Comment by lll-o-lll
21 hours ago
Wow, I can’t get past the first couple of paragraphs.
> I’ve tried so hard to learn how to connect with people. It’s all I ever wanted, for so long.
Are there really people like this? HN is probably the wrong place to ask this question, but this is so far outside of my bubble that I just cannot relate. Some people feel like this, for real?
Yes? I mean...why is it so hard to imagine people having difficulties with things you find easy or natural?
Maybe social connection doesn't come easy to them and they don't care about it much.
Ok, sure. But is the disbelief there are other people unlike him out there warranted?
I just. Don’t care?
I mean, I want to connect to a few people. I’m human, I love, I feel.
I don’t care about connection with most of the people I would interact with.
Yes, I have dedicated most of my life to trying to connect with people. In my experience, since I can't connect with people none of my other strengths or skills matter.
We are legion,I am sorry to say. I can recognise co-sufferers, but not necessarily help them. In older parlance, we would typically just be described as 'a bore', but there is something a lot more specific going on. I am old now, but watching my child daughter now going through the exact same motions, including doing her damndest to impress people with her many skills, and tragic-ironically driving people away from her with that exact behaviour. And I can't figure out how to help her figure it out. (past-50 insights don't resonate with 11year olds, unless you can relate them in youtuber-speak).
You don't usually realize that's why you're the way you are until much later.
At first it might feel like "these people don't like me cause of how much better I am than them", or "these people don't like me, well fuck them, I don't need anybody".
People have all kinds of excuses they tell themselves to feel better about the needs they can't satisfy.
I'm curious what your bubble is.
The peice is relatable to me at least. A great many of the lessons were something that I also arrived at through deliberate practice. Though the paths we both took are radically different, the main ideas are universal and the resulting destinations are similar.
I can't list all of the times when someone has shared that they didn't mean to "share all that" because it happens often enough that it's become countless.
As mentioned elsewhere, it illuminates the spectrum of interpersonal and social intelligence where it becomes impossible to not notice how some people repeatedly, and perhaps even compulsively are their own impediment to personal connection.
Do you mean wanting to connect with people?
Or not being able to connect with most people?