Comment by 1659447091
5 days ago
> to be interesting, you must be interested.
I think thats the crux of it, most people respond positively when others are interested in them. As long as its genuine, asking about, or be interested in, others goes a really long way.
It helps to know a thing or two, about a wide range of topics, for this reason.
Take for instance someone telling you about their career. "I'm a software developer".
You can express interest with a response like "Oh, thats cool, what made you go into that line of work?" but thats a very generic, shallow response.
If you know a thing or two about software, for example, you can ask more interesting questions that show your interest in them, and your knowledge of the space. "Woh cool, how is AI coding impacting your life?"
Suddenly, it seems like you're much more interesting yourself, AND you're interested in them.
The tricky part nowadays is everyone has very niche interests. It's harder than ever to really have a breadth of knowledge that is broadly applicable. This was easier before the internet, before travel, before telecommunication. When your community was your community and news traveled slowly, it was a lot easier to learn about what impacted others.
I love being asked "what made you go into that line of work?" because I can answer with "mostly the money" (which is a very honest answer yet socially somewhat inappropriate), and their reaction to my answer immediately gives me a signal into whether we're going to be close or not.
Some people act so shocked when you tell them you did something because it would make you richer and not because an angel came to you in a dream and whispered in your ear to save the disenfranchised underclass (and all the cats) by writing code, or whatever's the current faux na pas reason to pursue a vocation these days.
I think the reason they act that way is because you're signaling to them that you dislike your job. Which is fine, but ideally you'd find some gratification in it that isn't just monetary, since it's what you spend most of your time doing. Money can only compensate so much for a shitty job.
It’s considered socially crass to just care about money in life (see: Ebenezer Scrooge), but everyone does a job for money - very few jobs are actually altruistic. There are many jobs that few would do if not for the high income (eg Lawyer) or is just difficult or boring. It’s a given that the income is a motivator in a high earning job.
Answering why you picked this particular path to high income is more interesting of an answer to the person asking and carries the conversation. Did your parents do it, did you have a professor that captured your attention, did you just google “easiest job to make a lot of money?” and pick the first one?
Someone asking wants to understand how and why you make decisions. What motives you. Etc. It’s the XY problem and from the other person’s perspective, you’re answering the wrong one.
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One of the best signals I found for whether I will enjoy my conversation with someone is if they commit a small social faux pas
I respect the honesty. Curious, though: would you say that in a job interview too?
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I agree with your point, but as a software developer I’d much prefer the generic response in your example.
lol yeah, everyone I meet now immediately asks me what I'm going to do about AI
Interestingly, this is what the book "How to Win Friends and Influence Others" gets at. While it's ostensibly a sales book, the very basis is how to be genuinely nice to people so they want to talk to you and be around you. And from those relationships come sales opportunities.
As another person for whom relation stuff does not come naturally, this was incredibly helpful because little pieces of advise really do work, because they really are nice things to do/say.
A favorite example of mine, when starting to talk to someone who probably already doesn't care for you is to find something -- anything -- that it's clear they like or chose, which you also happen to like, and pay it a genuine positive complement. And perhaps talk about it a little bit.
I've heard a lot of negativity around this book, and haven't read it yet. Did you feel like it was positive in the sense of genuine niceness, or negative in the sense of trying to be manipulative, etc.?
What the others have said, and also, there are folks who take and implement the advise wrongly. Like, one of the other points is that people like knowing their name was remembered and hearing it used. I take this as "remember people's names, and when you haven't seen them in a while, say 'Hi, name!'" or so.
Some folks take this over the top and do a weird, false-feeling thing like sprinkle the person's name into conversation over and over, or at the start/middle/end. And it makes the conversation feel stilted, fake, and like a situation is being forced. And that casts a negative light on the overarching idea that people like being remembered, and their own name is a big part of that.
It's really more of a dated manual on social etiquette. The negativity is mainly that it seems every salesperson is gifted a copy and implements the same techniques. Similar to how Chick Fil A has ruined the phrase "My Pleasure". The author himself states that it's genuine interest that forms connections, but ultimately the goal is to get something like a deal closed, the employee complying or the customer buying. Just depends on how you frame it.
I am certainly guilty of general negativity to that book. There are plenty of legitimate gripes, like the content is simplistic and overly repetitive. It really could have been a 10 page pamphlet.
But let's put that aside, the negativity really comes from the fact that every time I have seen it brought up in real life, it is being wielded like a cudgel by a person not practicing what is in the book. It is effectively corporate short hand for "you need to learn how to be a better servant".
The negativity is from people who only read the title. The book content's are about skills to be friendly. Some people over index on the skills to being off-putting because it's such a popular book that many can tell when you're using "skills" from the book
> most people respond positively when others are interested in them.
To be fair, most people are uninteresting.
Maybe the goal should be to be okay with being ordinary.
TRYING to be interesting (or interested) is just tiresome.
Also, you don't have to be interested in each other: Find a shared interest.
And it doesn't have to be anything special; you could find joy together in the mundane:
Petting cats, watching the rain, taking a walk through the woods without saying anything..
Are you conflating normal interest in another's well being with Einstein like outlierness?
I can find "interesting" (based on a boring reading from a dictionary) the unknown days events of a friend even if while knowing the person was not engaged in breaking down understanding of reality.
It's not the person or their todo list that's interesting but awareness of a cognitive disconnect of not knowing what their todo list was that day.
Depends on how we define interesting. Interesting in itself is pretty overrated imo, I don't need you to be some artist who lives in the streets and is addicted to heroin - I mean that's really interesting but not something I want in my life. Be boring - have a 9-5 job like me. But be agreeable, be interested in me as well from time to time and we can relate. Whether we truly hit it off is not about how interesting I am to you or you are to me I think.
Normal people are interesting.
Ordinary people can be interesting though.
If you meet someone who is completely and utterly uninteresting, that in itself is interesting.
There are no uninteresting natural numbers. One, as the smallest natural number, is certainly interesting. Assume all numbers up to n are interesting. If n+1 is uninteresting it is the smallest uninteresting number and therefore interesting.
And yet everybody cares precisely nothing about almost all natural numbers.
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Most people are completely and utterly uninteresting. I feel that interest in people is largely a physical reaction rather than a thought exercise. Even people who have done cool stuff are often uninteresting. Their story may be interesting, but their person is not.
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