Learning How To Talk To People.

yknow, i think it's important to distinguish between developing basic social skills (which all sorts of people lack for any number of reasons) and undoing the work of the patriarchy and improving one's "soft skills" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_skills)

what is the distinction?

the distinction is that if you are developing basic social skills, you are starting from a place of deficit --this applies to a much more narrow swath of people.

the latter is about interacting with people differently, from a more empathetic position and with more care, and can be explained by reading the wikipedia entry about soft skills. it should also be noted that historically, women are taught soft skills (somewhat aggressively!) from a young age but men aren't as much. this is changing but not fast enough to include men currently in their 40s.

pretty sure that this thread is about the latter and should not be confused with the former.

idgi though - what are "basic social skills" if not the kind of thing discussed in that wikipedia article?

you can go through life as a total boor and still be considered functional -- you can operate in society with minimal soft skills and still succeed. ample evidence exists for this.

if you don't understand how to smile when you're happy, or stop yelling when you are upset, or cannot handle light conflict ("this food is the wrong shape!") without completely losing your composure, you lack basic social skills.

that is my understanding. for instance, i have used my soft skills to describe the difference without singling anyone out and trying not to embarrass/offend anyone -- because being kind is important to me. you may not know that since i am just words on a page, but i hope you take my word for it.

I'm maladroit when talking about myself so I prefer letting the other person chat while I interject bon mots, the shrewdest method of revelation.

I think I have trouble talking to people largely because many of the people I encounter are lacking in these very soft skills you mention. So thank you for introducing that term to me. Needless conflict seems to be lying just under the surface with most people I interact with, and it's exhausting and makes me feel very...'what's even the point of this'.

Like 'this food is the wrong shape!' is a ridiculous basis for conflict but I find myself having to ride out conflict of that nature way more often than I'd like. It's much easier on my constitution to just, like, read and write and listen to music.

I've always heard 'soft skills' used to refer to a kind of nebulous set of professional skills as defined by management. seems very american business speak to me, full of lots of class signifiers & not necessarily a good guide for chatting to ppl socially, but LL seems to use it in a broader, less prescriptive sense more akin to what I understand as 'social skills' or even just empathy

There's nothing more culturally sensitive than politeness -- for me "soft skills" isn't the best possible description of these skills but it's the one i know. it's kind of offensive tbh! as if interacting with people is somehow less "hard" than knowing how to make a chair or fix a hot water heater or whatever skills people respect as learned abilities or skills.

My main gripe is with the notion of common sense but that's another conversation.

I also think common sense is v dubious

men do get taught/ingrained with some of these skills/traits - I'm thinking of breezy self-assured public schoolboy politesse, the ability to laugh off indignities (learnt through constantly inflicting them on each other) - but there are obviously big differences

I am suspicious of people's desires to have rules for this sort of thing as I think they're inevitably exclusive & you get the bad traits of etiquette: normative, stratified, and reinforcing existing power dynamics. also reminds me of a former colleague who would always take exception to ppl who didn't say 'please' and 'thank you', and would treat them with appalling rudeness in his crusade for proper manners

I think what I find toughest is navigating between what seem to be two conflicting sets of virtues wrt talking to people: that you should treat everyone more or less the same in the name of being sincere, fair and genuine; or that you should be sensitive and flexible to best accommodate & respond to the variety of ppl & situations you will encounter.

i try to match the rhythms of the people around me. i live somewhere pretty slow so it has been a challenge. but i'm getting better at it. i have become more anxious and less patient as i have gotten older which doesn't help. i never thought i would have to remember my Buddhist mindfulness to walk into the co-op market, but, hey, whatever works.

i don't want to be a robot though. i try to blend my personality with general politeness. anxious and impatient can definitely rub off on people. it definitely rubs off on me. so that's why i try to modulate.

i am well aware of my own shortcomings. i should have stressed that above too. i don't let myself off the hook. i don't think people are out to get me and make my life miserable or annoying. i'm just trying to be more conscious of how i act toward others at home and out in the world and i'm starting simple. i used to not care how i effected people. years ago, i worked in public all day long in busy places and i was always hungover and i didn't suffer fools. i said whatever i wanted. now i'm taking more time to be empathetic and careful. i don't want to force myself on people verbally. or force my mental state or my anxiety on others. it sure doesn't feel good when people do it to me.

(not that i was a monster years ago. i was just more oblivious and didn't GAF...)

i used to not care how i effected people.
meanwhile, i have longed for this freedom since the age of 12 or so :(

i hope it's clear that i am not a prescriptivist and i applaud all attempts to consider other people's reactions to one's behavior, esp if such consideration was lacking in the past. these were things i learned in order to survive in the world, not because i wanted to.
in terms of improvement and matching of other people's rhythms, i am much more conscious of my nerves rubbing off on people than i used to be. i have always been a very nervous/enthusiastic person. i try to exercise my chill mindfully too :)

i just want to evolve. the way my personality is i definitely could go the way of the pissed off crank or the hermit in my old age. or i can evolve. and learn. although i suppose the real answer would be to just go to my doctor and get some excellent drugs that would make me love everyone and everything. that's my emergency plan. but i'm going to try to do the work on my own for now.

quitting smoking didn't help...

i am taking over the counter lithium every day though. and L-theanine. which seems to help.

people mistake my enthusiasm for all kinds of other things, things i do not wish to project, i can understand the need to evolve one's approach to interpersonal communication
failure to evolve will leave a person behind

i think maybe evolving requires both a goal of how you want yourself to be (or act), and a healthy recognition and patience with the fact that it will require steps and isn't an overnight process. maybe.

idk about the maybe part ;)

maybe maybe perhaps!

i am myself probably unrecognizable from twenty-plus years ago. i had some low points and when scraping bottom i looked at myself in the mirror (literally!) and said fuck it. i had to extricate myself from my rut, and go to places i wasn't comfortable with. geographically and figuratively. which is how i went from rural IL to NYC (without having ever visited the latter.) i had to leave a lot of things behind, i had to get unsentimental and i guess (it sounds paradoxical) stop caring about what other people thought or felt, but also balancing it out with more empathy and patience. it was a long, long process, i tell ya.

a lot of problems stemmed from really not knowing how to interact with people, is the thing.