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How do you reconcile "Every social interaction is a kind of investment" with "I might be in a particularly good mood and actually strike up a conversation"?

Does being in a good mood mean that you will get more upside to the "investment" of small talk? Are you being optimistic that the conversation will be productive (i.e. "maybe I'll learn something interesting or make an important connection"), or does the act of engaging in small talk yield its own reward, dependent on being in the right mood?

Once in a while, something really good happens and I have no one to tell about it. In those cases, some typically dormant circuit in my personality lights up and I want to talk. So I'll start the small talk off, but look for an opening to talk about my experience.

> How do you reconcile "Every social interaction is a kind of investment" with "I might be in a particularly good mood and actually strike up a conversation"?

The price to buy in is less when you're in a good mood.

Absolutely true. I tend to attract good energy when I put out good energy. The inverse, too. It's palpable. If I walked around always in the space of my lowest band, I'd see the world and people as pretty bad.

Perhaps the investment cost is less.

Are you saying it's socially "obligatory" to not go to concerts alone? I've done that a few times, and I don't think anyone notices or cares, and if they do, so what?

I'm an introvert. I've gone to Disneyland alone, for God's sake. And I'm pretty sure that people who saw me there alone thought I was weird.

It was definitely a so what situation.

Generally people don't look twice at you. Unless you were dressed weird or something, they probably didn't try to determine whether you were there with someone or not, because it's too high a cognitive load to apply for everyone you see at Disneyland.

Or, in gaming speak: You're at the center of your minimap, but not at anyone else's.

This is a hard one for many, many people. Most people don't give a fuck because they have enough to deal with in their own life without thinking about yours all the time, too. It's an illusion that anyone is evaluating whether you came to the show with someone or not.

I could dress as mickey mouse every day because it'd be somewhat anonymous, at least at first, until that become my identity. Hey Mickey, what's up.

I'm pretty sure no one noticed you at all. It's like that spaghetti stain on your shirt, you can see it a mile away in a mirror but nobody gives a shit about it.

Absolutely, go to concerts alone. It harms nobody. If you go to the concert and made a point of standing facing the crowd glaring with your arms folded, that's harm. Obviously, you're there to have some fun or at least enjoy some good music.

I agree, yes, I think we are obligated to be nice to strangers in public. Fuck those people who bring their bad energy into a coffee shop.

Equally bad is being overly familiar with someone you don't know.

Agreed. I've made that mistake before and others have made it with me. It's not respecting boundaries. I'm a little too curious sometimes asking personal questions or otherwise crossing boundaries. Respect personal boundaries. It's the least you can do.

> Even introverts need to gain enough skill (chutzpah?) to communicate with their colleagues.

We have enough of these skills, thank you very much. We just don't like talking about nothing for three hours and we don't like forcing intimate details of our lives into somebody else's throat. If we have nothing to say, we stay silent.

That's a very transactional view of other people if you're saying it's investment with expectation of return? If you mean it's literally an investment as in energy and time.

Is it really all about payoffs? It may be true. It just seems sad. I'd rather lie to myself that it's not that.

You get a payoff for everything you do, whether you know it or not. It feels really good to help my kids and see them do well. It feels good to help a coworker find a bug that's been dogging them. I feel self-satisfied after getting a thank you for holding a door open for someone. Those positive feelings are all payoffs for my behavior.

But I feel awkward trying to talk to a stranger. No payoff. So I generally don't do it.

Fair enough. It sounds selfish as in I have a son and I'd like to think I don't help him for a payoff but I could be delusional. Or it could be the two things don't contradict each other. Let's say you randomly pay for someone's coffee at a coffee shop and they say what the fuck's your problem? Stalker.

No, they smile warmly and thank you. You share a laugh. You made their day, they made yours. It's not zero sum. Nobody lost anything. Well, except you, some cash.

I forgot to ask do you ever feel good energy from a stranger and have this amazing interaction even if it lasts 3 minutes? It does happen. I'd hazard to say that the sum total of little interactions and individual energy projection is the gestalt of a place and time. Even a room has a vibe we've all felt. You can tell if a room feels tense, a sidewalk is full of anxious people, that was love I just felt. I'm sure there's a better word for this than gestalt, btw.

do you ever feel good energy from a stranger and have this amazing interaction even if it lasts 3 minutes?

I thought for a while to recall, and, well, not really. There have been circumstances where some external situation affected both me and a stranger in some way and we mutually complained or otherwise acknowledged it. It was a connection based on a shared experience, rather than being all that random. Maybe that counts. But you have to be open in order for those more serendipitous instant connections to happen that you enjoy, and I'm just not open. It's an attribute of my Aspergers-induced introversion, I think.

Ah, well, impressive level of self awareness. I exaggerated a bit too much that I overdid my point. The 3 minutes example is extremely rare and it's not acceptable to ask someone to trade their personal boundaries for a free cup of coffee.

But I'd say we all could put out just a little bit better energy than we do, just a bit, with some effort, maybe it even becomes easier over time. For example, I make a concerted effort to make eye contact and smile at the check out line person no matter how I feel. It seems like a small thing but acknowledging people who pass in and out of our field in any given day, with head up eye level, is where the action is. I try to see people when I'm out and about.

I'll grant you this: There are parts of the US where I've found it much easier to be heads-up friendly than others. It seems to be in the demeanor of the general population, and smaller, more out of the way places seem to be more friendly, in general.

I'm really flying by the seat of my pants on this one, but perhaps it has to do with the variety of people you meet on a given day. The less variety, the more likely the people you meet are like you and the more comfortable you could be in engaging them. A large variety, and you just can't be sure what you're going to get, and the risk that it's a cold shoulder is too high.

I'm not even talking about striking up a conversation or even saying hi to everyone you pass. :-)

More like be there in that moment when an opportunity arises and try to project more good energy into the routine interactions. There's a payoff for that that. It feels good even if it only works sometimes.

It's easier said then done as I'm always tempted to look down, passing through. I practice, fail, fail again then maybe get into the groove better the next day. No big deal. Fail isn't quite the right word as there's no real cost for trying to be a source of good energy even if a lot of people aren't trying.

One more important thing about this is that good energy tends to draw good energy. So you might notice that the world seems like a better place because better things happen on days when you put good energy out. The difference is palpable.

It's the obvious things such as I'm less likely to experience rudeness from others but some far less obvious changes that seem out of reach of my energy, such as I'm less likely to be cut off in traffic type of bad experience. I'm not sure what if understanding how this process works even matters. It just works consistently.