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Comment by RichardHeart | Hacker News Reader

Summary: If you want to meet people, be meetable. Proximity is power. If you isolate yourself by location or behavior, less people are going to do the work of meeting you. If you're a man, this passive shit doesn't work as well, so get ready to be bridging the gap courageously yourself.

Open ended questions usually fail. You're better off making interesting statements than you are actually asking questions. For instance: You look like you're from someplace very far away. vs. Where are you from?

Open ended questions are pretty garbage unless someone is already attracted to you, and used to being conversational. Interrogations aren't fun.

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Good comment but I wouldn't suggest saying you look like you are from someplace far away. Just sticking with the standard where you are from is good.

Better to have traveled out of the country a few times so you can relate.

Best advice is to talk about doing something. This art museum, this meetup, this new great restaurant. "Oh join me and my other friends. Or let's go explore together." You can kind of bluff your way through this even if you have no other friends (go find them!).

I like "where have you traveled?"

It usually invites them to talk about being from somewhere else without getting "Kansas, asshole" responses from, eg, Asian Americans.

It also gives them a chance to talk about an interesting experience, even if they're from somewhere boring. Almost everyone has been on one cool trip.

Still looks a little competitive. Not everyone is wealthy enough to travel.

In such a scenario, most people will happily bust out the self-deprecation and say "Well, nowhere interesting, but I did go to <interesting_semi-local_place>." Even an hour road trip to somewhere offbeat can be interesting enough for conversation.

>> "Well, nowhere interesting, but I did go to <interesting_semi-local_place>."

Yes, but they may internally feel quite embarrassed saying they went to Rancho San Antonio when others are harping about snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef and wrestling bears and seeing the Northern Lights.

I agree. The "you look like you are ..." requires the other person to either affirm that they look conspicuously different than their peers or to refute the asker's claim that they look different, which could be embarrassing for both.

Generally, I try to avoid comments on a person's appearance unless I'm pretty good friends with that person, even if it's something relatively benign like "you like my friend, Pat" or "you like $celebrity".

Edit: of course, "where are you from?" could be perceived as a patronizing way to point out that the other person looks different. Socializing is hard.

The best form of "where are you from?" is "Are you from [this city we're now in]?"

If they are, and you are, hey, you're both natives! Where did you go to high school?

If they aren't, and you are, hey, what do you like about it? How long have you been here? What brought you here?

If they are, and you aren't, hey, you're a native, I moved here x years ago, do you know restaurant X? It's my favorite.

If they aren't, and you aren't, mix and match, any of the above.

"You look like you are from far away" will offend lots of minorities, because it smells of racism.

> He asks what many have asked before: “Where are you from?” I tell him Miami. He laughs and says, “No, but really. Where are you from from?” He mentions something about my features, my thin nose, and then trails off. I tell him my family is from Eritrea, a country in the Horn of Africa, next to Ethiopia. He looks relieved. “I knew it,” he says. “You’re not black.” I say that of course I am. “None more black,” I weakly joke. “Not really,” he says. “You’re African, not black-black. Blacks don’t hike.”

https://www.outsideonline.com/2170266/solo-hiking-appalachia...

>Open ended questions are pretty garbage unless someone is already attracted to you, and used to being conversational. Interrogations aren't fun.

It seems like there's a lot of evidence that people like talking about themselves. Also, questions invite engagement where 'interesting statements' don't, necessarily.

I think 'interesting questions' are a good route to go. Knowing a bit of philosophy helps here. E.g. "In a brain transplant would you rather be the donor or the recipient?" or "Should child-sized sex robots be legal?" Because regardless of the answer it invites follow ups like "Why?" and "What about you? How would you answer the question?"

> "Should child-sized sex robots be legal?"

I'm not an expert in this field, but it seems like bringing up the subject of pedophilia (even in the abstract) in your first conversation with someone is ill-advised.

Definitely marking the guy in the maroon blazer as suspect and observing who his friends are for future avoidance.

Sex with a robot and sex with a child aren't the same thing. See why it's a great conversation-starter?! :-)

But yeah, it wouldn't be my first question.

Right, it's an interesting philosophical question, I'm just advising not to lead with it :)

It's not a brain transplant, its a body transplant!

And in conversation, instead of talking about you “I’m this, I’m that,” make them talk about themselves “Tell me about this. Tell me about what you hope.” Open-ended questions elicit interesting responses. “I am interesting, and we talked about something I like, so now you seem interesting, too.” That's simple projection.

>Open ended questions usually fail. You're better off making interesting statements than you are actually asking questions. For instance: You look like you're from someplace very far away. vs. Where are you from?

"Where are you from?" is the exact opposite of an open ended question.

This was always impossible for me. So I always relied on friends introducing me to their other friends.

I was unnaturally afraid of having to build up my network of friends from scratch. This held me back from moving across the country early on to build my career.

I could have used some kind of mentor for social interactions or something.

Being socially effective is a trainable skill like most other skills. The skills you build being confident and walking up to whomever you choose to say whatever you like, pays dividends in all areas of life. You're more likely to get funded, more likely to get the job and more likely to get the girl.

The only trap is that once you get good, you'll be addicted to doing something that doesn't scale. Fame scales, meeting people one at a time pretty much does not.

Can you elaborate on the trap? Why should/could it scale eg you can always push yourself into more exclusive environments or host events etc.

Be fun. People like fun people.

I hope this isn't part of your tactic, because what you just said makes me think I'd chew my own leg off to get away from you if we met socially.

Edit: Just to clarify why I feel that way - you make it sound like there's a one size fits all model of what it means to be social, where the loud guy with good hair wins and all the dweebs lose. Maybe that's your niche, but you should know there's a bigger world out there.

Yes but choosing life tactics based on scalability really makes one come across as inhuman and impossible to satisfy. That's fine if you want to be Elon Musk but I encourage the reader to carefully consider whether that is really what would make them happy.

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