[Quinzel]

I am not “rich”, but a psychological trick I use when I’m out with one or two friends is that I always make sure I buy the first drink, or first entree etc. Basically I just make sure that I provide the first “gift”. The reason being that I know that I will most likely get back in return favours that far exceed what I initially fronted up with.

The most recent example of me doing this was Friday night. I paid $6 for my friends drink, and then in return, he bought me dinner, and then also paid for me to go bowling. So in return for my $6 spent, I got about $50 of value in return.

I been doing this since I was a kid. I grew up in poverty, and I think it’s like a behavioural adaptation I acquired because it was a way for me to get things I needed. I knew as a kid, that adults valued generosity. I didn’t have a lot to give because I was poor, so what I would do instead was craft handmade gifts, pick flowers for people, write nicely worded letters to people, or I would do chores for random people without being asked, and often I found people would return the favour by providing something in return.

It wasn’t until I studied social psychology as an elective in my first degree that I realised I was using the rule of reciprocity to gain an advantage. Since realising the social convention behind it, I still do it to my advantage, but I would say now days, I do do it with more intention - therefore there are times where I do not exploit this human vulnerability because I know I am actually socially more advantaged than the other person.

When I am in social situations where I know someone is far wealthier than I am, instead of offering them tangible gifts like buying a drink, I actually prefer to stroke their ego’s, and make them feel interesting and important, and I also am happy to allow them to feel socially superior to me. I don’t care if they view me as lower in the pecking order, because as long as they think that I admire them, they’re more likely to provide gifts, like buying me drinks etc… again, it’s an adaptation of the reciprocity thing, and something I learned to do as a kid.

[leetcrew]

I'm not sure this is as clever as you think. the other people in your stories almost certainly notice what you're doing. decent people tend to look for ways to help out their less fortunate companions. in this situation, it is totally normal (though not necessarily expected) for the recipient to offer something of token (ie, lesser) value in exchange. it helps everyone avoid overtly acknowledging the disparity in means.

what they may not realize is that you are being intentionally manipulative. I'm sure they would be very disappointed to learn that you perceive this as winning some sort of game while they are being intentionally generous with you.

[mycologos]

Having this transactional a view of interactions doesn't sound fun. Is it something you're trying to change?

[etrautmann]

I agree. I enjoy buying a friend a drink or a meal because giving something to someone is both nice and fun and makes you feel good as a result.

[russelldjimmy]

It sounds like you have figured out a way to get what you want materially. It seems to be working well for you.

However, like the other commenter pointed out, it does seem like a transactional way to view things. It sounds like such a view was very helpful to you in your childhood, which - as you mentioned - was in poverty, and I can imagine that this makes one focus their efforts and attention intensely on gaining material benefits. The question now is - is your life still demanding this narrow focus, or is it possible to relax this and start to enjoy the more intangible things in life? “If all one has is a hammer…” - you know how it goes :)

Instead of seeing someone else’s generosity as a way to gain material benefit, can it be appreciated for just the generosity alone? Can the act of buying someone that “first gift” be enjoyed for the look of joy and surprise in their expression? It feels great to make someone’s day, and this is only possible when one’s attention is not focused on expecting something in return.

A tangential thought:

Sometimes people are not used to receiving gifts and they might be “overgenerous” in return because they got flustered at receiving a gift so suddenly. It’s not a positive feeling for them and the act can start to feel like “ransom” for them after some point. This is not your problem of course :) but one can become sensitive to such things only when one’s attention is not focused on “what will I get out of this transaction?”

[Quinzel]

> sometimes people are not used to receiving gifts and they might be “overgenerous” in return because they got flustered…”

This is something I had not considered to be honest, but is a great point and something I shall take on board.

[Johanx64]

I hated receiving gifs when I was broke/poor with passion.

It basically works like this:

1. I receive a gift of 50$ usually spent very sub-optimally.

2. Now I have to spend ~50$ buying a gift in turn.

The end result: someone buying me gift for 50$ is equivalent to forcing a bad 50$ purchase upon me OR forcing me to feel bad and potentially be perceived as ungrateful/unreciprocating.

[ryanwaggoner]

This is a wonderful response, both non-judgmental and wise.

[jwilber]

This reads like some Patrick Bateman self-styled narrative. I suspect in reality this behavior is extremely obvious and off-putting. About as effective a psychological trick as the kid who just finished reading "How to Win Friends & Influence People" repeating your first name twenty times in a conversation.

In other words, it just comes off weird and likely hurts more than it helps any meaningful relationships.

[Johanx64]

The behaviour is extremely obvious and off-putting if you're not good at it and you're forcing it. Or if you start doing it when you're halfway through life lived as a stingy bitter asshole (by no fault of your own necessarily, you just grew up in poverty with people made of same cloth), your attempts most likely will feel awkward and unnatural.

Since the person has practiced these strategies since early childhood, he would do these things naturally and flawlessly. You wouldn't be able to tell if it's genuine or not, because he has ALWAYS done this, you wouldn't know a different version of this person, or catch them being anything but, because they always have bought the first drink, have always been nice and a good conversationalist (which 90% of the time means, shut up and attentively listen to other person and 10% of time asking questions to make the other person open up about their passions and interests), and would always remember everyone they meet by their first name regardless of their statute or position.

The behavior becomes a genuine, well oiled habit, a natural. You can only catch a "fake" if it's situational and your behaviour completely changes depending on who you interact with or well... if you tell people on the internet about it.

Social relations and human behavior is transactional regardless if you're aware of it or not. People really do like to bury their head in the sand and pretend that it isn't though and that there's some sort of special magical fairy dust going on in social relations.

[whoknowsidont]

> You can only catch a "fake" if it's situational and your behavior completely changes

I can't word this without being insulting, you can catch many "fake" behaviors, especially when it requires the social intelligence of a normal, young kid. I don't mean to directly insult or insinuate things about OP, but I don't know how else to contextualize that this is not some advanced social strategy or set of maneuvers that slip by people.

It's assuredly very, very obvious if not awkward for other people to deal with.

>Social relations and human behavior is transactional regardless if you're aware of it or not.

Most people would use the word reciprocal. Which has all the same presumptuous benefits of being transactional, but it means a lot more. It implies longer term, more involved commitments that generally, equally benefit both parties in a holistic manner.

Saying social relations are transactional is not profound, it's actually reveals a certain ignorance about how you view literally everyone else on this planet.

[Quinzel]

Reciprocal behaviour is what allows us to get along with other humans and behave pro-socially. But I think it’s a bit naive not to recognise that it is still somewhat transactional in nature. There are some situations in which we’re honest about the reciprocal agreement (ie, you provide me with 8hours of work, and in return, I’ll pay you for your efforts) and there are other times where the reciprocal agreement is implied and not specified but still understood (ie, your child is invited to a birthday party at a fancy playland, so you should provide the birthday child with a nice gift - no one ever tells you you have to buy a present, but it’d be socially awkward not to).

The transactional nature of reciprocity is also why I don’t participate in gift giving at Christmas. I hate that the expectation is to show our nearest and dearest we care about them by participating in mindless consumerism. I will spend time with my family, cook dinner with them, do games, be part of the festivities but gifting is not part of the equation.

[seoulmetro]

This is wrong. Manipulating friends with actual physical items never goes unnoticed as we attach those to our closest relations subconsciously.

To think that someone can scam you without you knowing because they always scam you is hilarious when talking in the context of a close friend taking from you.

[Quinzel]

I’m curious as to how you think the social interaction plays out?… Like how do you think it’s conducted in such a way that it is so noticeable?

[seoulmetro]

They do it twice in a row? (let alone every time for their entire life) That's all it takes.

Unless you have no other friends, this is enough. People keep okay tabs on how they spend their money if it's always disappearing.

[Quinzel]

Ohhh so you think people are actively keeping tabs on what they give and then what they receive in return in the context of their social interactions?

That’s really interesting that you think that, because to me that would suggest that you think if you provide a friend something like a drink, you expect you should get something in return.

Also, do they do it twice? How do you know? Have you constructed a concept of how the social interaction happened in your mind and made some assumptions?

[russelldjimmy]

“Your compliment was sufficient, Louis” ;)

[geysersam]

In my experience people do notice if they're spending more than their friends when buying beers and dinners and such.

Your friends are probably not mentioning it because it's a bit awkward and they don't want to make you embarrassed, because they care about you.

[whoknowsidont]

There is zero chance they don't realize what you're doing.

[torginus]

I dunno why but for me, people don't seem to reciprocate anything nice I do for them (or buy for them).

To be clear I don't expect the favors I do to be returned to me in a transactional manner, but I'd love to experience a random act of thoughtfulness out of the blue from the people I did nice things for.

[tsunamifury]

Different circles act differently. In grad school every student was stringy and would take and never return. After I worked in tech everyone was quite generous.

[torginus]

Funnily enough, I don't think it's a money issue - I think that people have adopted such a consumerist, transactional mindset, that they can't distinguish the difference of services provided to them by the system at the swipe of their credit cards and the things other people put effort into (who are under absolutely no obligation to do so).

It's the same transactional mindset view of 'what can you do for me' that's outlined in the top comment.

Which is a foolish way to view the world imo, as friendships are much more difficult to acquire than money, but it is what it is.

[tsunamifury]

What’s funny is I was making the same point. I went to grad school with a lot of selfish asshole. But at work I had a pretty nice group of friends.

[interludead]

It's a life of a poor student

[seoulmetro]

That's just tricking your friends and being a bad friend. Most normal friends swap the roles so that next time you buy the meal and they grab the drink.

This sounds like a joke post based on how bad you are at human interaction but somehow studied psychology.

[fragmede]

People aren't idiots and can do the math for themselves. They're not calling you out on it because you grew up poor and think you still are.

[adolph]

> the rule of reciprocit

You might be interested in Pre-suasion by Cialdini. Of special note is Cialdini’s ideas about ethical use of the techniques.

https://www.amazon.com/Pre-Suasion-Revolutionary-Way-Influen...