Social Skills + Social Capital Challenge & Resource Collection Thread

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7Wannabe5
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Re: Social Skills + Social Capital Challenge & Resource Collection Thread

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@mathiverse:

I am definitely getting old enough to be frequently found repeating myself :lol: Also getting old enough that I can't even recall which previously owned computer archive I might have saved/lost the "trace" in.

mathiverse
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Re: Social Skills + Social Capital Challenge & Resource Collection Thread

Post by mathiverse »

@7W5: Sorry. I wasn't trying to criticize you for repeating yourself! I trying to confirm that your first guess as to where you found the connection was the right one. I, coincidentally, read the thread from 2017 yesterday and happened across that comment related to the voodoo thread.

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Re: Social Skills + Social Capital Challenge & Resource Collection Thread

Post by chenda »

@7wannabe5 @mathiverse Thank you both!

ertyu
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Re: Social Skills + Social Capital Challenge & Resource Collection Thread

Post by ertyu »

useful reddit thread on meeting new people and getting to know them. as usual, the real LPTs are in the comments

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C40
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Re: Social Skills + Social Capital Challenge & Resource Collection Thread

Post by C40 »

I looked through books that I already have and made myself a reading list related to improving my social skills, making new friends and acquaintances, and starting a romantic relationship. But I feel my list is not very good. Here's what I have so far. I think I should add do it. Anyone have suggestions? I understand this is a pretty generic request, without details of myself, current situation, or how I'm trying to improve. But I'd like to hear about whatever books you folks found useful.

I will add - right now probably the two main ways I am trying to improve are:

1 - Being more outgoing and social. Meeting more people, making good first impressions. Being interested in people..
2 - Moving along conversations in interesting ways, specifically that help me get to know the other person. This is a big challenge now because I'm meeting people and dating in a place where, well, the people are not so good at this themselves. Often when I have a date, the woman will ask very few questions about be, and do little themselves to move the conversation along. Back in the US, I would simply not be interested in that woman and look for others who are better at conversation. But I think some of this issue may be related to nervousness, shyness, awkwardness, which would go away over time, and perhaps some of it is because of local conversation norms being different.


Re-Read these:
- Way of the Superior Man
- Please Understand me II
- Models (mark manson)
- How to Win Friends and Influence People
- Non-Violent Communication

Read or check if these are useful:
- A few books I have related to meeting people, first impressions, small talk, conversation. (but don't know if they are any good and maybe the ones I have are not well known so I'm not listing them)
- Some body language book. (I have many books. There was one I read years ago that had great information related to dating and attractiveness but I'm not sure which book that was. I find that many I have are related to things I'm not interested in like Police interrogation tactics and lie spotting.)

I should get:
- That Emotional Intelligence book
- And - what else???

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Re: Social Skills + Social Capital Challenge & Resource Collection Thread

Post by theanimal »

Two books that you don't have on there that I have found really useful.

-Impro by Keith Johnstone
-Presuasion by Robert Cialdini

Impro focuses on what makes good improv, which translates really well to what makes for good conversations and how to keep those conversations continuing. Something I always think of from that book is the phrase "Yes, and..." In response to someone's idea or suggestion. Conversations go much better when you build off ideas and allow for continuation rather than putting up roadblocks. This works for questions too ie asking things that are open ended rather than things that could be answered with a one word response.

Presuasion is somewhat similar and builds off the author's first book, "Influence." The latter is good too but you are probably fine with one or the other, Presuasion is more comprehensive and recent. As the titles suggest, the booka focus on the concept of influence and the environments/situations that further foster it. I used some of the principles from the book when I worked as a tour guide to get more tips and still actively try to implement them to build good relations with others.

Scott 2
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Re: Social Skills + Social Capital Challenge & Resource Collection Thread

Post by Scott 2 »

@C40 - I have to wonder how well US centric books will cross the cultural barriers. Like I took a lot from "Body Language for Dummies". But would your target audience have the same patterns?

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C40
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Re: Social Skills + Social Capital Challenge & Resource Collection Thread

Post by C40 »

theanimal wrote:
Tue Feb 28, 2023 10:35 pm
Two books that you don't have on there that I have found really useful.

-Impro by Keith Johnstone
-Presuasion by Robert Cialdini
Thanks. I'll get those.
Scott 2 wrote:
Tue Feb 28, 2023 11:50 pm
@C40 - I have to wonder how well US centric books will cross the cultural barriers. Like I took a lot from "Body Language for Dummies". But would your target audience have the same patterns?
In the different places I've been, many parts of body language are universal for humans, with small adjustments in different cultures. (things related to the eyes, hands, and feet)

Some things that are more based on social norms are far different, like and receptiveness to touch (and patterns of how that changes with familiarity), and personal distances.

I'll have a look at that book.

Thanks guys


Another book I just remembered enjoying a lot and learning from was "You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation"
by Deborah Tannen. This book actually had a lot of interesting details (a lot relating to how people speak at work meetings, including detailed statistics of the number of times men interrupt vs. women) details about body position and body language of men and women in conversation, and other stuff.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Social Skills + Social Capital Challenge & Resource Collection Thread

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

C40 wrote:including detailed statistics of the number of times men interrupt vs. women)
Yeah, this has always been an interesting factoid to me, because I am a woman who will interrupt men :lol: Probably because I was raised in a family of all sisters with a father who wanted us all to grow up to be lawyers and a mother who self-describes as having spirit animal of Dragon. Downside is I end up dating a lot of men with total oblivious steamroller type personality. Upside is that on the limited occasions I find myself in environments like unto work meetings, I usually do get promoted to take on responsibility for projects and similar. Downside is that I usually don't really want to get promoted to take on projects and similar. However, I can verify that interrupting men in business-like meetings does work towards this purpose if that is what other women want. It is really hard to be more assertive than the most assertive men, and oftentimes they are so arrogant they process it as being kind of the same as if you were to go all out Cowgirl on them in bed.

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C40
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Re: Social Skills + Social Capital Challenge & Resource Collection Thread

Post by C40 »

yeah. One thing from that book that I also found really interesting, was the specific info about the timing of a new person starting to speak. There are certain norms that I didn't really think about until I read about them. But some people are really good at following these norms (and thus they can start talking at a meeting at proper times, without needing to wait for lulls that come only rarely, and without interrupting offensively.)

Interestingly, a very common occurrence is that when a speaker is nearing the end of their speaking, they will start to tail off their words, basically inviting an interruption. Many people do this accidentally by not making a strong conclusion, and essentially running out of words/steam. The next person will interrupt them while they are tailing off, and begin their own speaking. It is an interruption, but it's a normal and basically invited interruption.

I remember one guy at work who was an ok worker but was in a position where he was supposed to be groomed to be a manager. He had immigrated to the US and didn't learn local social skills properly. At meetings he had the WORST timing and would interrupt people at times that made the atmosphere super awkward. When I'm dating women, I definitely don't like when a woman interrupts at the 'wrong' times, and if someone does it more than once, I decide I won't see them again. I guess there are also right and wrong ways to do it, and if someone interrupts at the wrong time but the right way considering the timing, I'm generally ok with it

Socializing well requires a LOT of little skills, instincts, perceptions, etc - most of which people don't ever describe or even consciously understand. This book had such specific details about some of them that I found it very interesting.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Social Skills + Social Capital Challenge & Resource Collection Thread

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

C40 wrote: When I'm dating women, I definitely don't like when a woman interrupts at the 'wrong' times, and if someone does it more than once, I decide I won't see them again. I guess there are also right and wrong ways to do it, and if someone interrupts at the wrong time but the right way considering the timing, I'm generally ok with it
Yeah, on second thought, I guess I don't really "interrupt" or "interrogate" (which I know is a date killer and also not my style) in dating situation. It's more like I will emit long streams of happy babble full of what some would consider to be "vocabulary words" in response to questions. I just always recall that one of my exes told me that on our first date, "The words just kept coming, but I kept my focus on your lips." So, any man who tries to seriously follow the rubber-ball path of my thought stream is kind of doomed to fail at cornering me. OTOH, if I'm not feeling the inner enthusiasm that tends towards making me want to happily babble, then it's also doubtful that I'm feeling interested in sex or dating at the moment. So, when introverted men grow too critical (like blades attempting to pierce my rubber ball soul) or extroverted men grow too domineering (like a steamroller trying to crush my rubber-ball soul or a big pot of boiling water trying to melt my rubber-ball soul) then I am out-of-there!

classical_Liberal
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Re: Social Skills + Social Capital Challenge & Resource Collection Thread

Post by classical_Liberal »

Inquisitive interruption, timed properly, is really just a form of active listening.

Ex, "I went to my sisters house last Sunday." slight pause. "wait, is this your younger sister you told be about earlier or your older sister?"

My experience is that even an introvert (if they are in a comfortable situation) will talk anyone's ear off when it's something they are passionate about. This is where inquisitive interruptions can really shine. I hate to use this comparison, but think detective work. A person often talks around something really important to them, particularly if they do not know you well. Putting a passion on the table for discussion can be a very intimate thing.

shelob
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Re: Social Skills + Social Capital Challenge & Resource Collection Thread

Post by shelob »

Update, a year later.

Regarding trying to learn nonviolent communication:
shelob wrote:
Mon Dec 26, 2022 5:07 am
1.: Almost done
2. Ongoing
3. Not going well
Extending the assignment to the next week :lol:
tl;dr: Don't try to learn the social skills equivalent of graduate school if you haven't graduated high school.

I put this experiment on hold shortly after I posted what I quoted above, but procrastinated writing about it until now. It went really well maybe 5-10% of the time and sometimes it misfired very badly. At the time, it seemed to me that I had put myself into a sort of "uncanny valley of social skills". Visibly trying to apply social skills and often doing a bad job of it made my overall vibe change from "nice but shy and awkward" to "almost creepy". I'm trying to decipher my year-old notes on the experiment right now and I'm no longer 100% clear on what I meant by some things I wrote, but a factor that probably contributed at least a little is that I have (to at least some degree) what's-it-called, the thing where you have difficulty noticing and identifying your own emotions. (ETA: google says it's called "alexithymia".) NVC requires a degree of emotional fluency I didn't (and probably still don't) possess, so my attempts to find out what someone else is feeling were little better than random guessing. On a positive note: doing this experiment helped me realise just how bad my theory of mind of other people was, and to what extent I was committing the typical mind fallacy, so I consider it a success.

(Another effect: becoming more aware of social signals made me hyper-aware of negative signals and, when in doubt, always assumed they were in response to something I did (as opposed to, say, the person just randomly thinking an unpleasant thought.) I was outright paranoid for a month or so due to this.)

I've had better success with other forms of active listening, and through moving to a foreign country where I knew no one I was forced to practice. I'm doing much better now, and will probably give NVC another try at some point. Someone in my wider social circle intends to organise a workshop at some point and I've filled out the interest form, I'll see how it goes. I'd also like to practice more deliberately. Some ideas I've had: Impro (I've read the Johnstone book); going on dates (I have major hangups around that but I'll need to start doing it at some point anyway, so why not); signing up as Nightline volunteer.
(I previously didn't want to do this because I didn't want to ruin my sleep cycle more than it already is, but it seems the minimum commitment is only two shifts per term or so. I've just filled out the training application form. It seems like it's competitive so I fully expect to not actually be chosen as volunteer afterwards, but I think the workshop will do me good.)

The best "life hack" in this category of thing that I've learned in 2023 was to google "[social skill] autistic people" instead of just "[social skill]". The explanations usually are at least 50% more legible for me. The best example is this explanation of etiquette for young autistic women:
https://sympatheticopposition.substack. ... -for-women

One of my goals for the next year is to become a better conversationalist (in the fully general sense).
Some links I've found helpful so far:
https://www.experimental-history.com/p/ ... -doorknobs
https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/what ... onsiveness (MAJOR eye opener for me)
https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/how- ... ut-getting (about written communication, probably the most helpful essay I've read so far in my life)

If y'all have more, they'd be very greatly appreciated :)

Regarding etiquette:
My cousin (who is a bit into this stuff) came to my rescue and organised some family formal dinners. I still have lots to learn, but getting thrown into the cold water was at least good enough for the biweekly formal dinner at uni. By the, uh, low standard of "my greatest source of embarrassment is clumsiness and spilling food all over". I don't feel qualified to comment on the subject though.

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Re: Social Skills + Social Capital Challenge & Resource Collection Thread

Post by shelob »

PS: My apologies to everyone who expected me to take a more proactive approach in managing this thread. :oops:

7Wannabe5
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Re: Social Skills + Social Capital Challenge & Resource Collection Thread

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@shelob:

I agree that there is a lot of good advice in the links you posted above. One thought I had about the giver/taker role in conversation combined with the attractive responsiveness in the tik-tok video is that it is possible to come off as the "interogator" if you ask the other human a lot of questions without the open, smiling, responsive signaling. Also, the semi-dysfunctional version of "responsive" is when your tertiary Fe (extroverted feeler) is compelled to do the warm, smiling thing even while your secondary Ti (introverted thinker) is having thoughts akin to "If he keeps talking about how his ex cheated him on the settlement, I am definitely ordering dessert." Another classic semi-functional variation, which is more towards "neurotic submissive gesturing" would be typified by Meg Ryan in "When Harry Met Sally." For instance, if you reflexively duck your head or play with your hair, it can come off as "cute" but also "easy mark", because opposite of poker face.

shelob
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Re: Social Skills + Social Capital Challenge & Resource Collection Thread

Post by shelob »

@7
Ah ok thank you!! I didn't connect the dots but that explained a sudden improvement I saw.

If you, or anyone else, has any other examples like that tik-tok video they'd be greatly appreciated! It's a bit short :lol:

I also downloaded Klerb, the match-people-based-on-booktaste app you mentioned in another thread. Thanks for mentioning it, will see how that goes :)

Something else that helped me was facial muscle training (both in front of a mirror and not) because it made all facial expressions more apparent and made the overall impression more mobile/receptive and less "resting bitch face". I have to do it regularly though / do grimaces before talking to people if I want to appear expressive. :lol:

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Re: Social Skills + Social Capital Challenge & Resource Collection Thread

Post by theanimal »

C40 wrote:
Tue Feb 28, 2023 10:08 pm
- Some body language book. (I have many books. There was one I read years ago that had great information related to dating and attractiveness but I'm not sure which book that was. I find that many I have are related to things I'm not interested in like Police interrogation tactics and lie spotting.)
I didn’t remember it the first time I answered you but I was just reminded of the book, “ What Every Body Is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Speed-Reading People” by Joe Navarro. While the author was an FBI agent, the book is not focused on finding criminals and more about how body signs come across in normal interactions. It’s been a few years since I read it, but I remember the author discussing times where he goes to a coffee shop and uses the techniques to interact and build connections with others. I’d recommend it.

Some basic things that I’ve remembered from that book:
- Someone tilting their head slightly to the side when they talk to you shows that they trust you and enjoy your company. You can do the same when talking to or listening to other people.
-Men often talk to others with their bodies faced away from the person they’re conversing with while women are more likely to directly face their body to the person they’re communicating with. For men, (especially with other men) being more direct in that regard can be confrontational.
-Someone continually grabbing their neck or playing with their hair is a good indicator that they’re uncomfortable, nervous, anxious etc.

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Re: Social Skills + Social Capital Challenge & Resource Collection Thread

Post by C40 »

Thanks @TheAnimal. I have also read that book before. Perhaps when I was looking through my books I assumed that one was not the one I was thinking of. But perhaps it is. I will find it and start reading it again.

I also just remembered a book I found interesting about 10 years ago. It's called "You just don't understand: Men and women in Conversation" by Deborah Tannen" . I might re-read that as well

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