Hacker News Reader

Not knowing much about your situation, here are some general tips that may or may not be useful. Also, recommending again Daniel Goleman's work for developing basic social literacy.

1) Be happy about the size of your social circle. Some people think they have to run out and make lots of friends as quickly as possible. I think it's better to hang out with the people you know and work on just having a good attitude. More friends (if that's really what you want) will happen of their own accord.

2) Relatedly, let things evolve naturally. It's better to be relatively hands-off, go with the flow and resist the temptation to manufcature new relationships/friendships/hobbies/social interactions.

3) Do things you like, regardless of where they take you socially. Some people think you can't go to a movie without friends. I think the opposite - you should be doing stuff you enjoy, without worrying too much about whether there are people doing it with you.

4) Then, look for opportunities to invite people to do stuff with you. If it's stuff you like doing anyway, you'll be more enjoyable to hang out with.

5) Be open to anything. People offer you chances to go do new things - dinner at their place, a concert, paintball - all the time. Take up the opportunities. If you're agreeable, eager, and ready to learn, people will love having you around.

6) Be faithful. Some people seem to have a bad habit of ditching old friends when new, cooler ones seem to be available - like now they have a chance to hang out with the cool kids, so they're going to get rid of those embarrassing old weirdos they were making do with for a while. Don't do this! It won't make you happy, it'll just make you a fake asshole. Staying true to your old friends, regardless of their quirks, is key to staying true to yourself, and very important if you are doing better socially and making friends. Remember your roots.

7) Say nice things. Just make an effort to say nice things, often. Compliment people on their clothes, taste in music, abilites, work they've done, house, whatever. You might think you're very complimentary but I think it can be surprising (if you're anything like me) how much people appreciate hearing you voice your approval aloud. People love it.

8) Use agreeable words like "yes," "sure," "okay," "awesome," and so on. Say "great" instead of "good." Say "great!!" instead of just "great." Just try consciously to change your language to use more positives. At first it might feel a bit weird but it makes a big difference, and it becomes more natural. You will just become a more positive person. (Did you notice that I tried to give as much of this advice in positives rather than negatives?)

9) Be yourself. Do you want to hang out with people right now or just be on your own? Do you what you want to do. Pay attention to your own feelings, and try and communicate what you are feeling clearly - while being respectful and considerate of course. Pay attention to your inner state.

10) Real importantly, it's okay if you don't click with everyone. Maybe what you're looking for is just two or three really close friends. If so, those are going to be people you can really, really relate to. Feeling comfortable with others starts with honesty. It's not about trying to act cool or super friendly, it's about being yourself around people you trust and who trust you. It's not always easy to find people who fit with you (and for whom you fit likewise) but it's worth it. The main thing is not to worry, with these things it can feel like nothing is changing and nothing will ever changes for aaaaaaages, then suddenly, overnight, it all just happens. It usually finally happens, I think, when you relax and forget to worry about it.

Hope that helps. Feel free to correct me if my advice doesn't map to your specifics. Otherwise, good luck : )

Thanks for the thoughtful words. Based on my text alone, I can see how these would apply. I think I know all these things intellectually. I probably put most of them into practice. I wonder if a big part of the problem is I work from home, and I work all the time. Or is that symptom? You deserve serious kudos for the list, regardless.

Perhaps if work is something you find so absorbing and such an important part of your life, any natural social solution would develop from your work interest. I don't know what you do, but are there any ways you could meet up with people doing similar stuff or with similar interests locally? Can you do any of your work away from home, in a more social environment (Starbucks e.g.)? Maybe there's a local cafe you could make a habit of visiting regularly. Just little ways to get out of your comfort zone a bit. Heck, maybe you could organise a local HN meetup? I notice you haven't put any info on your profile - maybe be a little more open and give an email and a location? Likewise on other newsgroups or online communities you enjoy. There's nothing wrong with meeting people from online.

Other things I could think of involve going on a little vacation, maybe seeing if there are some clubs or programmes around your area you could sign up for, or volunteering. Also would you consider looking into trying your hand at a random job? Say you put up some fliers for mowing people's lawns. Or offer to teach people computer skills. You can meet nice people, and teaching is a good way to practice being generous and respectful with others.

If you don't mind me asking, what sort of work do you do? And what sort of place do you live in? I'm a uni student in a pretty cozy small town, I'm sure your situation is quite different from mine :)

Im a developer at a small startup, I work from home, in Portland, OR.

I wonder if a big part of the problem is I work from home, and I work all the time

FWIW, I find that when I spend a lot of time alone, social interaction can get awkward and I need a little time to get into the "flow" again.

"As is probably the case with most of us here, I didn't suspect this because my intelligence in all other arenas is excellent."

I'd like to branch off from this comment a bit. What happens when your intelligence, like wealth (a comparison I recently started making), creates a gap between yourself and others? What happens when you want to talk about really interesting things ('go to a fancy restaurant') but others basically clam up ('can't afford it')?

Over the last decade and a half, my personal 'wealth' has been created from finding and maintaining varying interests. Most people I talk to don't seem to have any. They work/play, spend/earn, watch tv, listen to music and go out with friends to bars/clubs. And when you ask them about their interests, they rattle off the list I just made. I suppose it has to do with the idea that education is something you're forced to deal with and 'luckily' it's over after college.

Finding those (IRL) who have interests or who believe in lifelong learning is like finding a needle in a haystack.

I've often made excuses to myself along the lines of "there are just fewer people I get along with because I'm gifted" or something like that. But I can't buy those completely, because there are plenty of people smarter than me who don't seem to have that problem.

Edit: You might reframe what friends are for? Common interests are really important, but not an absolute necessity.

I was like this several years ago myself, the key is in being humble whilst still being argumentative without sounding like a wanker - it's possible!

Tis' a fine line! I throw in plenty of humble statements as I like to think the only thing I really know is that I know nothing (though this makes me want to learn more, question more). I also throw in bits and pieces of random things I've studied and hope the other person doesn't just find it interesting for a moment but rather goes home thinking about it. Of course, possible they don't find it interesting at all and just think I'm a wanker.

Indeed it is a fine line, but there is plenty of things you can learn along the way to make that line a little less fine until it gets to the point that the line might not even exist anymore!

Give yourself some credit, you know stuff, and you can know even more if you want to :-)

That is what self growth is all about after all!

I find that having an understanding of human psychology is a critical step towards being effective with this kind of stuff, because it helps you work through the psychology of other people for a common goal (ie, a random conversation with a stranger, job interview, speech, etc).

Without it, your flying blind. When I was younger and flying blind it cost me a number of futures I will never see now.

Humbleness can come off as exploitable and dumb, just as much as it can come off as being intelligent, it's not just what you say, it's also how you say it!

Safe journeys!

>because there are plenty of people smarter than me who don't seem to have that problem.

They do have this problem. Since childhood they are surrounded by dumb and uninteresting people. Cynicism and distrust in the common sense of the fellow humans are already there by age of 12. But this is unproductive, and they make conscious effort to mingle, so they don't have to be alone all the time, have somebody to mate with, have playdates for their children, but it continues to be a struggle and sacrifice and they continue to stay intellectually alone.

There is a way out though - each typical step in society that is pre-programmed for smart people is also a filter - getting to school for gifted children, good university, then good, hard to get to, company, then changing it to better one filters out dumb people from your acquaintances and makes people around you nicer to talk to and easier to get along with. The downside is that they typically have not so stellar "emotional intelligence" as well, and, depending on occupation, there could be a gender bias (so mating within peer group could be problematic).

Your last statement is quite possible but I've found two groups forming: those who like to go out and those who like to think yet have accepted going out, albeit in more interesting ways. The latter might go to an open-mic night or spend their evening seeing a new foreign film and later, a beer or two in a venue where people can actually hear each other. While those things are preferable to me, they are icing on the cake since the subjects discussed along the night are about a new study they read or a new connection they made while taking a walk that day. If these people ever need to go a few layers deeper because you've got them excited, they can easily go deeper. I'm 31 and I've probably personally met maybe 6 people like this...ever.

Completely agree with you, although I think it is more about the personal desire to learn than education in itself.

If you don't have the personal desire to learn in the first place, then I doubt that education can genuinely "teach" you this.

Where does this desire come from? It comes from within, so it can't be "taught" to most people who are unreceptive in the first place.

During my life of 27 years, I have met only a few other individuals with the same eagerness for self growth as I have, and hundreds of people who have no interest or concept of what self growth even means and dozens of additional people who are somewhere in between and use their social skills to manipulate other people instead of manipulating themselves to be better people.

Funny, funny world we live in!

I actually thought of having some sort of internet social network that would help people find other people like them using criteria like "believe and practice lifelong learning", "have diverse and special interests" and features like that I actually believe CAN be defined, even mathematically.

It sometimes amazes me how "socially retarded" thing like Facebook and Google+ are... there's so much more one could do in these areas that all the "facebookies" that mentally jerk of in hackathlons and quickly code new "cool" video sharing features should be doing instead...

Yeah, that part really stinks. I've had that thought, too. I suppose in some sense this is what subreddits are, but no one cares about being your friend on Reddit.

...but imagine what would be to see someones G+ or Fb profile on Reddit (or request to see it and only have access to it of the Reddit user gives it to you) and then add it (submit a friend request) in a way such that he/she sees that you added him via Reddit and automagically sees your most recent common Reddit "conversations" on the side of the accept/deny friendship request so has enough infos and context to quickly make a decision... combine this with some non-annoying non-awkard psychometrics for whoever chooses to use them/accepts being used by them and it would start to be less "socially" retarted...

...the only HARD thing to do would be to make all these things unobstrusive enough so that they's happen without taking extra time and incurring too much cognitive overload

...or maybe 90% of users would be too "IT dumb" too actually benefit from and therefore use these advances ...and they would not bring enough extra revenue for behemonts like Fb

Excellent question, and one I would love an answer to as well! I am very comfortable working with people, and get along great with everyone. I would go as far as to say I'm usually quite an important part of most groups I am a part of, once everybody gets to know me.

The thing that frustrates me, however, is how few people I end up "hanging out" with, and really enjoy the company of. I put that down to a sort of "social fatigue" because of my being an introvert. I'd be curious to see if this is a problem anybody else has managed to conquer.