anxiety. Your body is literally telling you that this situation is problematic, and repeat exposure isn't going to improve anything. In our modern culture the language of anxiety is widespread but the language of dread much less so, and I think that's unfortunate because a lot of advice centers around "just get over it", which works only if what you're experiencing is anxiety. Personally, learning about this gave me permission to do "social" activities on my own terms and stop worrying about what other people think "social" means; turns out the social anxiety I had was relatively minimal and what I was experiencing was mostly the dread from environments where social activities often occur.

shayway 1y ago
Thank you for passing this on. I've been circling the concept but haven't ever heard it pinned down. One often comes with the other so it's difficult to separate the two, but at the same time the strategies needed to overcome / deal with them are very distinct.
tootie 1y ago
Introversion has nothing to do with anxiety or dread. They are orthogonal concepts.
- bluefirebrand 1y ago
  You're not entirely wrong, but I don't think they are entirely orthogonal either. There is almost certainly a significant overlap between introversion and social anxiety/dread, even if they aren't 1:1 related If nothing else, many people with a lot of social anxiety will claim they are simply introverts in order to cover for their anxiety
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- 9rx 1y ago
  The fear of reaching the point of social exhaustion, as introverts quickly do, is the anxiety.
  - tootie 1y ago
    Not really. Not for me at least. Do you feel anxiety over physical exhaustion?
    - 9rx 1y ago
      I would be in better shape if I didn't! Although I will posit that physical exhaustion is typically more manageable, so that helps. There are certainly exceptions, but by and large in our modern, sedentary world, physical exertion can easily be limited to controlled environments where one is able to stop when they reach the point of exhaustion. It is unlikely that stepping outside means that you will have to outrun a lion, unable to pause else become lunch. Chances are these days you will only ever reach exhaustion if you purposefully push yourself to (e.g. hitting the gym). But if I have reason to worry that I am going to find myself in a situation where I cannot meaningfully rest when I reach my physical breaking point, absolutely the anxiety will be running hot. Whereas social interaction can be harder to control. For example, reaching your social limit in the middle of the workday does not usually, for all practical purposes, enable you to remove yourself from the situation. You are expected to keep going until the end of the business day, no matter how you are feeling on the inside. Us techies might have enough individual work to slink away to, perhaps, but for many jobs there is no such luxury. Or you might come up against a Chatty Cathy who will continue pushing to keep the social engagement going even after you try to back away. There aren't all that many HN-esq situations in the real world where you can just magically pop in when you want to engage and then disappear as fast as you came. And where you might find something approximate, you are apt to find it much too limiting to be an exclusive social outlet.
goopypoop 1y ago
Does the sore head dread beat the sobriety anxiety?
noman-land 1y ago
There's definitely a "get over it" for dread and it's called stoicism (not an expert). Sometimes you have to do things whether you like it or not just to survive and "getting over it" will prevent you from dying.
- crooked-v 1y ago
  Trying to just "get over it" with the neurodivergence example noticed is the kind of thing likely to result in a panic attack or other uncontrollable expression of emotion. It's not something you can change just by wanting it hard enough.
- hhh 1y ago
  come on man telling someone with autism to learn stoicism and just got care
- ball_of_lint 1y ago
  Even if this was true for neurotypicals (which it isn't) it wouldn't be true for neurodivergent folk. Can you hold a conversation next to a lawnmower? A jackhammer? A jet engine? At some point there's literally too much noise for you to communicate verbally anymore. That point is different for different people.
  - CharlesW 1y ago
    > Even if this was true for neurotypicals (which it isn't) it wouldn't be true for neurodivergent folk. Interesting take, are you neurodivergent? "Masking" is basically a "get over it" approach that the parent talks about. It is exhausting, to the point that neurodivergent people wil preemptively bail out of situations if they don't feel up for it. Tools associated with stocism can be helpful for neurodivergent people when they're used to support their needs rather than diminish them, in my experience.
  - fsckboy 1y ago
    let's say you are very afraid of heights. let's also say that your toddler climbed out a window and is now playing on the edge of the roof. you're just going to watch, or worse, hide your eyes? you replied to a comment that cited "survival", so to argue against it you need to also cite surviving, or not surviving in the case you bring up.
xlii 1y ago
TIL! I always joked that there’s nothing to fear about travel over plane. Nothing will fall, nothing will crash. The true horror is spending X hours without movement and a 2 day back pain afterwards. Seems that I rarely experience anxiety but I do experience dread more often. What you’re describing is my own self-developed strategy to deal with various stuff. Need to research dread topic more.
- tuatoru 1y ago
  [flagged]
uniqueusername7 1y ago
This makes some amount of sense to me, but what if you dread approaching people? how would you resolve this with still wanting to approach people/form relationships?
- eslaught 1y ago
  I'd try to find ways to stack everything else in your favor as much as possible. If X is difficult, you try to optimize Y, Z, etc. so that at least you're not coping with multiple adverse environmental factors at the same time. For me personally, the best-case scenario seems to be intentionally scheduled, one-on-one interactions in "clean" environments (i.e., quiet, unscented, no smoke/incense, dressed casually for maximum comfort, etc.). The next best would be some sort of group setting with structured, intentional sharing (i.e., not just doing something together but explicitly organized for the purpose of sharing). It can be a bit hit or miss to find these, so it can take some iteration to figure out what actually works. Otherwise, "escalating" (i.e., inviting someone into a deeper/more meaningful interaction) is a skill you can practice, but if you're dealing with the rest of it at the same time, you're basically playing with a handicap. So incrementalize your goals as much as possible, practice in small, regular intervals with sufficient breaks for recovery, and don't compare yourself to anyone else, no matter how tempting that might be. Hope that helps, and feel free to contact me on Keybase (in profile) or email (run the Perl script on my website) if you want help brainstorming. Disclaimer: not a therapist.
weinzierl 1y ago
"Personally, learning about this gave me permission to do "social" activities on my own terms and stop worrying about what other people think "social" means;" So much this. To have your own terms is always OK. If you think about it, what people think "social" means is not even fixed. It certainly changes with your age and your environment but even the consensus in a society about it changes. When I grew up it meant being in a deafening loud environment so much full smoke that you could barely breathe. Hated it, but only when I moved to the big city and started university I understood that I am not the only one. Nowadays the smoke is mostly gone and at least it has become accepted to wear hearing protection.
iambateman 1y ago
Any books or research to draw this out? It sounds somewhat relevant to my experience and I’d like to learn more.
anton-c 1y ago
This is enlightening as someone with severe... well anxiety and dread, I suppose. Thank you sincerely.
amelius 1y ago
I think in many cases there is a negative reinforcing aspect to anxiety that needs to be addressed. For example, anxiety can trigger certain physical symptoms like sweating excessively, tension leading to e.g. reduced loudness and loss of voice, clumsiness. This can spiral down and eventually the anxiety can be almost entirely about those physical aspects. This is just a different way of looking at it. What you do by addressing what you call dread is basically putting a halt to this feedback loop. (disclaimer: IANAMD)
- lukaslalinsky 1y ago
  I was stuttering for my entire life, still dealing with it at 42. Kids in basic school gave me all kinds of abuse due to my speech. So I obviously developed social anxiety. The nastiest part about stuttering is, the more anxious you are, the more you stutter. I was given a lot of advice to just go to kids and talk. It only reinforced the anxiety and confirmed that if I really want to say something, it's impossible to say it. The only realistic solution came much later in life, when I realized I just can't give a fuck about whether people understand me. People who are interested will ask me again. People who are not, will just go away. That attitude lessened the problem, but didn't get rid of it completely. But it also requires me to give up on many things.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

strken 1y ago

I don't think it's intended for people with social anxiety either. I'm not socially anxious, but I could definitely benefit from following up on conversations from parties more often.

moffkalast 1y ago
Might work most for autistic people tbh, rigid rules to follow to the letter.

dartharva 1y ago

No, this is intended for everyone, but the purpose is wrong. Leil Lowndes' How to talk to anyone (the source) is not explicitly about expanding your network. It's just guidelines (or rather suggestions, or even better - hacks) on how you can start and hold conversations with people. What you choose to do with them is your own purview.

tootie 1y ago

I think a lot of people really don't get this. I relish alone time and rarely seek out contact. But I also used to do sales pitches and attend conferences and was never uncomfortable no matter how unfamiliar the crowd. I just found it really tiring.

pj_mukh 1y ago

Also FWIW, this is also not a guide to networking. It’s a guide to attending networking events. Those are not the same things. I wish someone would write a guide to what to do in the 2 weeks after the networking event when inevitably everyone forgets about each other.

clickety_clack 1y ago

“The best way to network well is to stop giving a shit about doing it well” is a quote for the ages.

toast0 1y ago
It's a great quote, but I don't think it's really true. I didn't give a shit about networking, and I don't have a way to contact most of the people I've worked with in the past. I'm sure I could get some good referrals through many of those people, but since I didn't give a shit, I can't and I don't think that's really doing networking well. This worked out fine for me, some people who are better at networking than me reached out to me when they had interesting work at a good time, but 'do whatever and hopefully someone will find a job for you' is pretty bad advice too. You've got to give some minimal level of shit, or you end up with a potential network instead of a network. I don't think going to 'networking events' is required; those always seem fishy, if your only connection is you wanted to make a connection, it's not a strong connection ... and probably the people going to these things don't have a very strong network or they wouldn't be going, so you're not getting much from the multiple hop networking either. There's probably exceptions, but trying to catch em all is not the right game.

konart 1y ago

>This isn't for introverts its intended for people with social anxiety This. Introverts (in general) have no problems with communication\networking etc. Introverts simply do not _need_ company. Extraverts, on the other hand, contrary to what people often think, _need_ company to do stuff, even though they may be not so hot on networking or partying.

djtango 1y ago

> The best way to network well is to stop giving a shit about doing it well. As someone who has played piano for over 30 years and by any sane person's assessment I play at least "adequately", I can attest that worrying about how you play is the least constructive thing you can do and I have many times over my life crashed and burned when trying to play on the spot and in those moments people would question whether I knew how to play at all. When I finally realised to stop caring (at least in the moment) everything got a lot better. Even if you screw up, owning it and laughing about it is better than curling up in fear and anxiety and making the moment worse and more awkward for everyone. "stop caring" sounds like such unhelpful advice but when one finally realises you have agency over that, its like having a superpower

nkrisc 1y ago
“Stop caring” sounds unhelpful because it might be difficult, but it’s basically the one thing you have that’s actually in your control that you can do about it. I think some people would rather keep searching for easier solutions than taking the difficulty one they can actually accomplish.
MalbertKerman 1y ago
The hard part is not realizing that one should stop caring. It's learning how to stop caring. For most of us, caring is an automatic, reflexive response, and changing it is not a trivial matter.
- nativeit 1y ago
  The idea that finally clicked with me came from a narrated meditation session in the app “Headspace”. I think it’s probably a common metaphor, but it’s the only place I had encountered it: Imagine your mind is a highway, and your thoughts are cars that are driving along this highway in your mind. You, or rather your conscience, is sitting along this highway, and every time a thought comes along, you might try to stop it. Of course, this is foolish, you can’t stop those thoughts any more than you could stop a literal car on a highway. The trick comes once you realize that attempting to stop unwanted thoughts is a doomed and pointless exercise. But just because those thoughts have entered your mind, doesn’t mean you have to engage with them. You could instead simply let them pass you by. I don’t know why, but this worked for me. In the context of meditation, it freed me of the assumption that my mind should be blanked and free of thoughts, which always seemed impossible anyway. But it armed me with a useful mnemonic for recognizing when I am standing in the middle of the proverbial road, and the confidence to admit that I cannot do anything meaningful from such a precarious and hopeless position, so should move to the side, and focus on what’s possible.

zwnow 1y ago

Agree on the recharge part... People are always in disbelief when I tell them I even have to recharge from my SO.

skeeter2020 1y ago

My dad owned an auto dealership through my youth. He always had a least one "natural" salesman, who could just sell, but couldn't tell you how he did it. My dad was not a natural, and made up for this by consciously & relentlessly practicing the behaviours and actions: active listening, root cause analysis, identify the decision maker, respecting time & financial factors, attentive customer service, building connection & relationships. He became very good, but in a completely different way. Where his star salesman sold easily my dad had to work harder, but he then sold to the same person every few years, sometimes decades, and did better on the trade-ins than the new sales. Why the story? Because lots of things - including networking - sometimes come naturally to a few, but are more commonly learned. You can practice & must practice, and this can start with a short list of things like presented here. It's not about caring more about the Big Thing (tm) but focusing solely on a few small things that start you down the right path. In my experience a few easy things is a great way to displace the anxiety from big, complex, scary situations. Another brief anecdote I think helps illustrate this. I teach mountain biking, and the two biggest desires are 1. corner better, 2. learn how to jump. I suck at cornering but have logged a fair bit of air time. A common observation is people go very rigid in the air (called a "dead sailor"). This not only undesireable, it's dangerous. The fix? Get people to do any sort of movement when they are in the air; the smallest wiggle, shimmy or tweak unlocks their body AND their mind, and moves them forward. It both focuses and distracts. The list here feels a lot like a similar approach for certain social situations, and compared to your advice (stop caring and... just do it?) actually targets the root of anxiety "OK, but how?". YOLO is often part of it, but makes a terrible strategy.

marklubi 1y ago
Rigid in the air is akin to crashing. Same goes with snowboarding. It's a weird 'what do I do now?' situation because they're not sure how to finish. Have a plan, finish it.

brandall10 1y ago

Stop giving a shit is similar advice to "be yourself". It's confusing enough advice on a date, and it's esp. not helpful here. Networking is a skill beyond simple vibing and should be treated as such. For those with social anxiety, having a script/plan at least allows one to be on autopilot so they don't have to in fact give a shit. Also introverts definitely tend to not like networking or any group activity w/ a bunch of strangers (edit: I mean tend to like the 'idea' of them, but once there, can enjoy them). I think you meant that they can do it without fear.

_benton 1y ago
I'm introverted and I enjoy networking and group activities and also meeting and chatting with strangers. I just can't do it all day every day, I need breaks. Having social anxiety is different from not knowing how to talk to people and make friends. Bill Russel would get so worked up before games he would throw up. But he could also perform. I think it depends on what you're anxious about. Being scared that people will dislike you is different from being scared of embarrassment and it's different from being scared you don't know what to do in the moment. Of course all of those can be helped by simply exposing yourself to the situation over and over again. You learn that if you do embarrass yourself or if people dislike you, the world doesn't turn to ash.
- brandall10 1y ago
  I probably should draw the distinction between enjoying and looking forward to them - I never look forward to them (unless there's several friends there or it's for a fun activity), but yes, if you give it some effort, they can be enjoyable.
  - _benton 1y ago
    I find it really fulfilling to meet strangers but I need to be in the right headspace and it needs to be the right atmosphere. "Every person you look at, you can see the universe in their eyes -- if you're really looking." -- George Carlin
- 1y ago

Xmd5a 1y ago

"Almost more even than the extraverted is the introverted type subject to misunderstanding ... because the style of the epoch in which he himself participates is against him. Not in relation to the extraverted type, but as against our general occidental world-philosophy, he finds himself in the minority, not of course numerically, but from the evidence of his own feeling. In so far as he is a convinced participator in the general style, he undermines his own foundations, since the present style, with its almost exclusive acknowledgment of the visible and the tangible, is opposed to his principle. Because of its invisibility, he is obliged to depreciate the subjective factor, and to force himself to join in the extraverted overvaluation of the object. He himself sets the subjective factor at too low a value, and his feelings of inferiority are his chastisement for this sin. Little wonder, therefore, that it is precisely our epoch, and particularly those movements which are somewhat ahead of the time, that reveal the subjective factor in every kind of exaggerated, crude and grotesque form of expression. I refer to the art of the present day. The undervaluation of his own principle makes the introvert egotistical, and forces upon him the psychology of the oppressed. The more egotistical he becomes, the stronger his impression grows that these others, who are apparently able, without qualms, to conform with the present style, are the oppressors against whom he must guard and protect himself. He does not usually perceive that he commits his capital mistake in not depending upon the subjective factor with that same loyalty and devotion with which the extravert follows the object By the undervaluation of his own principle, his penchant towards egoism becomes unavoidable, which, of course, richly deserves the prejudice of the extravert. Were he only to remain true to his own principle, the judgment of ‘egoist’ would be radically false; for the justification of his attitude would be established by its general efficacy, and all misunderstandings dissipated. " Jung -Psychological types "You want to be understood? That’s all we needed! Understand yourself, and you will be sufficiently understood. You will have quite enough work in hand with that" Jung - Red book

_benton 1y ago
I really should read Jung. So much wisdom in that.

drdaeman 1y ago

Nah, this is not for social anxiety people either. Or however we can call folks who don't normally feel like talking to others if they can. All the recipes there are basically for people who don't have "natural" interpersonal skills and need to emulate it as a formal conscious process instead. That's it - nothing in the article touches any aspects of willingness to engage with others, or ways to break out of maladaptive behaviors like social evasion.