Meeting eccentric people IRL

How to pass, fit in, eventually set an example, and ultimately lead the way.
EdithKeeler
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Re: Meeting eccentric people IRL

Post by EdithKeeler »

Have you considered motivational speaking? Because this is really powerful stuff.
Haha! I’d have to distill it down into some easily remembered sayings. “Be who you are and you’ll go far.” And: “Don’t be a punk! It’s not about your junk!”

Come to think of it, those were probably both on After School Specials back in the day.

George the original one
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Re: Meeting eccentric people IRL

Post by George the original one »

slsdly wrote:
Sun Apr 07, 2019 11:56 am
In fact, I would go as far to say the opposite. If you want to find a partner, learn to be happy first. It is a drag to be around people who are sad or angry about what life has not provided them. Few would prefer to sleep with that. Heck, few would prefer to be friends with that.
Ding! Ding! Ding!

classical_Liberal
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Re: Meeting eccentric people IRL

Post by classical_Liberal »

This is the first time I've commented in one of these threads because it may seem like it's actually going somewhere.

Many good pieces of advice, but I'm going to add something super important. When trying to get to know people generally, eccentric, women, or whoever; being a good listener is of the utmost importance. This is super easy to do if you actually have interest in that person as a human being! People are frigg'en fascinating... seriously! They have stories, opinions, hobbies, beliefs, that are amazing and interesting. Let me tell you, almost all of them want to share these things with you, if, you are actually listening to them. Most people are deprived of human contact, many actually pay people $100's an hour, just to listen to them! This has the double benefit for an introvert because it takes much less social energy to listen. Then, once you get a basic idea of who this person is, you can make a decision, whether or not they are your type of person, how much farther you want to take it.

Jason

Re: Meeting eccentric people IRL

Post by Jason »

EdithKeeler wrote:
Mon Apr 08, 2019 6:24 pm
“Don’t be a punk! It’s not about your junk!”
If you say this to the guys on this thread, they might think you are a minimalist which could make the whole situation even worse.

The Old Man
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Re: Meeting eccentric people IRL

Post by The Old Man »

All this talk of relationships is good, but beware that it may lead straight to the friend zone.

TheRedHare
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Re: Meeting eccentric people IRL

Post by TheRedHare »

I can understand how the OP feels, and also everyone's comments on the opposite sex.

Before meeting my gf I was very cynical about the opposite sex due to a bad relationship I had back in college. In hindsight I realized several reasons why I had such difficulty with women.

1. I never went out.
-Obviously, if you don't put yourself out there you will never meet a girl or guy you're compatible with. BUT you shouldn't go out and expect to magically start picking up chicks or dudes early on because chances are you're gonna be pretty rusty with interacting with people (I know I was). The goal is to just start getting yourself out there and interacting with people so that you're more comfortable around others and yourself.

2. Not understanding yourself well enough.
I still struggle with this, but as long as you are aware of it and honest with yourself you'll be okay. Really think about what you want out of a relationship (if you want one) and stay level headed. Figure out what your goals are, how you want to get there, and start working on them.

3. Be comfortable with yourself and have a sense of purpose (a goal).
Speaking from my own experience, I found that women really like guys who come off as 'purposeful'. The one girl I'm with now really liked that quality about me and she got the impression that I was someone who had a sense of self worth, and that I was on a mission to accomplish my goals. I think this also goes along with 'passion'. It's true, girls like guys who are passionate about things.

4. Be the prize.
Ok, I'm not saying to treat women like dirt, or over inflate your ego...but...you need to be the prize. If you make it your goal just to find a girl..then you're doing it wrong. When I was actively looking for a girl I found that I wasn't having any luck what-so ever. Then I gave up, but my dating profile was still up. When I made matches, instead of wanting to have an in depth conversation I just asked them if wanted to do something that I really enjoyed doing and if they wanted to tag along (this gives them the impress that you're someone who's got stuff going on and isn't needy). I met my gf at a concert after inviting her off of a dating app (one that I was going to go to regardless on if she wanted to go or not). Women are extremely good at detecting insecurities..so if you come off as desperate or needy they won't be interested.

Read 'The Rational Male' that guy speaks the truth.

Jin+Guice
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Re: Meeting eccentric people IRL

Post by Jin+Guice »

classical_Liberal wrote:
Tue Apr 09, 2019 1:40 am
Many good pieces of advice, but I'm going to add something super important. When trying to get to know people generally, eccentric, women, or whoever; being a good listener is of the utmost importance. This is super easy to do if you actually have interest in that person as a human being! People are frigg'en fascinating... seriously! They have stories, opinions, hobbies, beliefs, that are amazing and interesting. Let me tell you, almost all of them want to share these things with you, if, you are actually listening to them.
This is excellent advice. I have been trying to improve my social skills recently and I realized that I was/ am a bad listener. Trying to become a better listener is the single best change I've made since actively trying to improve my social skills. I'm not big on TED talks, but I've gotten a lot from this one:

https://www.ted.com/talks/celeste_headl ... anguage=en

I try to reread the portion of the transcript where she says her 10 tips once a day.


@TheRedHare: That's very similar to my experience and your advice is very good. The only piece of transferable dating knowledge I have is that if you are not having fun on a date, the date is going to be a failure by any possible measure.

One thing I do have to give myself credit for is not ever feeling negative about the opposite sex. This is seriously a bad look and is not helping anyone in any way. One thing I have to chastise myself for is feeling badly about myself. It's useful to think "This isn't working out for me, so I need to change something." It's not useful to think "This isn't working out for me, because I'm a loser, so I'm going to be a sad sack about it." @TheRedHare's 2-4 is what moved me from the latter to the former.

Gilberto de Piento
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Re: Meeting eccentric people IRL

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

The Old Man wrote:
Tue Apr 09, 2019 8:54 am
All this talk of relationships is good, but beware that it may lead straight to the friend zone.
I am not an expert at this stuff but I agree that if you are going to interact with potential partners as friends first at some point you need to take an action that attempts to move the relationship from friends to dating. In order to do that you need to accept that this attempt may ruin the friendship. As more time goes by this becomes more difficult to do (because the friendship has become valuable and neither party wants to lose it) and less likely to be successful (because the other person thinks of you only as a friend now). One or two friendly interactions, then say something along the lines of"I am having fun spending time with you. Would you be interested in going on a date with me to get coffee and take a walk in the park?"

7Wannabe5
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Re: Meeting eccentric people IRL

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I feel like there is some cognitive dissonance in this thread, because you can choose "gender is irrelevant" or you can choose "don't make it about the junk", but you can't have both. 'Cause, for a straight guy, "my new female friend whom I am not picturing naked" is not a real thing. Whereas, even a fairly hyper-sexual female can go for maybe 3 dates with a man she finds very attractive, and even all the way up to halfway through a make-out session without making a single conjecture about the possible appearance of her date's junk. UNLESS he makes a terrible error of projection of desire and sends her a picture.

How women do conjecture is more like "I wonder what he will do?" So, sometimes acting like you want to be friends will just cause confusion.

prognastat
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Re: Meeting eccentric people IRL

Post by prognastat »

@7wb5
I wouldn't go so far as to say there aren't any female friends I wouldn't picture naked. If they are just not attractive to me this isn't going to happen. If they are though chances are the thought may have crossed my mind. This also doesn't necessarily mean ugly as there are plenty of women that others would find very attractive that I have no interest in seeing naked and probably the same for the reverse. I'm sure this is the case for most guys.

You might be right though that the percentage for males is much higher though.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Meeting eccentric people IRL

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@prognastat:

I didn't mean to imply that all men are always picturing all women naked. I meant that if you join a group, make some friends, and then ask one of the female friends you met in the group out on a date, it is very likely that you might have briefly pictured her naked upon first or maybe second sight.

Of course, I might be projecting a bit, because I have on more than one occasion made the mistake of hitting on a man, because I was confused by his tendency to want to hang out with me a lot, and it always led to some flavor of "stuck in ambiguity." So, at some point I adopted the rule of "I don't date men who don't date me" with very good results. I have lapsed on this rule a bit due to my current practice of polyamory, but if I was looking for monogamous, I would absolutely stick to it hard.

Sometimes, due to a combination of being a halfway decent writer and not very photogenic, I have even had men approach me for friendship on dating sites, which is sort of an odd back-handed compliment. Ultimately, friendship is more valuable than hawt sex or romance, but if I already have a partner or male friend who likes me for my brains, and another who likes me because I am kind, then maybe I am looking for one who, as my "ex" described his thoughts on our first date, wants to f*ck me blind and have my face be the first thing he sees when he wakes up in the morning. And, although feelings do change and fade, it is a pretty good rule of thumb that if you don't have it from the get-go, it is not going to spontaneously occur 2 years into your friendship-with-sex-added-on.

EdithKeeler
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Re: Meeting eccentric people IRL

Post by EdithKeeler »

I feel like there is some cognitive dissonance in this thread, because you can choose "gender is irrelevant" or you can choose "don't make it about the junk", but you can't have both. 'Cause, for a straight guy, "my new female friend whom I am not picturing naked" is not a real thing.
Well, my point was not that you wouldn’t necessarily picture someone naked, but rather don’t approach every single interaction as an opportunity to get laid.

Sure, we all have sexual desires and needs, and screwing is fun. But even the most sexual people around are only going to do it for maybe an hour a day, at least after the “honeymoon” period. A person should have something else going for them in order to have decent, interesting relationships.

I get it-we’re animals. But some of these threads sometimes seem like we’re all a bunch of Bonobos with one goal.

My point is: live your life. Meet lots of people. Cast a wide net. Do interesting things. People enter your life from unexpected places. You will find people to hook up with, both short and long term if that’s what you want. But you gotta leave the house, and you have to practice your social skills, and not be so focused on people touching “your pee-pee.”

I know I’m probably the weirdo around here. I spent time with my DBF this past week. I can tell you that what really made me want to jump him was when he told me about something he did for a a dying friend, and a project he was working on. If you want to get all evolutionary biology here, those things reinforced for me that
he’s a good mate, a good provider, and a good contributing member of the clan. Now that’s HOT!! Hot in a way that ultimately a slacker dude with no job and no interests, etc might not be. At least that’s my theory.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Meeting eccentric people IRL

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@EdithKeeler:

Oh, I don't really disagree. I am mostly just in grouchy alignment with the horny kids at the moment, because I somehow, once again, have found myself in a primary relationship which is unacceptably weak in the sex department. So, I am either going to have to signal availability to one of my lapsed partners, or start dating again.

Also, I started reading "The Hungry Brain", the very good book on the neuroscience related to overeating which Lemur recommended on other thread, and I think that much of the new research that indicates that majority of behavior is brought about by unconscious is also relevant to economic decision making and sexuality. So, if you are one of the individuals who cyclically desires sex on a daily basis, it is like a part of your brain is almost constantly making a bid to the deep reptilian core of your brain which regulates muscular control towards behavior, more or less complex, that will fulfill desire for sexual interaction.

This unconscious two part system is also very sensitive to environmental cuing. So, bowl of jelly beans on the counter OR attractive person in the room with you will increase the power of the unconscious-bid-to-muscles-to-behavior towards "eat" or "f*ck." It's a known thing that some people inherently have more drive and/or derive more pleasure (brain chemical reinforcement bursts) from palatable (high sugar/fat) food and/or sexual interaction. Individuals also independently vary in their degree of inherent self-control. So, person with low drive/pleasure mechanisms and high self-control will be naturally comfortable/happy with low levels of palatable food intake and sexual interactions. Others will function/feel otherwise.

So, an individual who has inherent high drive/pleasure reinforcement will almost certainly be happier, behaving more in alignment with self-interest, if he or she can cleverly create situations or self-aware improve mechanisms towards self-control. By these means, one can stay safely over the thin margin line that separates fit, attractive foodie with super hawt and otherwise rewarding sex life from total disaster glut-slut.

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C40
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Re: Meeting eccentric people IRL

Post by C40 »

Ok:

No offense here Stahlmann, just useful strategy. Your social skills (at least when writing in English, but I’m quite sure in any language) are comparatively so poor that you come off as a creep, even to guys. Given this, you should not bother at all with attempting to be the organizer or initiator of social gatherings of strangers. It’s not gonna work.

What you should do to meet new people is: (and I already told you this before like a year or two ago)

1 - focus on making new FRIENDS one at a time. Don’t even think about trying to have sex or seduce them or anything (until maybe eventually you know them well and there is chemistry, but you’ll have a huge risk of misreading things and ruining the friendship). If you can make friends, sometimes even just one new close friend, you’ll meet other people like you and them through that friend.

That’s how it worked for me when I moved to new places. I’d basically wait (sometimes years) until I eventually make one friend (though usually it was them befriending me, which as a strategy is miserable) and then I’d make a bunch of new friends through their network and outward.

Some people in particular are natural ‘connecters’ and those are nearly all extroverts, so eventually if you are able to be meeting enough people that you can do filtering, give extroverts priority.

2 - because your social skills are so poor, do something to learn. (Note- if you don’t think they are poor, consider for a moment how your first post here genuinely looking for advice triggered the negative responses it did).

I’m not sure exactly what to do to learn. Read a book like “How to win friends and influence people”. Maybe read fiction books that include characters doing a lot of socializing. You may want to search for how people on the autism scale learn socializing skills.



For participating in meetup groups, definitely try to find ones that already exist and where the same people go with regularity. The likelihood of making friends with someone you meet at a one-off thing is very low. Recurring meetups give the opportunity to build some familiarity, comfort, and shared experience, which are building blocks for friendships and pee-pee touching. One example that I believe works very well in the U.S. is to go volunteer weekly at an animal shelter. The same people go regularly. You get to know them. They trust you because you’re nice to animals, etc. (there will also be mostly women at this type of thing). I doubt that animal shelters exist where you live but you could find some similar scenario.




For meeting eccentric people, go to eccentric events. Minimilasm meetups are quite square. Get weirder. Go to events with a positive theme. Not like ‘society sucks so ....’ but more like ‘we love .....’

prognastat
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Re: Meeting eccentric people IRL

Post by prognastat »

Unusual sports seem to attract unusual people. So possibly joining a sports club, but not one that does the common ones(like baseball, basketball or either sort of football).

Jason

Re: Meeting eccentric people IRL

Post by Jason »

Staring at his thread title, I'm thinking, have any of you guys at least tried to saddle up on Seven? If I was younger and unattached, believe you me, she'd know my junk better than Fred Sanford ever knew his. Understanding that no matter what crowd she was a part of she'd be unanimously voted "most likely to get everyone shot in a hostage situation" it still seems worth the risk.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Meeting eccentric people IRL

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Jason:

I think I am older than you. Of course, my preferred posture requires less stamina, so not really a fair comparison.

Anyways, if I was alone in my cabin in the woods, like Shawn James*, it would be pretty much a dead-heat whether my first hike out would be driven by desire for sex or desire to babble at somebody about a book I just read. Therefore, my salon space is sacred. IOW, I don't date where I debate.

Besides, the only thing standing between me and getting a date is the perfect storm of vanity, too much subcutaneous fat, and too cheap to throw down for a new set of Spanx. I think a male substitute teacher around my age hit on me last week, but I was kind of put off by his demonstration of storytelling voices he used with the kids. Sadly, I must admit that I don't always go for men who are as kooky as me. But, that probably makes sense in terms of evolutionary fitness.


*OTOH, if I was alone in the cabin with Shawn James...yeah, I know he's married, I watched the episode where you can kind of see his wife's hair and foot in the frame. Just sayin'.

Jason

Re: Meeting eccentric people IRL

Post by Jason »

I understand you suffer some type of affliction that doesn't make sexual activity with you immoral, as is the case with the woman who bags my groceries and talks incessantly about daylight savings time. But I have to say, I just pictured myself leaving your camper and buying a one pound bag of ice to pour down my pants.

jacob
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Re: Meeting eccentric people IRL

Post by jacob »

My question would be in terms of how many sharks I need to pile up before "you people" stop jumping them/alternatively that shark jumping becomes the defining characteristic of the atmosphere. I feel like I still have some impact on the direction, but I'm .. floundering on that.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Meeting eccentric people IRL

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@jacob:

Sorry, I will take it to a more appropriate forum until it's no longer near top of my stack.

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