It’s none of someone’s business why unless you choose to volunteer that information, and needing to know why you’ve just been turned down is a massive low-self-perceived-status signal.
Okay, seriously? This kind of “No you can’t know what you did wrong, asking means you’re even lower-status” dynamic to sexuality has probably been responsible for a number of geek/Aspie suicides over the last century. The existence and popularity of PUA isn’t so much a response to men who feel deprived of sex, it’s targeted at men who feel deprived of sex and romance and any idea of what they’re doing wrong and any known strategy for even getting started on fixing things. A major reason why people hurt is that there’s no known gentle slope into sex, and not getting any feedback is part of that.
I’ve informed a number of male college students that they have large, clearly detectable body odors. In every single case so far, they say nobody has ever told them that before. (And my girlfriend has confirmed a number of these, so it’s not just a unique nose.)
If you don’t need to ask yourself, that’s fine. If someone else does need to ask, try to be more sympathetic. And if someone asks you, TELL THEM.
I agree with everything you said, and with everything michaelsullivan said. They’re not in conflict. Barring a Friendly Singularity and CEV people with poorer social skills are going to have worse lives, and worse, improving your own social skills or improving other people’s social skills is not going to change the fact that there is a bottom 10%, and life is going to suck harder for them.
Life is a bitch and it is quite abnormal to act on any sympathy one may have with the creepy/awkward/annoying person near you.
For any young geek reading this, here are a few ways of improving your social skills/ decreasing mild to moderate social anxiety
Work as barstaff or waitstaff, preferably both.
Move someplace where people have similar interests to you and hang out in clubs/societies/interest groups.
Drink until you feel comfortable talking to people. (Don’t go much further)
(Relatively advanced) Work door to door sales or charity fundraising.
succeedsocially.com has a lot of reasonably useful advice too, and if you’re a romantically deprived male there’s plenty of instrumentally useful advice in the PUA subculture but the lowest hanging fruit is
Shower daily and use anti-perspirant. That’s not negotiable. You needn’t use deodorant but honestly you probably should.
Smile more, greet people i.e. say “Hi” a lot.
The more people you talk to the more likely you are to make friends; the more girls you talk to, and know, the more likely you are to find someone you’re interested who is interested in you
If you can get into an exercise regimen, most people can make relatively large gains pretty fast for not much time or work. This will make you hotter and more confident. Some people are fucked genetically but they’re a small minority. Try to get fitter
Learn how to tell if clothes fit and never buy anthing that doesn’t fit again. There’s much more to fashion but that is the single biggest gain you can make and it will take well under two hours. There’s a guide here and plenty more good stuff here particularly in the sidebar.
Also, Everything gets better after you leave High School, and it can continue to get better for a looong time.
Although I largely agree with what you’ve said here for the socially inept, I think the prevalence of the sentiment of that final statement may well lead to a great many people being disappointed when they arrive at university and find themselves more isolated than ever.
You are entirely correct. I could more accurately have said “For the majority of people with bad high school experiences, the post high school environment, whether in college or at work is much, much better. If this is not true for you then making a concerted effort to make the acquaintance of people who share your interests will, in the majority of cases, make your post-high school experience much better. If that doesn’t worktry to improve your most basic social skills and go back to step 2, meeting people with similar interests.”
Is that more or less accurate? How could it be improved?
I think, more or less, yes. But, just in case high-schoolers who have had trouble in the past are reading this, we should give as much specific advise as we can: Don’t expect university to be easier in social terms; there are less people ready to score a quick status-boost from putting you down, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to be charitable with their friendship. I think the most important piece of advise is “join a club.” Really—it’s the quickest and most effective way to hack yourself out of loneliness.
Also it got easier to hang out with other fellow geeks. It might be useful to learn the common stuff for the sake of getting along in life. But there is no need to actually spend too much time with people you do not enjoy.
What do you consider to be the comon stuff? Agreed that spending lots of time with people you don’t get on with is mostly unnecessary, but a little social nous goes a long way, and in many situations it’s a large force multiplier in your effectiveness.
Sorry to hear that. How and why? I’m under the impression that your over-riding, basic problem is that you would prefer to not be, maintaining this preference even under medication that makes the experience of being alive more or less pleasant. Is that impression accurate?
I suspect that the average person as intelligent and (perhaps slightly more) motivated than you, but without the outlook on life would end up with a dead end, not terribly well paid job with ample leisure possibilities, or on some variety of social welfare, and mostly satisfied-ish with their life, as evidenced by lack of action to change it. I say that because I am that guy.
How goes the moving out of parents’ house? I strongly recommend it from my own experience. Even a pretty crap badly paid, low status job and pack of lose, mildly substance abusing, poorly socialised friends is a huge improvement. Freedom is, in my experience fantastic, and a social life makes it much better.
Short answer: In high school I was “popular”. In college I basically had to start over socially. I did okay with that in my first two years, but in my third year onward it kind of fell apart and I ended up fairly isolated. (It didn’t help that I took six years to graduate and my freshman-year friends all graduated in four.) I also hated most of my classes, and the ones I didn’t loathe were merely tolerable.
Also, Everything gets better after you leave High School, and it can continue to get better for a looong time.
Probably atypical counter-example: I’m pretty sure I had significant opportunities to get laid my last year in HS (which, being an idiot, I did nothing about), more so than I have since.
Well I know very little about you but if you’re kind of nerdy and went to a co-ed high school then developed a much nerdier social circle on hitting university, and as a result had less opportunity you wouldn’t be too atypical. On idiocy, did you know the opportunities were there and not take them or are they obvious only in retrospect? If the latter I wouldn’t bother dwelling on it because you couldn’t have known, and if you didn’t take them for principled reasons you no longer endorse I wouldn’t either. Values change. Now if you knew damned well you could have, wanted to, and still somehow couldn’t do it, then yes, you were an idiot. Speaking as someone who was in that last category well after high school.
The existence and popularity of PUA isn’t so much a response to men who feel deprived of sex, it’s targeted at men who feel deprived of sex and romance and any idea of what they’re doing wrong and any known strategy for even getting started on fixing things.
Oh, interesting. That’s the first explanation/justification for PUA that hasn’t seemed creepy to me.
There is a significant difference though between wanting an explanation and feeling entitled to one. Anything that suggests a sense of entitlement, particularly when that crosses a privilege asymmetry, risks seeming threatening. “I’ve already said no and they have not unconditionally accepted that” is not that far a step from “they are giving vibes that suggest they think my right to a no can be overridden by their desires”.
I don’t think it’s actually that hard to signal “unconditional acceptance and a harmless desire for more information if you’re feeling generous”, but if we’re talking about a population with insufficient people/social skills, that will not be easy for them.
I agree it’s a virtue to donate information in such cases, but I don’t agree they’re entitled to it.
“You are morbidly obese.” “You are so tiny I feel like I’m crushing you.” “You act like I’m your last hope of ever meeting a girl.” “Your religion forbids premarital sex and that won’t work for me.” “Your conversation is just really boring.”
Are you actually saying that people want to be told these things?
Some are stupid and will shoot the messenger even though they’re emotionally better off knowing for certain than just wandering in an unhappy fog, wondering over and over what they’re doing wrong.
If they ask directly, I’d say, tell them honestly.
Every time I have ever pointed out specific things I don’t like in answer to “Why won’t you date me?” (back when I was available) the guy has used my reply to insist that he will change and beg for another chance. Then I have to say, “No, I don’t believe you will ever change in that way, and even if you did it wouldn’t be anytime soon, and offering to change yourself for me is really weird.” And then he argues that no, he can change right away, it’s no trouble, please give him a chance. It’s terribly unpleasant. I stopped giving specific answers, and instead said things like, “I guess we just don’t have the right chemistry.” Actually I think that’s a perfectly good and honest answer, and it’s the one that’s always true even when there’s no specific thing I can put my finger on.
I can’t pick out exactly what about someone turns me on or doesn’t turn me on because it’s subconscious, it’s my subconscious mind processing a million details all at once, and even when a person does have, say, bad BO, that’s just something that I was actually able to notice consciously so I might think of that as The Reason but once they fix their BO, all the other stuff, the millions of details only my subconscious picks up, those will still be there and the person will be pissed that the “fix” didn’t work. So I think actually giving a specific reason, or even two or three, is not as honest as just saying chalking it up to “chemistry” (which of course is shorthand for “it’s too complex and subconscious to explain”).
If I really wanted to try explaining a lack of chemistry, I’d probably be able to do no better than, “Some things about you, especially your para-language but other aspects of your behavior as well, though I can’t put my finger on them, rub me the wrong way, or at least inspire no romantic response in me.” Would anyone really find that helpful?
Perhaps you could start by saying, “I can only tell you if you’re asking for information and you promise not to argue.” I don’t know how practical that is in real life.
LWers could have a convention for saying to each other, “Please tell me so that I know how I was perceived by you. I will not argue and tell you that you perceived me differently, I will not blame the messenger, and I will not subject you to the unpleasant experience of hearing me offer to change.”
At first, I thought that making a new convention is the wrong way to go about it. How many conventions should we need to remember then? making new conventions all over the place for LWer’s will be too difficult, too many different social rules to juggle.
For example, in such a situation, as in asking a person out, you would need to think about the LW community conventions and then normal conventions when deciding actions. But then, you couldn’t do better unless you allow for change.
If a community is to be truly made, perhaps a set of conventions can be constructed so that, this convention will slot nicely into an easily searchable hierarchy: Relationships → relationship changing → approaches/dating requests. You could make an iPhone app so that the LWer looking for love (or wishing to do some social action) can quickly and discretely check up the currently accepted conventions/guidelines. If someone deviates, you can have all sorts of fun deciding to call them on it.
The problem isn’t in remembering social conventions, humans naturally do it and you’re using oodles of them now.
If there is a problem, it is in consciously calling for the new social convention, as it’s the less common way they form. I don’t think there’s anything wrong here, though.
There are some cases where I have made factual errors in which I’d like to be corrected. Like, if a necessary condition of my not wanting to date someone is “I don’t do long-distance relationships and you are about to move to Bangladesh”, and in fact the person is not about to move to Bangladesh because there was some change of plans, this is in fact a fine time to notify me. Or even “my model of you implies that you would, under $circumstance, do $behavior, even though I’ve never directly observed you in $circumstance”.
But yes, if it’s “you have $personal_characteristic”, offering to change it—unless it’s really trivial, on the order of “you use the word ‘splendid’ annoyingly often”, which would rarely if ever be the whole reason anyway—is not a correct answer.
Every time I have ever pointed out specific things I don’t like in answer to “Why won’t you date me?” (back when I was available) the guy has used my reply to insist that he will change and beg for another chance.
I’ve had this kind of thing happened to me and have heard similar stories way too many times. For people who want to ask directly for reasons why they’ve been rejected please remember than an answer is not license to argue the point. Nor is arguing the matter a good idea. You will not argue your way into a healthy relationship- just take the person’s reported feelings and update on that evidence.
I can’t pick out exactly what about someone turns me on or doesn’t turn me on because it’s subconscious, it’s my subconscious mind processing a million details all at once, and even when a person does have, say, bad BO, that’s just something that I was actually able to notice consciously so I might think of that as The Reason but once they fix their BO, all the other stuff, the millions of details only my subconscious picks up, those will still be there and the person will be pissed that the “fix” didn’t work. So I think actually giving a specific reason, or even two or three, is not as honest as just saying chalking it up to “chemistry” (which of course is shorthand for “it’s too complex and subconscious to explain”).
Perhaps best summed up as “I don’t want to answer because I want to avoid verbal overshadowing.”
This is why last time I had cause to ask for an explanation, I specifically disclaimed that I would not be using her reasons to come up with some clever way we could get back together.
It would be nice of you to make sure the guys leave without his illusions about the power of introspection. They apparently think not only that they can instantly change whatever they want about themselves, they think you know and can tell them what would need changing.
I would suggest establishing a personal policy of accepting only one romantic proposition per person-you-are-not-already-dating per week, or something along those lines. That way, if someone offers to change immediately, you can simply explain that you will not consider any such offers from them until the given time period has elapsed.
If they are bullshitting (as seems likely) and have little or no intention/ability to maintain such a change, the delay is enough that they will look elsewhere for short-term satisfaction; if their interest is genuine, persistent, specific to you, and the problems are as superficial and trivially resolved as they claim, 168 hours should be more than long enough to implement such a solution and clear your short-term memory for a new ‘first impression.’
If they don’t want to know, they shouldn’t ask. Lying to someone “for their own good” is, to me, one of the most disgusting concepts in existence.
I’ve been lied to “for my own good” several times. And every single time, all it really did was allow the person lying to me to feel good about themselves, while simultaneously screwing me over.
To illustrate, I’ll go through some likely results of telling someone each of these things Vs. not telling them.
“You are morbidly obese.”
They are now aware that their weight is a major reason for lack of success. This is an extra incentive to lose weight. In addition, it’s possible they weren’t even conscious of how overweight they were previously. So, they gain health benefits.
“You are so tiny I feel like I’m crushing you.”
They now know to be on the look out for either smaller partners, or partners who show signs of a crushing fetish, as opposed to continuing to ask large people who will turn them down.
“You act like I’m your last hope of ever meeting a girl.”
You may need to give more explanation on this one; because it’s likely that there’s some specific part of their behaviour that’s a problem. However, at least they are now aware that they are giving off vibes of desperation, and can try and change that (giving them more self-confidence, because they now know that the problem isn’t something innate)
“Your religion forbids premarital sex and that won’t work for me.”
They get to feel morally superior to you.
“Your conversation is just really boring.”
Provided you are willing to explain why you find their conversation boring, this is helpful. Seriously, I’m friends with a lot of aspergics*, and every time I explain to one of them “you’re being boring, the problem is that you are doing X” they have henceforth put effort into avoiding doing X, which has increased their success in socialising.
*(I suspect this is because I’m a borderline case myself, and therefore often end up acting as a “translator” between them and NTs)
not telling them
They don’t know why they were rejected; and likely find themselves wondering whether they’ll ever be able to be successful, making them feel increasingly desperate and despondent about their chances with each rejection.
While the first few rejecters may successfully prevent this by using “it’s not you it’s me” type lines, it will soon become clear to the rejectee that these are, in fact, often lies.
They are now aware that their weight is a major reason for lack of success. This is an extra incentive to lose weight. In addition, it’s possible they weren’t even conscious of how overweight they were previously. So, they gain health benefits.
This one may not be as good as you think. Fat people are generally told repeatedly that they’re fat.
The risks of being fat are generally wildly overestimated.
I’ve read a moderate number of accounts by fat people who found that their romantic success improved when they stopped pre-rejecting themselves.
However, at least they are now aware that they are giving off vibes of desperation, and can try and change that (giving them more self-confidence, because they now know that the problem isn’t something innate)
From experience: this can lead to resonant doubt/panic attacks. It kinda sucks.
Good point. It can result in a kill-or-cure situation, either they take it as “I can solve this” and gain confidence, or that they can’t, and lose even more.
Provided you are willing to explain why you find their conversation boring, this is helpful.
There were a few articles here on the limited introspection humans in general have. I assume they have less so for others and also are not necessarily able to express their reasons well enough to be understood.
My guess is that Aspergers (or generally people with internalized nonstandard interaction modes) have the best chance to get useful information from people who are also off, but less so.
Questioning a person about why they feel a certain way about you is weird in its own regard. And there is no safe way to communicate about communication.
If they’re asking, it’s often not because they actually want to know, but as a way of telling the other person off for having the wrong opinion. Telling them puts everyone in an extremely uncomfortable position. If I wanted to pass on such information to someone, I’d do so anonymously.
“You are morbidly obese.” “You are so tiny I feel like I’m crushing you.” “You act like I’m your last hope of ever meeting a girl.” “Your religion forbids premarital sex and that won’t work for me.” “Your conversation is just really boring.”
All but one of those are things that people can change. The most difficult one to change (being tiny) is something which people can adjust in part by bulking up and also carrying themselves better. Frankly, speaking as a really tiny male homo sapiens (slightly under 5′2) , if I were to ask someone out and to find out that that was the primary issue I’d be a bit relieved that it wasn’t something else. On the other hand when I was told explicitly that people were not interested in me due to my height it has sometimes felt really awful. But it did cause me to focus more on people who were of below average height or not too tall and that seems to have lead to some success. So even that has been a general positive.
I’m sure you can find slightly nicer ways of saying atleast some of of the above. e.g. “I prefer people who are more physically fit” rather than “you are morbidly obese”.
I’ve informed a number of male college students that
I trained myself to not give unrequested feedback anymore after some bad experiences. I find it a sad situaton but am not inclined to be the one telling others things they don.t really want to hear.
Okay, seriously? This kind of “No you can’t know what you did wrong, asking means you’re even lower-status” dynamic to sexuality has probably been responsible for a number of geek/Aspie suicides over the last century. The existence and popularity of PUA isn’t so much a response to men who feel deprived of sex, it’s targeted at men who feel deprived of sex and romance and any idea of what they’re doing wrong and any known strategy for even getting started on fixing things. A major reason why people hurt is that there’s no known gentle slope into sex, and not getting any feedback is part of that.
I’ve informed a number of male college students that they have large, clearly detectable body odors. In every single case so far, they say nobody has ever told them that before. (And my girlfriend has confirmed a number of these, so it’s not just a unique nose.)
If you don’t need to ask yourself, that’s fine. If someone else does need to ask, try to be more sympathetic. And if someone asks you, TELL THEM.
I agree with everything you said, and with everything michaelsullivan said. They’re not in conflict. Barring a Friendly Singularity and CEV people with poorer social skills are going to have worse lives, and worse, improving your own social skills or improving other people’s social skills is not going to change the fact that there is a bottom 10%, and life is going to suck harder for them.
Life is a bitch and it is quite abnormal to act on any sympathy one may have with the creepy/awkward/annoying person near you.
For any young geek reading this, here are a few ways of improving your social skills/ decreasing mild to moderate social anxiety
Work as barstaff or waitstaff, preferably both.
Move someplace where people have similar interests to you and hang out in clubs/societies/interest groups.
Drink until you feel comfortable talking to people. (Don’t go much further)
(Relatively advanced) Work door to door sales or charity fundraising.
succeedsocially.com has a lot of reasonably useful advice too, and if you’re a romantically deprived male there’s plenty of instrumentally useful advice in the PUA subculture but the lowest hanging fruit is
Shower daily and use anti-perspirant. That’s not negotiable. You needn’t use deodorant but honestly you probably should.
Smile more, greet people i.e. say “Hi” a lot.
The more people you talk to the more likely you are to make friends; the more girls you talk to, and know, the more likely you are to find someone you’re interested who is interested in you
If you can get into an exercise regimen, most people can make relatively large gains pretty fast for not much time or work. This will make you hotter and more confident. Some people are fucked genetically but they’re a small minority. Try to get fitter
Learn how to tell if clothes fit and never buy anthing that doesn’t fit again. There’s much more to fashion but that is the single biggest gain you can make and it will take well under two hours. There’s a guide here and plenty more good stuff here particularly in the sidebar.
Also, Everything gets better after you leave High School, and it can continue to get better for a looong time.
Although I largely agree with what you’ve said here for the socially inept, I think the prevalence of the sentiment of that final statement may well lead to a great many people being disappointed when they arrive at university and find themselves more isolated than ever.
You are entirely correct. I could more accurately have said “For the majority of people with bad high school experiences, the post high school environment, whether in college or at work is much, much better. If this is not true for you then making a concerted effort to make the acquaintance of people who share your interests will, in the majority of cases, make your post-high school experience much better. If that doesn’t worktry to improve your most basic social skills and go back to step 2, meeting people with similar interests.”
Is that more or less accurate? How could it be improved?
I think, more or less, yes. But, just in case high-schoolers who have had trouble in the past are reading this, we should give as much specific advise as we can: Don’t expect university to be easier in social terms; there are less people ready to score a quick status-boost from putting you down, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to be charitable with their friendship. I think the most important piece of advise is “join a club.” Really—it’s the quickest and most effective way to hack yourself out of loneliness.
Also it got easier to hang out with other fellow geeks. It might be useful to learn the common stuff for the sake of getting along in life. But there is no need to actually spend too much time with people you do not enjoy.
What do you consider to be the comon stuff? Agreed that spending lots of time with people you don’t get on with is mostly unnecessary, but a little social nous goes a long way, and in many situations it’s a large force multiplier in your effectiveness.
For me, it got worse.
Sorry to hear that. How and why? I’m under the impression that your over-riding, basic problem is that you would prefer to not be, maintaining this preference even under medication that makes the experience of being alive more or less pleasant. Is that impression accurate?
I suspect that the average person as intelligent and (perhaps slightly more) motivated than you, but without the outlook on life would end up with a dead end, not terribly well paid job with ample leisure possibilities, or on some variety of social welfare, and mostly satisfied-ish with their life, as evidenced by lack of action to change it. I say that because I am that guy.
How goes the moving out of parents’ house? I strongly recommend it from my own experience. Even a pretty crap badly paid, low status job and pack of lose, mildly substance abusing, poorly socialised friends is a huge improvement. Freedom is, in my experience fantastic, and a social life makes it much better.
Short answer: In high school I was “popular”. In college I basically had to start over socially. I did okay with that in my first two years, but in my third year onward it kind of fell apart and I ended up fairly isolated. (It didn’t help that I took six years to graduate and my freshman-year friends all graduated in four.) I also hated most of my classes, and the ones I didn’t loathe were merely tolerable.
Awesome post, thanks for it.
Probably atypical counter-example: I’m pretty sure I had significant opportunities to get laid my last year in HS (which, being an idiot, I did nothing about), more so than I have since.
Well I know very little about you but if you’re kind of nerdy and went to a co-ed high school then developed a much nerdier social circle on hitting university, and as a result had less opportunity you wouldn’t be too atypical. On idiocy, did you know the opportunities were there and not take them or are they obvious only in retrospect? If the latter I wouldn’t bother dwelling on it because you couldn’t have known, and if you didn’t take them for principled reasons you no longer endorse I wouldn’t either. Values change. Now if you knew damned well you could have, wanted to, and still somehow couldn’t do it, then yes, you were an idiot. Speaking as someone who was in that last category well after high school.
Oh, interesting. That’s the first explanation/justification for PUA that hasn’t seemed creepy to me.
There is a significant difference though between wanting an explanation and feeling entitled to one. Anything that suggests a sense of entitlement, particularly when that crosses a privilege asymmetry, risks seeming threatening. “I’ve already said no and they have not unconditionally accepted that” is not that far a step from “they are giving vibes that suggest they think my right to a no can be overridden by their desires”.
I don’t think it’s actually that hard to signal “unconditional acceptance and a harmless desire for more information if you’re feeling generous”, but if we’re talking about a population with insufficient people/social skills, that will not be easy for them.
I agree it’s a virtue to donate information in such cases, but I don’t agree they’re entitled to it.
Um… very often the real reason is unflattering.
“You are morbidly obese.” “You are so tiny I feel like I’m crushing you.” “You act like I’m your last hope of ever meeting a girl.” “Your religion forbids premarital sex and that won’t work for me.” “Your conversation is just really boring.”
Are you actually saying that people want to be told these things?
Some do.
Some are stupid and will shoot the messenger even though they’re emotionally better off knowing for certain than just wandering in an unhappy fog, wondering over and over what they’re doing wrong.
If they ask directly, I’d say, tell them honestly.
Every time I have ever pointed out specific things I don’t like in answer to “Why won’t you date me?” (back when I was available) the guy has used my reply to insist that he will change and beg for another chance. Then I have to say, “No, I don’t believe you will ever change in that way, and even if you did it wouldn’t be anytime soon, and offering to change yourself for me is really weird.” And then he argues that no, he can change right away, it’s no trouble, please give him a chance. It’s terribly unpleasant. I stopped giving specific answers, and instead said things like, “I guess we just don’t have the right chemistry.” Actually I think that’s a perfectly good and honest answer, and it’s the one that’s always true even when there’s no specific thing I can put my finger on.
I can’t pick out exactly what about someone turns me on or doesn’t turn me on because it’s subconscious, it’s my subconscious mind processing a million details all at once, and even when a person does have, say, bad BO, that’s just something that I was actually able to notice consciously so I might think of that as The Reason but once they fix their BO, all the other stuff, the millions of details only my subconscious picks up, those will still be there and the person will be pissed that the “fix” didn’t work. So I think actually giving a specific reason, or even two or three, is not as honest as just saying chalking it up to “chemistry” (which of course is shorthand for “it’s too complex and subconscious to explain”).
If I really wanted to try explaining a lack of chemistry, I’d probably be able to do no better than, “Some things about you, especially your para-language but other aspects of your behavior as well, though I can’t put my finger on them, rub me the wrong way, or at least inspire no romantic response in me.” Would anyone really find that helpful?
Perhaps you could start by saying, “I can only tell you if you’re asking for information and you promise not to argue.” I don’t know how practical that is in real life.
LWers could have a convention for saying to each other, “Please tell me so that I know how I was perceived by you. I will not argue and tell you that you perceived me differently, I will not blame the messenger, and I will not subject you to the unpleasant experience of hearing me offer to change.”
At first, I thought that making a new convention is the wrong way to go about it. How many conventions should we need to remember then? making new conventions all over the place for LWer’s will be too difficult, too many different social rules to juggle.
For example, in such a situation, as in asking a person out, you would need to think about the LW community conventions and then normal conventions when deciding actions. But then, you couldn’t do better unless you allow for change.
If a community is to be truly made, perhaps a set of conventions can be constructed so that, this convention will slot nicely into an easily searchable hierarchy: Relationships → relationship changing → approaches/dating requests. You could make an iPhone app so that the LWer looking for love (or wishing to do some social action) can quickly and discretely check up the currently accepted conventions/guidelines. If someone deviates, you can have all sorts of fun deciding to call them on it.
The problem isn’t in remembering social conventions, humans naturally do it and you’re using oodles of them now.
If there is a problem, it is in consciously calling for the new social convention, as it’s the less common way they form. I don’t think there’s anything wrong here, though.
Hmm, how about shortening that to “SMK’s request?” That’s probably easier shorthand.
There are some cases where I have made factual errors in which I’d like to be corrected. Like, if a necessary condition of my not wanting to date someone is “I don’t do long-distance relationships and you are about to move to Bangladesh”, and in fact the person is not about to move to Bangladesh because there was some change of plans, this is in fact a fine time to notify me. Or even “my model of you implies that you would, under $circumstance, do $behavior, even though I’ve never directly observed you in $circumstance”.
But yes, if it’s “you have $personal_characteristic”, offering to change it—unless it’s really trivial, on the order of “you use the word ‘splendid’ annoyingly often”, which would rarely if ever be the whole reason anyway—is not a correct answer.
I’ve had this kind of thing happened to me and have heard similar stories way too many times. For people who want to ask directly for reasons why they’ve been rejected please remember than an answer is not license to argue the point. Nor is arguing the matter a good idea. You will not argue your way into a healthy relationship- just take the person’s reported feelings and update on that evidence.
Perhaps best summed up as “I don’t want to answer because I want to avoid verbal overshadowing.”
Edit: fixed negation
This is why last time I had cause to ask for an explanation, I specifically disclaimed that I would not be using her reasons to come up with some clever way we could get back together.
It would be nice of you to make sure the guys leave without his illusions about the power of introspection. They apparently think not only that they can instantly change whatever they want about themselves, they think you know and can tell them what would need changing.
“One specific thing I really don’t like is people changing themselves for others.”
Might not be helpful, might not solve that problem, but the look on their face will probably make the conversation slightly more bearable.
I would suggest establishing a personal policy of accepting only one romantic proposition per person-you-are-not-already-dating per week, or something along those lines. That way, if someone offers to change immediately, you can simply explain that you will not consider any such offers from them until the given time period has elapsed.
If they are bullshitting (as seems likely) and have little or no intention/ability to maintain such a change, the delay is enough that they will look elsewhere for short-term satisfaction; if their interest is genuine, persistent, specific to you, and the problems are as superficial and trivially resolved as they claim, 168 hours should be more than long enough to implement such a solution and clear your short-term memory for a new ‘first impression.’
Ok, if it comes up again, I’ll try that.
Well this place is pretty infested with truth/information fetishists, so it might not be a good place to ask.
If they’re asking, they deserve to be told.
If they don’t want to know, they shouldn’t ask. Lying to someone “for their own good” is, to me, one of the most disgusting concepts in existence.
I’ve been lied to “for my own good” several times. And every single time, all it really did was allow the person lying to me to feel good about themselves, while simultaneously screwing me over.
To illustrate, I’ll go through some likely results of telling someone each of these things Vs. not telling them.
They are now aware that their weight is a major reason for lack of success. This is an extra incentive to lose weight. In addition, it’s possible they weren’t even conscious of how overweight they were previously. So, they gain health benefits.
They now know to be on the look out for either smaller partners, or partners who show signs of a crushing fetish, as opposed to continuing to ask large people who will turn them down.
You may need to give more explanation on this one; because it’s likely that there’s some specific part of their behaviour that’s a problem. However, at least they are now aware that they are giving off vibes of desperation, and can try and change that (giving them more self-confidence, because they now know that the problem isn’t something innate)
They get to feel morally superior to you.
Provided you are willing to explain why you find their conversation boring, this is helpful. Seriously, I’m friends with a lot of aspergics*, and every time I explain to one of them “you’re being boring, the problem is that you are doing X” they have henceforth put effort into avoiding doing X, which has increased their success in socialising.
*(I suspect this is because I’m a borderline case myself, and therefore often end up acting as a “translator” between them and NTs)
They don’t know why they were rejected; and likely find themselves wondering whether they’ll ever be able to be successful, making them feel increasingly desperate and despondent about their chances with each rejection.
While the first few rejecters may successfully prevent this by using “it’s not you it’s me” type lines, it will soon become clear to the rejectee that these are, in fact, often lies.
This one may not be as good as you think. Fat people are generally told repeatedly that they’re fat.
The risks of being fat are generally wildly overestimated.
I’ve read a moderate number of accounts by fat people who found that their romantic success improved when they stopped pre-rejecting themselves.
From experience: this can lead to resonant doubt/panic attacks. It kinda sucks.
Good point. It can result in a kill-or-cure situation, either they take it as “I can solve this” and gain confidence, or that they can’t, and lose even more.
There were a few articles here on the limited introspection humans in general have. I assume they have less so for others and also are not necessarily able to express their reasons well enough to be understood.
My guess is that Aspergers (or generally people with internalized nonstandard interaction modes) have the best chance to get useful information from people who are also off, but less so.
Questioning a person about why they feel a certain way about you is weird in its own regard. And there is no safe way to communicate about communication.
If they’re asking, it’s often not because they actually want to know, but as a way of telling the other person off for having the wrong opinion. Telling them puts everyone in an extremely uncomfortable position. If I wanted to pass on such information to someone, I’d do so anonymously.
All but one of those are things that people can change. The most difficult one to change (being tiny) is something which people can adjust in part by bulking up and also carrying themselves better. Frankly, speaking as a really tiny male homo sapiens (slightly under 5′2) , if I were to ask someone out and to find out that that was the primary issue I’d be a bit relieved that it wasn’t something else. On the other hand when I was told explicitly that people were not interested in me due to my height it has sometimes felt really awful. But it did cause me to focus more on people who were of below average height or not too tall and that seems to have lead to some success. So even that has been a general positive.
I’m sure you can find slightly nicer ways of saying atleast some of of the above. e.g. “I prefer people who are more physically fit” rather than “you are morbidly obese”.
Not telling is mostly about wanting to avoid the other party getting angry.
I wouldn’t mind disclosing the reasons to someone if I was given some confidence they wouldn’t get angry at me.
Thus most of the time one ends up using polite safe generic to turn away people.
I trained myself to not give unrequested feedback anymore after some bad experiences. I find it a sad situaton but am not inclined to be the one telling others things they don.t really want to hear.
Gratulation!