This isn't a personality issue at all—it's pure disrespect. If someone treated me like that, I wouldn't befriend them or open up to them either. Sincerity is a two-way street.
I think the most valuable thing here is to not jump to a negative assumption about people, something I wish it followed more closely in its other points. Virtually anyone who has a very different perspective than the group will face friction, and handling that friction gracefully isn't something that comes naturally to most people. People can get stuck in a pattern of handling the friction poorly, but the group as a whole also has the opportunity for grace and understanding that can diffuse the problem, if that is something that is valuable to them.
How about the old fashioned freezing with a face contorted in fear like your being held at knife point unable to think of anything to say and just waiting to be able to leave? When you get asked a question, fumble over your words and say something stupid. Later on, you can reflexively watch the memory played over and over again so you're even worse the next time. If you see anyone you met during the encounter afterwards, you can just panic and try to hide your face and escape.
That's a lot easier and comes off more natural IMO.
If any one single interaction makes you have such a response, that might be a reason to see someone. I wish for everyone to be able to move through the social world with grace and ease.
Put less kindly: there’s nothing so special about you that being yourself around a new person should cause such a panic. Even if they take an instant dislike to you, that should be something you can take in stride
What does "being yourself" even mean? Obviously not "acting the exact same way you act when alone", since this would be impossible/weird/rude/illegal but also not "acting intuitively without overthinking", since the socially anxious person's intuition is to run away.
I don’t mean like being “authentic” or whatever that means. In this conversation “being yourself” means literally you existing in that moment in your body.
I can’t tell you specifically what being “yourself“ means. But I can absolutely tell you that if you panic when you meet a stranger that you are not centered in your own experience. Your mind is elsewhere. You don’t know this new person, so all of the panic in the situation is panic that you brought with you from the past and is not relevant to the current scenario
For whatever reason your body believes that the stakes are very high. They might be, but even if they were, wouldn’t it be more adaptive to face the situation with the level head? Most people can do this 100% of the time and I bet that you could get there too
That phrase is simply inaccurate. Your "self" needs to care less about opinions of others, and it should not be scared of making mistakes. "Be yourself" is typically parsed as "do not try to be someone other, do not try to be like movie actor".
> not "acting intuitively without overthinking", since the socially anxious person's intuition is to run away.
Yes, it is exactly that, but instead of focusing on "acting intuitively", focus on that "without overthinking". Overthinking is the problem to be solved. "thinking just enough" is the optimal target.
"being yourself" means choosing to believe that the you that is true is competent and capable of growth while the awkwardness is a temporary barrier between that is not reflective of your true nature.
Scary that I can relate to this and then am reminded by the star trek episode they make you relive a memory every few minutes forever. Never put these two together, oof.
This seems to be a very peculiar and adversarial interpretation of anti-social. I am relatively anti-social and consider this a bit of a character flaw, but would generally say that I do not assume the worst in others and am relatively introspective. It just doesn't come naturally to me, but that does not mean that I think less of others.
> when all hope is lost in conversation, retreat into your self
This speaks to me quite a bit, particularly around unfalsifiable topics I'll have with friends/family, such as theology. If we define hope as the idea they'll change their mind and agree with me, seems not much one can do but retreat into themself, right? I suppose I can sympathize with their sentiment before I retreat into myself, but taking this bullet point at face value I'm unsure how to make this a pro-social experience :/
It’s possible to be social with people who hold opinions you disagree with. Being social and recognizing or even celebrating our shared humanity does not require having the same opinions and ideas as the other person.
The other day someone described themselves to me as an 'empath' which was odd, because in the context of the discussion it was invalidating to hear. And ironic considering they hadn't forseen how I would take it.
Some people have ultimate confidence in their social judgements and the true sign of empathy is a kind of meta-empathy that allows you to consider truly alternative understandings of the world i.e. empathy for empathy.
That's not empathy, though. The word "empathy" has been co-opted to mean "understanding someone else's point of view," but that's not what empathy is. Empathy is feeling others' feelings. I'm actually empathetic in that I sometimes experience an emotional response (limbic) similar to an intense emotional response I witness others having, especially if they're a person close to me. This is very different than making a conscious attempt (prefrontal cortex) at intellectual understanding of someone's emotions.
I'm not so sure I agree - well maybe I do, I meant literally feeling in my statement not merely understanding. e.g. I eat meat - but I can literally feel the cringing sadness and disgust of vegan if I imagine their perspective, even if I disagree.
Ultimately, there are no absolute personality traits. Someone might align to specific attributes, but they are not without fault and can still easily put their foot in their mouth on occasion.
An introspective, empathetic, thoughtful person might still accidentally say something that an external observer might perceive as having been said without thought or consideration to the feelings of others.
The above is not meant to be contradictory to your point, just a consideration to the general faults all humans hold.
online sociability protip: writing in all lowercase outside of instant messaging comes across (to me) as weirdly manipulative, status seeking behavior. you want people to read your stuff and to come to some form of conclusion—you wouldn't be writing, editing and posting text otherwise—but you feel you have to put your ideas and your vulnerability behind a moat of detached, nonchalant aesthetics
I think that a willingness to interpret this as (good) satire can be used to indicate one's own level of socialization especially in adversarial contexts.
I am autistic and asocial fits more than anti-social because I am not actually doing any "anti" behavior, just trying to avoid the beurocratic small talk and general conformist interactions
I.e. the things that make people become friends and feel safe around each other.
As a fellow autistic person we should not be avoiding small talk, we should be learning how to better connect with those around us since we need more time and work to do so.
It’s easy to use a diagnosis as an excuse not to connect. But it’s a lame excuse. It is much more interesting to understand what tools we need to gain to connect with the world. Sometimes I need to be an anthropologist. Sometimes I need to be a crime scene investigator. Usually I just need to listen better.
When I was in a wheelchair I had to use ramps instead of the stairs. But that didn’t stop me from going to the movies
I think this rather describes someone with a cognitive bias which can be cured rather than someone truly anti social (I know someone who I believe is anti social but they tick off a lot more boxes than this. There is an overlap for sure in what you described BUT its a lot more complex than this)
(Cognitive behavioral therapy enjoyer l just cut off in traffic) Think positively. He is probably in a rush for a reason. Maybe he's late for a job interview. Maybe his wife is giving birth
The anti-social behaviors I'm seeing are a lot more primitive (engagement and reaction bait, and other "simulated conduct" as I like to call it), and the people engaging in them don't really need a guide. Sarcastic rants like this always strike me as somewhere between tonedeaf and insulting as a result. You know it perfectly well that it's those who should be minding these the most are the ones that never will.
That said, if I may be so hypocritical to add to the list, the heavy reliance on pointing out fallacies is a pretty big one. A lot of the times it simply degenerates conversations into logical golf, with no semblance of trying to actually understand the other person remaining. Though in those cases, that intent was usually never really present to begin with.
As someone who identifies as autistic, after particularly notable social encounters, I describe them, best I can, to ChatGPT, and damned if the thing doesn't explain why people reacted the way they did so I can do better next time.
As someone who identifies as autistic, I learned to smile and just listen. I’ll ask questions and try and put my little anecdotes in but for the most part I just let other people talk. Works reasonably well. I usually run afoul when the situation is serious and I show up with my smile.
As someone who is not autistic, just tends towards very socially awkward, this is what I do as well. Active listening is a skill I developed by accident out of not having much to contribute to most conversations. As time went on, I saw that most people appreciate just being heard and worked on it more deliberately.
It's not all puppies and rainbows of course, because some people can't hold a conversation without being led through it by the hand, which is exhausting. And others think everyone else is always so fascinated with what they have to say that they never stop for you to get a word in edgewise.
But, active listening accounts for the majority of my social skills, for better or worse.
I think that’s how everyone learns. Making mistakes and figuring out why that turned out poorly. Some are more innately good at it than others. I’m not particularly but I can learn from mistakes
A lot of people assume everyone else has it worked out.
But people mostly don't have it all worked out.
There are specific demographics who do.
Some are naturally gifted at social interactions and/or grew up in environments which taught them how to socialise effectively.
Others are charming narcissists - likeable, high status, attractive on the outside, monsters on the inside. They can appear effortless because they don't care about anything except presenting an image, so they get get very skilled at it.
Most everyone else has some social anxiety or frustration and makes more or less obvious social mistakes at least occasionally.
Yeah. In the past I assumed that some people just sometimes randomly behave aggressively towards me for no good reason. But usually the reason is probably that I was unintentionally rude or strange with some sort of nonverbal communication or similar.
This is soley a list of how to be explicitly negative internally and externally, the people in this thread equating it to disorders need to re-think the text. Its a list of what not to do as a human.
With respect to all; there is an incredible amount of subtle communications that go into standard conversations
This list is actually just narcissism combined with low self-esteem.
For younger introverts, none of this behavior is necessarily anti-social if the group all shares these same traits. The moment a member of that group has any higher self-esteem than the rest, they will either see that individual as "cool" or as a threat (or both).
To be truly anti-social is to either completely isolate yourself, or be unrelentingly and unreasonably hostile in all interactions. This list is neither. It's just passive aggressive and a lot of ego.
I think the most important part of being antisocial is the ulterior motive for their hostility and refusal to situate themselves in an equitable or respectful social framework, which is invariably benefit to oneself. The type of benefit that an anti-social person seeks out is probably not like the usual suspects, though.
One heuristic for spotting when you might be wrong is that you hold a very uncommon belief.
It COULD be that you are correct and the world is crazy, but its far more likely that you are the one who is missing something. It's always worth stopping to double check when this happens.
Perhaps more importantly, if you do happen to be right when everyone else is wrong its important to determine your goals.
Is it more important to be right, or to be happy? If the answer is the latter then its sometimes best to just let people continue being wrong for the sake of being social. Nobody likes to be told they're wrong, so is "correctness" worth more than that person's feelings? Very oten it is not.
> sometimes best to just let people continue being wrong for the sake of being social
There's almost no time when it's better to try to convince somebody they're wrong. It won't help you, and it won't work anyway, so it won't help them either.
Sure if you're somebody's doctor, and even then you have to pick your battles.
I believe you, but in my own experience I've met more people who say this than who mean this.
Usually it's situational. People might genuinely like to be wrong when the novelty is fun or useful, for example in lab work or in low stakes classwork. However, they despise it with politics, their job, or anything else that might have actual consequences in their lives.
This isn't a personality issue at all—it's pure disrespect. If someone treated me like that, I wouldn't befriend them or open up to them either. Sincerity is a two-way street.
I think the most valuable thing here is to not jump to a negative assumption about people, something I wish it followed more closely in its other points. Virtually anyone who has a very different perspective than the group will face friction, and handling that friction gracefully isn't something that comes naturally to most people. People can get stuck in a pattern of handling the friction poorly, but the group as a whole also has the opportunity for grace and understanding that can diffuse the problem, if that is something that is valuable to them.
How about the old fashioned freezing with a face contorted in fear like your being held at knife point unable to think of anything to say and just waiting to be able to leave? When you get asked a question, fumble over your words and say something stupid. Later on, you can reflexively watch the memory played over and over again so you're even worse the next time. If you see anyone you met during the encounter afterwards, you can just panic and try to hide your face and escape.
That's a lot easier and comes off more natural IMO.
If any one single interaction makes you have such a response, that might be a reason to see someone. I wish for everyone to be able to move through the social world with grace and ease.
Put less kindly: there’s nothing so special about you that being yourself around a new person should cause such a panic. Even if they take an instant dislike to you, that should be something you can take in stride
What does "being yourself" even mean? Obviously not "acting the exact same way you act when alone", since this would be impossible/weird/rude/illegal but also not "acting intuitively without overthinking", since the socially anxious person's intuition is to run away.
I don’t mean like being “authentic” or whatever that means. In this conversation “being yourself” means literally you existing in that moment in your body.
I can’t tell you specifically what being “yourself“ means. But I can absolutely tell you that if you panic when you meet a stranger that you are not centered in your own experience. Your mind is elsewhere. You don’t know this new person, so all of the panic in the situation is panic that you brought with you from the past and is not relevant to the current scenario
For whatever reason your body believes that the stakes are very high. They might be, but even if they were, wouldn’t it be more adaptive to face the situation with the level head? Most people can do this 100% of the time and I bet that you could get there too
That phrase is simply inaccurate. Your "self" needs to care less about opinions of others, and it should not be scared of making mistakes. "Be yourself" is typically parsed as "do not try to be someone other, do not try to be like movie actor".
> not "acting intuitively without overthinking", since the socially anxious person's intuition is to run away.
Yes, it is exactly that, but instead of focusing on "acting intuitively", focus on that "without overthinking". Overthinking is the problem to be solved. "thinking just enough" is the optimal target.
"being yourself" means choosing to believe that the you that is true is competent and capable of growth while the awkwardness is a temporary barrier between that is not reflective of your true nature.
Scary that I can relate to this and then am reminded by the star trek episode they make you relive a memory every few minutes forever. Never put these two together, oof.
That. Is not. Anti-social.
One of my biggest bugbears.
This seems to be a very peculiar and adversarial interpretation of anti-social. I am relatively anti-social and consider this a bit of a character flaw, but would generally say that I do not assume the worst in others and am relatively introspective. It just doesn't come naturally to me, but that does not mean that I think less of others.
You’re probably “asocial”
Asocial = avoids people, quiet, misses social cues. i.e. doesn’t attract people
Antisocial = cruel, obnoxious, remorseless. i.e. actively repels people
> Asocial = avoids people, quiet
This lovely clarification then mixes together typical preferences and outward behavior.
> , misses social cues. i.e. doesn’t attract people
With incompetence and being unattractive.
> when all hope is lost in conversation, retreat into your self
This speaks to me quite a bit, particularly around unfalsifiable topics I'll have with friends/family, such as theology. If we define hope as the idea they'll change their mind and agree with me, seems not much one can do but retreat into themself, right? I suppose I can sympathize with their sentiment before I retreat into myself, but taking this bullet point at face value I'm unsure how to make this a pro-social experience :/
It’s possible to be social with people who hold opinions you disagree with. Being social and recognizing or even celebrating our shared humanity does not require having the same opinions and ideas as the other person.
100% agree. Unfortunately tribalism is very trendy right now, especially on social media and online communities.
Maybe the trying to get people to change their mind part is where you're going wrong
> exploit your immediate network;
Sorry, networks, in this context, are too social for me, as they involve other people.
The first 3 points are solid advice, but the rest read more like a guide on how to be successful in the work place in my experience.
The other day someone described themselves to me as an 'empath' which was odd, because in the context of the discussion it was invalidating to hear. And ironic considering they hadn't forseen how I would take it.
Some people have ultimate confidence in their social judgements and the true sign of empathy is a kind of meta-empathy that allows you to consider truly alternative understandings of the world i.e. empathy for empathy.
That's not empathy, though. The word "empathy" has been co-opted to mean "understanding someone else's point of view," but that's not what empathy is. Empathy is feeling others' feelings. I'm actually empathetic in that I sometimes experience an emotional response (limbic) similar to an intense emotional response I witness others having, especially if they're a person close to me. This is very different than making a conscious attempt (prefrontal cortex) at intellectual understanding of someone's emotions.
Sounds like cognitive empathy vs affective empathy.
I'm not so sure I agree - well maybe I do, I meant literally feeling in my statement not merely understanding. e.g. I eat meat - but I can literally feel the cringing sadness and disgust of vegan if I imagine their perspective, even if I disagree.
Ultimately, there are no absolute personality traits. Someone might align to specific attributes, but they are not without fault and can still easily put their foot in their mouth on occasion.
An introspective, empathetic, thoughtful person might still accidentally say something that an external observer might perceive as having been said without thought or consideration to the feelings of others.
The above is not meant to be contradictory to your point, just a consideration to the general faults all humans hold.
a lot of these actually sound like good strategy for (upper) management, or those with executive aspirations (sadly).
online sociability protip: writing in all lowercase outside of instant messaging comes across (to me) as weirdly manipulative, status seeking behavior. you want people to read your stuff and to come to some form of conclusion—you wouldn't be writing, editing and posting text otherwise—but you feel you have to put your ideas and your vulnerability behind a moat of detached, nonchalant aesthetics
nothing personnel, kid
I think that a willingness to interpret this as (good) satire can be used to indicate one's own level of socialization especially in adversarial contexts.
Assuming that everyone you meet is conspiring against you seems to be a pre-requisite to these. The feasibility of that is questionable.
I am autistic and asocial fits more than anti-social because I am not actually doing any "anti" behavior, just trying to avoid the beurocratic small talk and general conformist interactions
I.e. the things that make people become friends and feel safe around each other. As a fellow autistic person we should not be avoiding small talk, we should be learning how to better connect with those around us since we need more time and work to do so.
It’s easy to use a diagnosis as an excuse not to connect. But it’s a lame excuse. It is much more interesting to understand what tools we need to gain to connect with the world. Sometimes I need to be an anthropologist. Sometimes I need to be a crime scene investigator. Usually I just need to listen better.
When I was in a wheelchair I had to use ramps instead of the stairs. But that didn’t stop me from going to the movies
Yeah, the behaviors in this post are more anti-social than asocial. I don't think it's meant to be about people who are shy, introverted, asocial.
I think this rather describes someone with a cognitive bias which can be cured rather than someone truly anti social (I know someone who I believe is anti social but they tick off a lot more boxes than this. There is an overlap for sure in what you described BUT its a lot more complex than this)
Yeah, but many of those self-identify as anti-social rather than biased.
(Cognitive behavioral therapy enjoyer l just cut off in traffic) Think positively. He is probably in a rush for a reason. Maybe he's late for a job interview. Maybe his wife is giving birth
Me: I'm da king of da highway
The anti-social behaviors I'm seeing are a lot more primitive (engagement and reaction bait, and other "simulated conduct" as I like to call it), and the people engaging in them don't really need a guide. Sarcastic rants like this always strike me as somewhere between tonedeaf and insulting as a result. You know it perfectly well that it's those who should be minding these the most are the ones that never will.
That said, if I may be so hypocritical to add to the list, the heavy reliance on pointing out fallacies is a pretty big one. A lot of the times it simply degenerates conversations into logical golf, with no semblance of trying to actually understand the other person remaining. Though in those cases, that intent was usually never really present to begin with.
As someone who identifies as autistic, after particularly notable social encounters, I describe them, best I can, to ChatGPT, and damned if the thing doesn't explain why people reacted the way they did so I can do better next time.
As someone who identifies as autistic, I learned to smile and just listen. I’ll ask questions and try and put my little anecdotes in but for the most part I just let other people talk. Works reasonably well. I usually run afoul when the situation is serious and I show up with my smile.
As someone who is not autistic, just tends towards very socially awkward, this is what I do as well. Active listening is a skill I developed by accident out of not having much to contribute to most conversations. As time went on, I saw that most people appreciate just being heard and worked on it more deliberately.
It's not all puppies and rainbows of course, because some people can't hold a conversation without being led through it by the hand, which is exhausting. And others think everyone else is always so fascinated with what they have to say that they never stop for you to get a word in edgewise.
But, active listening accounts for the majority of my social skills, for better or worse.
What about when people start making fun of you for being silent?
Given the context of the discussion is about lacking social cues, its not possible to know the social setting to give you specific advice.
However, I would suggest considering if the ‘making fun’ is in casual conversation or truly adversary.
In casual conversation of someone making jest about your lack of speaking, just smile and say you are having a good time listening and hanging out.
If they are actually making fun of you, never associate with those people again, they suck
But smile in the /correct/ way, else you'll be judged for smiling weirdly.
Sigh
Smile like you just saw a puppy, you’ll be fine.
I've tried this and I'm not sure its explanation is useful. It wasn't there and it only knows what I tell it, so it's missing a lot of context clues.
And I'm probably less autistic than the average HNer.
I think that’s how everyone learns. Making mistakes and figuring out why that turned out poorly. Some are more innately good at it than others. I’m not particularly but I can learn from mistakes
A lot of people assume everyone else has it worked out.
But people mostly don't have it all worked out.
There are specific demographics who do.
Some are naturally gifted at social interactions and/or grew up in environments which taught them how to socialise effectively.
Others are charming narcissists - likeable, high status, attractive on the outside, monsters on the inside. They can appear effortless because they don't care about anything except presenting an image, so they get get very skilled at it.
Most everyone else has some social anxiety or frustration and makes more or less obvious social mistakes at least occasionally.
Self-help, therapy, etc. wouldn't be as big of a business if it was just autistic people doing that.
Maybe people are social animals just because they have to.
This seems like a good way to learn and grow.
Yeah. In the past I assumed that some people just sometimes randomly behave aggressively towards me for no good reason. But usually the reason is probably that I was unintentionally rude or strange with some sort of nonverbal communication or similar.
I like most people as long as they leave me alone.
that list fits the bill for becoming POTUS
Does kinda read like an engineer just had their 1st encounter with management.
The real HN discussion guidelines.
Dont you tell me how to discuss anything on here!
This is soley a list of how to be explicitly negative internally and externally, the people in this thread equating it to disorders need to re-think the text. Its a list of what not to do as a human.
With respect to all; there is an incredible amount of subtle communications that go into standard conversations
This list is actually just narcissism combined with low self-esteem.
For younger introverts, none of this behavior is necessarily anti-social if the group all shares these same traits. The moment a member of that group has any higher self-esteem than the rest, they will either see that individual as "cool" or as a threat (or both).
To be truly anti-social is to either completely isolate yourself, or be unrelentingly and unreasonably hostile in all interactions. This list is neither. It's just passive aggressive and a lot of ego.
I think the most important part of being antisocial is the ulterior motive for their hostility and refusal to situate themselves in an equitable or respectful social framework, which is invariably benefit to oneself. The type of benefit that an anti-social person seeks out is probably not like the usual suspects, though.
> dig in your heels when confronted with overwhelming dissent
Of course, the majority is always right and we should yield to it right away /s
One heuristic for spotting when you might be wrong is that you hold a very uncommon belief.
It COULD be that you are correct and the world is crazy, but its far more likely that you are the one who is missing something. It's always worth stopping to double check when this happens.
Perhaps more importantly, if you do happen to be right when everyone else is wrong its important to determine your goals.
Is it more important to be right, or to be happy? If the answer is the latter then its sometimes best to just let people continue being wrong for the sake of being social. Nobody likes to be told they're wrong, so is "correctness" worth more than that person's feelings? Very oten it is not.
I think I can speak for most people with niche subjects of interest when I say that the commonly held beliefs on said niche tend to be pretty bad.
> sometimes best to just let people continue being wrong for the sake of being social
There's almost no time when it's better to try to convince somebody they're wrong. It won't help you, and it won't work anyway, so it won't help them either.
Sure if you're somebody's doctor, and even then you have to pick your battles.
> Nobody likes to be told they're wrong
I like to be told I'm wrong. While it is true that I am a nobody it means I'm about to learn something.
> I like to be told I'm wrong.
I believe you, but in my own experience I've met more people who say this than who mean this.
Usually it's situational. People might genuinely like to be wrong when the novelty is fun or useful, for example in lab work or in low stakes classwork. However, they despise it with politics, their job, or anything else that might have actual consequences in their lives.
Ever heard the phrase "pick your battles"?
You don’t have to accept their conclusions, but they don’t have to accept yours either. You can walk away
Can I be your friend please.
Also this document is basically just how I act, or how I would still act if I was less self-aware; some combination of the two.
I suspect the author may have written this partly as a self-critique.