Comment by atoav

I mean technically it isn't wrong that (1) how you come across to the other person is important and (2) you need to be with the other person to connect with them.

And that is part of the problem, because the underlying reason why people connect when you do the mentioned things is that these are usually signs that you are in fact an empathic person, that can put themselves in their shoes and thus care to some degree about how things will pan out for them, meaning they may think they can open up to you, etc. This is in a stark contrast with the phrasing of "playing their game" that frames this type of behavior as a superfluous, silly endavour, when in fact it might be the polar opposite:

In a society of social apes (humans) one of the biggest danger to your and your kins life, bodily autonomy, freedom has historically always been other humans. Meaning that judging the intentions of others is not some silly game, but a survival mechanism of existential importance. And not only that, many people derive a lot of ehat makes their lifes worth living from these feelings of mutual understanding and empathy.

So to most empathic people the idea that a seemingly empathic person could feel nothing at all underneath and potentially sell them down the river is something tingling a gutural fear. Many media depiction of evil serial killers will play on that exact fear (among others).

Master conmen, manipulators, cult leaders (so generally horrible people) are all good at understanding the internal processes (thoughts and feelings) of their victims. This understanding is also essential for true empathy, the way it is applied is very different. If a hacker finds a weak point in a system they can exploit it for their own gain, or they can deal with it in a way benifiting all. The skill of understanding the internals is one thing, the skill of understanding what these internals mean and what are the right actions to derive from that knowledge is something else entirely.

That being said, I think the personal journey the author is on is certainly one that may benefit both them and the people around them. I can just imagine how hard parsing all the complexity of human behavior must be if you can't feel it yourself. This is already hard for people who can, as countless cultural artifacts from all of humanities history proof.