[j3s]

Offering my own advice because some of the other replies would have really harmed me.

Listening is a skill, but you cannot feign interest when you have none. It will teach you to be recessive conversationally, and people will walk all over you. I suggest practicing active listening when a subject is interesting to you - but do not force it. People will start to think that they can use you as a sounding board for anything, which makes you feel like you don't respect yourself - because you've cornered yourself by forcing yourself to listen to things that are uninteresting.

Sometimes you can find people who notice that you're practicing active listening, and they'll practice it back - in the real world, this sort of person is rare. When you find someone like that, you should notice them, and pursue their friendship.

Do not read "how to win friends and influence people" - that book is mentally damaging imho, and only helps to reinforce the idea that you must feign interest in order to win friends.

Here are some social rules that I live by:

- no feigning interest, it's disrespectful

- express genuine interest or excitement, always

- hang out with people i don't want to be around

- no holding back the desire to be around someone more often (LET THEM KNOW)

- tell my friends that i love them

- unless i feel a resounding HELL YES about a commitment, i do not make it

First of all, get a weekly hobby. Show up every time it happens for a month. the friends will come. Choose a hobby that's active - group hikes, bike rides, rock climbing, etc. Active hobbies bond people in ways that inactive hobbies do not, and will give you a lot of funny stories to tell. Take that risk and get yourself out there!

If that doesn't work, try a meditation group or church - contrary to popular opinion, you'll find that most spiritual practices really promote active listening, and help people become known & expressive.

[DevToRecruiter]

I really appreciate your comment. I agree about "how to win friends and influence people". It feels manipulative as hell. Can you expand a little on how to actively listen better? I feel like when I try this, the conversation becomes one sided and I have to bow out for reasons you mentioned. I feel like my chances of meeting someone that I can actually authentically connect with are slim because my standard of authenticity seems higher than whats typical/common.

[j3s]

Don't worry about what's typical or common. If you only have a small amount of interest-juice, that makes it even more valuable when you do express it. People will notice this, and it will make them feel special if they can manage to capture your interest. It will also make any connections you make feel natural and worth it - even if they're harder to come by.

> Can you expand a little on how to actively listen better?

First, I should say that active listening takes effort for most people. You have to put yourself in a position to spend energy - that means good sleep, caffeine, exercise - whatever you need to be in good mental shape. It's a critical pre-requisite to active listening.

This is why it is so important to pick people who are interesting to you - you cannot (and should not!) actively listen to everyone who talks to you. It will drain you.

When you're in a conversation that is of interesting to you, you can decide to actively listen. I call this process "having an active conversation" - here are some things that I recommend doing:

- take time to process what the person has said before responding. natural pauses are interesting, take your time to make sure you care about what you're asking

- don't fill silences with uninteresting filler. just wait. mature & interesting conversation partners will simply let silence be silence.

- if it's their turn to talk, not everything they say will be 100% interesting to you - if you are practicing active listening, be sure to fully comprehend everything they say. this is why active listening takes energy. focusing on everything helps you generate questions that lead to engaging genuinely interesting conversation.

- check in with yourself periodically, and ask the following:

how long have each of us spent leading the conversation?

in active conversation, the people engaged will take turns leading the conversation. if you feel like you're taking up most of the room, ask them a leading question and give them space to talk. if you feel like they're taking up most of the room, interrupt them and take the conversation back into your hands.

is this person actively listening to me?

if not, they're likely listening passively (not fully comprehending, uninterested in coming up with questions), which is a sign of disrespect/disinterest. either exit the conversation, or flip the light back to them.

to reiterate this, do not let your conversation partner prattle on forever about whatever _they're_ interested in. conversations are 2-sided. if they are taking up too much space, it's your responsibility to interrupt them and flip the focus to something you're interested in. this goes double if you don't know the person very well - do not let them talk at you forever, unless you're genuinely interested in hearing all of it.

is this conversation interesting to me?

if you decide that this active conversation sucks (many of them do!), disengage. don't pretend you can be brutally honest - few of us can - but don't be dishonest either. simply say "thanks for the convo, i'm going to go do X" or similar.

the key for you (and me) is to not hesitate to end the conversation or interrupt someone who is taking advantage of our active listening. many people do this without realizing it.

[em-bee]

those are good points, especially the one about feigning interest. but i don't quite get this:

hang out with people i don't want to be around

why should i hang out with people if i already know that i don't want to be around them?

maybe you mean that you don't want to be around people that you don't know. that's an important distinction. if being around unknown people is uncomfortable then yes, i should try to deal with that, my approach is to find some reason to be there other than the people themselves. a hobby or some other common interest which allows me to focus on that interest and ignore the people until i am more comfortable with the people themselves.

[j3s]

My bad, that was a typo. It was meant to read

> don't hang out with people i don't want to be around