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Comment by 0xbadcafebee | Hacker News Reader

So be an older British lady? You get to decide how people see you. Hair, clothes, body language, smile, is 90% of how people decide whether they want to interact with you.

When I dye my hair all kinds of colors, random people talk to me (and the specific colors even dictate who talks). When I dress up in a suit, people treat me more seriously. When I dress like a contractor and drive my truck, regular dudes talk to me at gas stations. And when I dress queer, women (and some dudes) smile at me.

I'm not even outgoing personality-wise, which would help more. Personality's the mental equivalent of physical appearance. Think of it like acting: actors pretend to be a certain way, and if it feels genuine, it makes us love or hate them, intrigued or bored. It's a lot more work than changing clothes, but it works no matter what you wear.

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I don't think older British lady is in the cards for me but I get your point. One of my friends has a dog (a very cute little yorkie) who I take on walks fairly often. Let me tell you: I get so many people coming up to me wanting to talk when I'm out walking that dog. It's like I'm suddenly transported to a different universe where people are 100x more sociable.

It makes sense: people love dogs. It gives us something in common and is a starting point for conversation. And people with cute dogs seem much less threatening.

But I also kind of resent it. I wish people would want to talk to me when I'm just me.

Don’t feel bad please. There’s a flip side to all these sociable people which you are sensing. It’s the fallacy of “winning friends and influencing people”. Suppose you are sociable and use the tricks to get to know people (take an interest in their interest, ask for favors, etc) the reality is it will almost never be reciprocated. You get a bunch of people to like you but they will never know you because they’re pitiful and shallow. After a while you will resent them and just skip it all.

> You get to decide how people see you. Hair, clothes, body language, smile, is 90% of how people decide whether they want to interact with you.

I see what you're getting at, but also this take kinda annoys me because it falls into the bucket of implying a personal fault. If people don't socialise with you then it must be because you do or don't do X, Y, Z. "Just do X" and you'll become a social butterfly.

Based on my personal experience, I don't know if I buy it. I guess I'm a regular enough guy, but seriously almost never, across my whole life, does someone invoke random socialisation with me. Yet I know people who can't even take the bus without strangers striking up conversations and hassling them, while they are actively trying to be antisocial. What magic trick are these people performing? Can I learn the same trick? What if I don't want to perform it? I think the reality is that for some (many?) people, it just doesn't work out and it's not necessarily due to any particular flaw.

As someone who both experienced phases in life where no one approached me and phases were I get approached regularly, it's a mix of external signifiers and some internal woo stuff that people don't really understand conciously. Or said another way, when someone says you have to "look approachable" what they actually mean is that a) you have to present yourself externally in a way that makes people more likely to engage you (the aforementioned hair, clothes etc.) and b) you have to internally be open to the world (which is what dictates your body language in subtle ways that apparently get picked up). The issue is when someone says something like "have an open body language" is that it's impossible to 24/7 fake a certain type of body language, you actually have to believe it.

If you are naturally a distrusting person people will pick up on it, just how people will pick up if you're naturallly an open person. (The true trick is realizing that "naturally" can be changed)

As part of a smalltalk training, we had to go out and approach strangers in the public. I entered a tram to try my luck. As soon as as I sat down, someone else started to talk to me, and we had a nice conversation. I didn't even need to break the ice myself. So I can (anecdotally) confirm that people can perceive if you want to connect or rather want to be left alone.

I do see what you mean but again I'm not sure if I buy it, because it still sounds pretty meritocratic. I have been through times in life with severe social anxiety and times without, and the quantity of approach hasn't really changed. And doesn't explain the people who get approached even when trying to be closed off (I mean just listen to women complain how they're constantly hounded by men no matter what they do).

Also, what about neurodivergent people who may express their openness/closedness somewhat differently? Are they screwed no matter what?

I won't say you can't do anything to influence your approachability, but I really do think there is a very large component which is essentially fixed, and people rarely acknowledge this (which is annoying).

It's not fixed. It's like anything hard that doesn't come naturally. You may wish you were a guitarist, but actually playing guitar well is really hard. You have to work at it, over and over, for months/years. But if you can move your fingers, you can learn to play guitar. It just won't come quickly or easily, and you may decide you'd rather skip it.

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