[cstpdk]

`For one I'm not really that interested in other people, and secondly I find it really boring`

I am totally with you on both points. The important thing to realize is that it is uninteresting and boring, but that is not the point. It is a skill like many others, if you want the benefits it brings, you have to learn it through practice and however else you normally learn skills

[yebyen]

"Act as if others are interesting and you will eventually find them so." - Sarah Mei, quoted by Sandi Metz, when summarizing I believe Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends & Influence People"

Sandi's talk was called "You Are Insufficiently Persuasive" and she talks a good bit about this idea, starting with that the unhappiness of programmers primarily comes from other people, and that if only we could make them behave the way we want them to act, we would all be much happier. This is one of those Sandi talks I've listened to a few times more than once, and I recommend watching it all the way through, if this is an interesting idea for you.

But to spoil it just a bit, after the major arc of the talk it is suggested that the way to get people to act better is to first change your own behavior, and that it's also often helpful to question whether your way is actually right.

I haven't actually watched this particular talk in a while, so I'm interested to see if others who did have a different interpretation, and whether you think I got it right.

[blobs]

Hmm, this sounds a bit naive. I'm struggling with this for my entire life, and only a certain amount of alcohol helps me to do chit chat. But after the chit chat I always regret some things I've said, the whole thing is just rubbish. I simply don't like it to be forced to talk shit. I'm quite certain it's not a learned skill, it is pretty default for the most stupid people around us.

[cstpdk]

Concluding that something is not a learned skill because it comes easy to some is illogical. Human upbringing consist of a lot of social interaction (at least when done right), it is only fair that some people actually get good at it.

Anyway, I should probably have disclaimed my first comment more loudly: it's anecdotal. For me smalltalk is absolutely a learned skill. I used to suck at it, now I can get by, and it took a lot of conscious effort on my part. YMMV