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> I am always astounded by those who don't have very good "people skills."

Perhaps they don't have "the skills" because they don't think they need them. Spending 10 minutes of one's life chit-chatting with a complete stranger feels like a waste of time to me.

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But what if that stranger turns out to be another hacker? An entrepreneur? What if you hit it off really well with that stranger and end up being great friends? What if that person ends up getting you your next job?

Granted, the probability any of the above happening is quite low, but just having a chat with someone when you're, say, waiting for a bus is not going to waste your time. You don't have to actively seek out strangers to talk to.

BTW, when it comes to social skills, I give myself 1 out of 10.

to me, "whoring" myself around socially has always been about practice and experience of other minds. I like to talk and often bore my friends to tears trying to refine my stock of "interesting things" to babble about, to the point where I sometimes don't get the feedback I require. So just throwing it out there with a complete stranger while having a rollie outside a club can be surprisingly profitable.

Still, that is the way complete strangers become something else than that.

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