This sub, and other places like it, are filled with people coming in every day asking how to better socialize, how to be better at conversation, how to be more interesting, etc…
And whenever people ask these questions, the same usual answers pop up: be genuinely interested in others, listen to what they say attentively, don't just be in your head obsessing over what to say next, ask open ended questions, etc…
But isn't it weird how all this advice never really seems to lead to significant improvements in practice? You'll be listening to the person instead of thinking of a follow up, and then find out you actually don't know how to keep the ball rolling following what they said. You'll ask open ended questions, and then get answers that are much more simple and close-ended than you'd have hoped, and the conversation thread stops there. You'll be genuinely interested in the person, but your attempts at getting to know them will still feel like interview questions. Etc.
It's weird how there seems to be a secret ingredient to social skills that humanity has never really figured out, despite socializing being one of the most crucially important aspects of our lives.
Have there ever been interesting leads as to what that might be?
26 comments
I think its not that people dont have social skills, its that the really large percebtage of people became overly egoistic and just refuses to talk to anyone outside their elementary school circle because they are the only normal people in the world, everyone else sucks and of course, “cool introverts that dont need anyone and everyone and everything is sooo annoyinggg because they are too cool for this world”. They mostly got this stance from the internet as you can see this type of mindset everywhere. Of course these same people who claim to love solitude so much in majority of cases never experienced true solitude because they always had someone and they just refuse to acknowledge it to seem cool. So yeah social skills dont work if people straight up refuse to cooperate.
Because these things don’t work instantly, you have to practice them and people get discouraged the first time they try to apply “don’t just be in your head” and it doesn’t work out and they immediately give up.
The practice is to get better at it but also to build confidence in doing it. Talking to a stranger when you don’t usually do it WILL feel and be weird/awkward the first 5 times but eventually it’s like there’s a script. You’ve got to move past the rejection and mistakes or it won’t stick.
The thing is, there’s no real **answer** to the question of social skills. If you want to become more sociable or less awkward, that can only happen “in the field”.
In my case, I did a lot of “studying” of these subjects in high school and college (from watching Charisma on Command on yt to reading How to Win Friends and Influence People), and all of that had less than 1% of the impact joining different kinds of clubs and social circles had in my mid 20s.
I guess in certain regards, reading about the subject can make the prospect of going out less daunting, especially if someone is incredibly shy. People flock to these kinds of places on the internet mainly for reassurance, I guess.
People give too many shits nowadays. Socializing is the easiest when you straight up don’t care about how things go.
That’s how you get to be yourself.
Because people are too lazy to read old good answers. If you read through enough posts you can find some really insightful and genuinely good information! But that takes effort, and it feels easier to just repost the same question and see what you get. But you’re definitely right about something here.
You’re right that most advice is not particularly helpful. But that’s also partly due to the fact that social skills are a type of skills that’s only really learnt by doing, not talking about it. The most effective thing is just for you to enter as many social situations as possible, being observant about what seems to work and what’s less effective, and try to adjust. Insights found from such experiences are hard to put in words, in words that’d have a significant impact.
Also circumstances and problems regarding socializing differ a lot from person to person, that’s why the information is so scattered.
My guess is that we’re all different and we’re all talking to different people.
Gauging others accurately is something learned over time so “reading the room” is one of those things that’s easy to say, but not as easy to practice.
People can be shy, nervous, distracted, etc and can accidentally offend or throw others off their tempo or misunderstand.
It’s why I’ve learned to respect those with actual people skills. Easy to poke fun at CEO’s and minimize their contributions sometimes – difficult to actually communicate and influence people the way they often can – day and night, day in and day out.
Social anxiety from my experience stems from one fact:
You are not comfortable in your own skin
Once you become comfortable in your own skin, you will be very calm in social settings, whereby you will be yourself and then you will either attract people that LIKE YOU or you push away people that dont like you.
And yes there will be people that dont like you.
If you are in a constant social anxiety then that means you are just insecure and not comfortable in your own skin, I know it cause I used to suffer from it and not anymore.
(I solved my problems through dealing with trauma by way of Wim Hof method, LSD, shrooms, DMT, deep meditation to realize WHY I am the way I am and why there are so many things about myself I dont like and what can I do to fix it and then I started to work on it and frankly, nothing of it had anything to do with anybody else, or reading any book or trying to talk to people in a certain way, it all just had to do with unresolved traumas, once I became comfortable with who I am, I can have a conversation with anyone from a homeless person or a billionare or a serial killer).
It’s not the same people over and over. You can see this in other subs all the time. In a sub like r/guitarlessons there is someone every week that says “Just bought a guitar this week. I know nothing. Where do I start?” it’s the same here.
I think it’s because socializing is very different person to person based on a person’s background, how they were raised, their openness, and ultimately their mood. These things change daily, generationally, situationally, and from person to person. What’s warm and funny to one person can be rude and careless to another. There is no A,b,c equation to socializing since it is constantly changing. And some people just have more charisma than others, or have less inhibitions when talking to people
They are not an unsolved problem. They are just one of the problems where no simple hack exists to pretend you have them. It’s, as the name clearly states, a skill. The one way to get better at skills is to practice them. To do things over and over again gaining familiarity with the stuff. Taking a genuine interest in getting better. It’s work, it takes dedication.
Nobody would go ask how to be better at playing the piano and expect solutions that work immediately. Everyone knows that takes practice. It’s not glamorous. It’s rote repetition in parts.
Developing social skills takes time.
I want to also give some of my key insights here that I’ve made. I’ve managed to make almost more connections and friendships than I can sustainably take care of in uni from having known basically just 2 people on my first day of uni. Most of these are things found on my own, some from youtube, and some from here.
The problem we’re asking for answers to is “How can we connect and build a mutual friendship and avoid unnecessary awkwardness”.
So, some of my insights:
– Being genuinely interested in others and wanting to know about them goes quite far on it’s own, some people will reciprocate, other’s won’t, but that’s also a key to who you should focus on more.
– That being said, actually make things mutual. If someone isn’t interested, it’s time to move on and try with the next person if they vibe with you.
– About awkwardness, don’t try to make up conversation if there isn’t any. Multiple smaller shorter interactions builds a lot more trust than trying to have a big deep conversation from the get go. Allow things to be short and let the next moment come, don’t force it, it shows the other person you’re not overly clingy. This is how I’ve built a surprising amount of friendships with deep trust.
– Well when you’re in a conversation, how can you evolve it in a way that feels engaging for both? Active listening is a bit of a buzzword, but it is how conversations are deepened. You ask what your friend has done, they share they’ve been working on their car. Then you can ask follow up questions about their answer that sparked your interest, like what car is it, what are they doing, what plans do they have for the car, what’s their dream car. And again answer a similar follow up question to their answer about something you’re curious about. They get to share something they like and you get to explore it in a way that’s interesting to you. That’s mutual benefit and enjoyment. If there’s nothing that sparked your interest, then no need to force the conversation if there isn’t any. Then it’s a little awkward, but sometimes the other can have something to ask instead of you having to always do all the work.
– One issue a lot of guys have is being nervous around girls or having trouble connecting with girls. What worked for me was taking all expectations of something more off the table and just seeing if I vibe with the girl as even a friend. If I don’t, well, it’d be kinda stupid to try to develop a deeper friendship nevertheless anything more.
– Patience is underrated, friendships don’t always develop immediately and can take surprising amount of time. But having a place where you consistently see the other person on a weekly basis or so is what eventually builds friendships. Good things do take time, if you want to make them mutually reciprocative.
Hope any of these feels like “the secret ingredient”. With enough hard effort trying, something will eventually stick, and then it’s easier to build on that.
to be honest the things that ive learned that seens to be like it is:
you have to socialize, your emotions have their own reason and understand whats socializing is, your rational mind does not… so you have to live the things to understand them, not read somewhere
People are complex and we live in a society that drives us towards materialism, individualism, and loneliness, which is the perfect recipe for losing social skills and never gaining them back. It is possible though. Just more work than ever.
I see a lot of people in this sub that are neurodivergent.
There’s another half that is painfully not self aware about what is going wrong in their social interactions. It’s very I’m the victim and self pitying vibes
Less is more
This is purely confirmation bias on your part. The people who come here are looking for help, therefore it seems like “everyone” needs help. The people who don’t need help aren’t here.
It’s the equivalent of going to a hospital and asking why there’s always sick and injured people there.
There are too many rules. The result is masking, which is exhausting.
i wish there was some decent recording on youtube of some good banter captured in authenically in the wild. then maybe have an I trained so that I can practice against it. just something i think about occasionally.
They feel bad, come here for help, get help that makes them feel good, and then don’t do anything. People are addicted to social media (Reddit) and their phones. They don’t feel happy or content, let’s make a post to make ourselves feel better for 5 minutes. Rinse repeat
Like you said, all of the advice is out there. People just don’t want to use search because they want the dopamine hit interaction gives them.
I also have to say, are you tracking the users who post these questions, perhaps some are making improvements
it led to a LOTTT of progress for me lol. i’d say my social problems are genuinely 60% solved now after just 1 year of consistent practice im really excited to keep going this year. the problem tho is it requires a shit ton of courage & nonstop intentional practice. like you literally have to accept mortifying failure after mortifying failure but never give up. a lot of my worst social fears literally came true right in front of me lmao but i would just keep going & then weeks later id realize they weren’t as bad as i thought. most people give up tho before they reach that part. or they don’t push themselves hard enough to try more new risky things. or they’re just not smart about how they do it tbh. like if you’re someone who isolates themselves 24/7 then it’s not smart to just throw yourself at a party or big event hoping to be a brand new person. all that’ll do is traumatize yourself 100x more. you have to baby step it- get a customer service job that forces you to say the same few boring things to people over & over until your brain gets used to the basic concept of people. then you take it step by step from there.
I am so sorry to say this but the advice does work for some people, and humanity has figured it out. I read your paragraph about how the advice doesn’t work and actually bristled a bit, like, you say “you” but that hasn’t been my experience at all! Like – there are people in the world who can hold good conversations. How do you think they do it? Some sort of genetic ability?
It’s just that no advice will work 100% of the time. Even the most socially skilled people can’t make 100% of people their friend. In fact, a big part of developing social skills is learning how to gracefully move on and be unhurt when people don’t want to be your friend.
sybau
Social skills aren’t unsolved, they’re just messy because humans are messy. You can follow all the tips and still flop because the other person might be awkward, tired, bored, or just not into talking. The problem is people learn social skills the same way they learn programming like it’s step by step. But humans aren’t functions. Socializing is improv, being able to read micro-reactions, tone shifts, when to push, when to shut up, when to joke. And that comes mostly from real-world experience, not advice posts.
As a socially illiterate person here’s my take:
Humans are social creatures, so by adulthood most people are able to socialise instinctively. This negates the need for most people to consciously think about how to socialise. Therefore, when someone like me asks “how can I be better at socialising?” It’s difficult for them to answer because it isn’t something they can give step by step guidance on.
I think so much of socialising goes on instinct and vibes. I’m polite and interested but my social awkwardness and inability to read the room puts a lot of people on edge 😬
Uh…
You *really* think you’ve done everything “right”, don’t you? Yet, you’re so busy obsessing in your head how to respond that you make a post about just *how good* you were following the rules, and yet it didn’t work.
You’ve *missed* the lesson, man.
My theory is that the vast, VAST majority of users here are
A) lost redditors confusing socialskills with “how to talk with girls” advice seeking
B) people for whom a lack of social skill is a symptome of an underlining problem (e.g. self-isolation due to unresolved trauma or lack of social circle to apply the skills), so just “treating” the socialskill symptoms won’t work until actual cause gets adressed
C) people looking for “easy” solutions for complexe problems that don’t have easy solutions
D) neurodivergents somewhere on the spectrum