[mhartz]

The thing I always remind myself on this topic is from Dale Carengie's How to Win Friends and Influence People which is essentially you will make an order of magnitude more friends by being interested in other people than you will in trying to make them interested in you

[rchaud]

This is good advice for salespeople who need to strike up a rapport in a short amount of time. Real adult friendships are far more complicated due to the time investment required to actually build a friendship.

[toomuchtodo]

To add to this, adult relationships are shades of shared adversity, reciprocity, vulnerability, and demonstrating reliability. Avoid transactional behavior, put yourself out there, accept losses but be present in the positive moments.

[mixmastamyk]

How do you maintain rapport over a long period of time? By striking it up first.

[ActorNightly]

The problem is that this advice is missing one piece of crucial information - first impressions are everything.

Imagine you start a job, and you meet a coworker, who is well groomed, well spoken, and he just starts small chat with you, doing all the strategies in the book of "building you up". You would probably feel good.

Now imagine the same situation except you have a coworker who is socially awkward and speaks in a monotone voice, doesn't do small chat, and right away starts asking very probing questions. You would probably be annoyed as fuck.

[binary132]

I’m probably the exception rather than the rule, but I generally enjoy spending time with people who are a little more offbeat and intense much more than with people who are well put together and well presented, assuming they have something worthwhile to offer. People like that give me a sales vibe and it’s really icky, makes me feel paranoid. Plus I’d much rather have an interesting discussion about something challenging than share in tiresome pleasantries.

I CAN enjoy and get along with the other type, but it’s much more fruitful and I’m more likely to seek to spend time with those who offer something to engage with. I have very limited time so I’d prefer to spend it profitably.

But yeah, people like that can definitely be more weird, uncomfortable, and downright awkward, for sure. No doubt many in this forum can too. I try to just have patience and suppress my natural irritation for the sake of learning something, or discovering interesting things about a person I wouldn’t have otherwise. I’ve certainly committed the opposite error too, in rejecting people socially who later turned out to be pretty cool and unique despite their flaws and foibles.

But like, for the majority of folks, you definitely need to be able to hang and be comfortably normal, too. I just see that as a less profitable way to allocate my time usually.

I might be undiagnosed / high-functioning autistic spectrum though so take it with a grain of salt, but many people in tech are.

[naming_the_user]

I wouldn't consider basic stuff like grooming to be "trying to get other people to be interested in you" aside from in the really strict sense (e.g. literally going outside at all is trying to get other people to be interested in you).

[mixmastamyk]

A pessimistic, fixed mindset take.