How do I give a shit about people long enough to have a meaningful interaction...

How do I give a shit about people long enough to have a meaningful interaction? When I see a group of people I only see their flaws and neurosis and faults bleeding through their composure. I want to live among the freaks but I hold back and it's keeping me from engaging in society. Any books can help?

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconditional_positive_regard
ericberne.com/games-people-play/
ericberne.com/transactional-analysis/
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>thinking you aren't just as shit as they are >when you're probably worse because you're such a smug asshole that you think they're too shit to associate with

Anything by Dostoevsky.
His books really helped me overcome this flaw.
No matter how much darkness and cruelty he attributes to the human Character, there is still so much love and empathy that pours onto every single personage.

that's a poor assumption but even if you were correct my request would still stand. and if you were contributing something i don't believe i'd find any value in advice tailored to suit a smug asshole because i'm really rather friendly and helpful. i think the image i used in the op must have given a mixed signal.

i will look into Dosty, thanks.

Stop pretending like the decision wasn't made for you. you're an outcast by their will, not your own.

Get out of your own head. Be kind to people.

The worst way to live, truly the gravest (and maybe the only) real sin in this life, is to cut yourself off from the human community. See the good in your brothers and sisters

You likely have a transactional view of relationships. I'm somewhat similar, although largely due to an inferiority complex rather than misanthropy.

From my understanding, if you treat every interaction as a learning experience it becomes a lot easier to socialize. Either learning about others' ideas, others themselves, or just learning about socializing in general. It doesn't necessarily have to be a good experience, and you might not learn much or anything useful, but the mere act of doing it will cause to glean something from the experience which altogether will give you some insight for future social events. If the future events happen to include the same person, you've made yourself a friend.

It's somewhat of a numbers game. The more interactions you have with people the greater chance you have at finding someone who has similar viewpoints. The problem with Veeky Forums-esque (for lack of a better word) ideas is that the viewpoints you look to bond over tend to be inherently anti-social, so socialization itself seems like a means to an end rather than something you actually want to partake in. Hence your transactional view. You look to social encounters as something to take from rather than something to contribute to, or just something to experience. If you abandon this line of thinking and open up to the idea of socializing for the sheer sake of it you'll likely get a lot more out of the experience.

Avoid asking the question "what's the point?" of talking to X or going to Y event. Talk to them just to talk to them. If the experience is meaningful, you'll recognize it. If not, so be it. You can't force meaningful interaction. Meaning is determined after the fact.

Thanks. This touches on the heart of the matter.

This was extremely helpful. Are you some sort of behavioral therapist or is this sort of insight natural to you?

>The worst way to live, truly the gravest (and maybe the only) real sin in this life, is to cut yourself off from the human community. See the good in your brothers and sisters
>

>or just learning about socializing in general
I try to this most of the time. Generally speaking very anxious socially when it comes to situations where you're supposed to act in a certain "formal" way, such as going to the bank, buying things, dinner parties, because something is expected of you and what if I don't succeed? But if it's casual I'm generally relaxed because I don't have to do anything or know anything, no expectations. Then I can talk to someone and try to find out what kind of person they are, stereotypes so to say, see if I can say something or mention something which will make them react in a way that affirms what I think of them. Many times people will instinctively react to something with their face before they even manage to say anything, so if that's a look or whatever it might be is interesting to see.

As for OP: what do you want out of people?
>How do I give a shit about people long enough to have a meaningful interaction?
>I want to live among the freaks but I hold back and it's keeping me from engaging in society.
What do you hold back? You don't care about people, but you want to engage with them and get something out of them. What?

>Generally speaking very anxious socially when it comes to situations where you're supposed to act in a certain "formal" way, such as going to the bank, buying things, dinner parties, because something is expected of you and what if I don't succeed? But if it's casual I'm generally relaxed because I don't have to do a

That's really interesting. I have social anxiety and I am the complete polar opposite. I have no problem performing menial tasks and participating in "formal" events, it's only when I'm expected to be myself and only myself do I break down.

When I go to a bank I'm no longer myself. I'm a customer at the bank. What is expected of me is expected of every other customer before and after me. I have a role to fit in and I can play that role just fine. Same thing at work. At work you're an employee with a clear goal and a clear task at hand. It's rigid and simple to understand, so the guidelines can be followed simply, allowing one to fly under the radar free of social judgment. I'm only there to perform the task, the "me" that follows is just along for the ride.

But when you're socializing just to socialize, you're stripped bare of all societal roles and expectations and instead are tasked with being only yourself. There are no guidelines for that. It's role that I don't understand, and it scares the everloving shit out of me.

I'm probably autistic.

>The worst way to live, truly the gravest (and maybe the only) real sin in this life, is to cut yourself off from the human community.
This might be the most insane thing I've heard on here, seek professional help, you're most likely a psychopath or something worse.

Check out Eric Berne. He provides some basic insight into the normie psychology and explains what the rules are for different social games people play.

Incidentally, his most accessible and useful book is (IMO) Games People Play.

There's also Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. He provides some basic protocols and rules you can follow to improve how well you get along with people. Pretty much indispensable.

You can also look into the psychotherapeutic technique of "Unconditional Positive Regard." When you can't think of anything else to say when interacting with others, reflecting back their feelings and thoughts generally always helps you to get along.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconditional_positive_regard

Hope this helps.

It's exactly because there are rigid lines that I get anxious, because then what if I mess up or if I don't know exactly what to do when it's my turn? It's like there are passwords or codes I need to know and need to say in the right way to succeed, if you know what I mean. Certain phrases you have to use or actions to perform. Obviously it's not something big or life threatening if I fail, but it still irks me the fuck out. I used to be more anxious in general, in relaxed settings as well, it was only when I started to realize that I don't need to be in said relaxed settings. I don't need to interact with others, don't need validation from strangers or people I barely know, even people that I do know. Despite however good a time I might have in a social setting I will almost always rather be at home doing something alone. The best advice I can give is simply to try to not care. By not caring you will become more relaxed. A lot of people get anxious if there's a silence, an "awkward silence" but I don't feel those any more. I can recognize them when they happen, they just don't make me uncomfortable. If anything it's interesting to see how the other person or others if there's more react to it. Then there's those annoying obnoxious fucks who will start to act out in situations like those and say retarded shit like "HAHA ISN'T THIS AWKWARD??" and try to make an actual scene just to divert attention from the silence, but all everyone is thinking about is the silence that used to be and how this person is now desperately trying to make everyone not pay attention to it. Anyway, being socially autistic is annoying but I think it also offers some interesting points of view and thoughts that kind of make up for it.

>I'm probably autistic.
Feel the same, autistic or one of those stupid personality disorders.

Have you read the book? Can you name some examples of these "games"?

>What do you hold back? You don't care about people, but you want to engage with them and get something out of them. What?
Not op but this sentence you said has been repeating in my head over and over again. I have the same problem, i dont like people that much or care about them but I still crave interaction. Now i see the contradiction

You can
a) remind yourself people are what they are and anything else is a spook, not forgetting they do what they can with what they have
or/and
b) if you think they would benefit from you telling them about their flaws, go on about with patience, humbleness, honesty and understanding
also
c) don't be too self-aware, just be what you can be; if they aren't telling you what you're doing bothers or bores them, it either doesn't or they're well-suffering assholes and have put themselves on that situation -- people aren't fragile little things either, the courage to be honest to you is the least you could ask them

ericberne.com/games-people-play/

There's a long list in the sidebar. But they'll make the most sense if you understand the basic theory behind transactional analysis.

ericberne.com/transactional-analysis/

I remember some documentary-like show on TV some time ago about people who wanted to make friends but simply couldn't. They desperately wanted to have friends and go to social events, but they couldn't, so this show tried to set them up and help them and then documented what happened. My family and close friends who knew about the show joked that I should have been on it since I'm very antisocial. Never had problems making friends but just don't care for going out and all that. One of the things they did on the show was a "game night" where one of these people was invited by some school/university acquaintances. The person seemed to have enjoyed it, the others somewhat as well, though they did all look kind of uncomfortable even while playing. To me the whole thing looked like the exact kind of situation I would have walked out of, and I have in the past. Whenever I'm in those kind of situations it's like everything becomes slow-motion and I just start to daydream and think about how long it would take to get home if I left right now, in 10 minutes, 15, half an hour. I think these kind of people are pretty boring, those who just crave the company. Even if they have an interesting hobby, they will still somehow make it boring by virtue of them being so feeble in personality. And all this without getting into those kind of people who seem to just kind of explode if you keep giving them attention, they just absorb it and keep going, getting louder and louder, more obnoxious with every joke they make. These people are lucky since there's so many of them they can just feed off each other.

I think you should think about what kind of people you want to be around so that it's not just wanting to interact with people, to be acknowledged, to "be noticed" t. senpai, but for the relationship to be of mutual benefit. You enjoy their company and they enjoy yours. In the example I mentioned before with the game night, I wouldn't have minded something like it if it were with my close friends, because then the focus isn't all on what we're doing but more on us being together. The game is just there to provide fuel for our fun, to move things along. In the case of those people on the show, it seemed like the only reason they could even muster to be together and have fun with each other was exclusively because of the game. If they were all sitting around a TV watching a movie there would have been dead silence.

Do you like being alone? Or are you afraid of it? Do you have friends, or one or few good friends?

Read a couple of them and it's pretty interesting, pretty funny too.

>that sentiment of a moment in which your discursive capabilities are so distant from those of the commonality that, given that idle talk is essentially the first thing that pops out of their minds, and given what comes to you as instinctual and obvious is so far removed from banal topics, you are incapable of ever having normal communication without being aware of how inadequate you, despite there being nothing wrong with what you're saying, and the whole ordeal being just a linguistic problem (like any problem)
i'm sorry i can't stop thinking like these please have some patience with me

I dont know im just scared right now
Well its not that bad being alone. I am scared sometimes. I have a friend in another country and another one in my neighbourhood wich whom I meet rarely.
I used to have a group of friends when I was adolescent and i liked it very much. We smoked weed and went to parties etc But things are different now. I met a girl on tinder and when she introduced me to her group of friends I acted like an autist. This happens when i meet other group of people. I dont talk that much because i dont care about small talk.
The thing is that i want that small talk and acting socially but i cant do it anymore,i just see it as absurd.
So thats why your comment shocked me in a way, because of course i cant socialise if i evaluate it as absurd.

You don't need to care about people to have meaningful interaction just being around them long enough will create that

I'm not sure what could help you overcome the realization that small talk is absurd. That isn't to say that a lot of people don't wish they didn't have to go through small talk, they still just do it to get it over with. And then there's those true freaks who love small talk. Maybe if you socialize while keeping in mind the goal you want to reach with the socialization it will make things better or more manageable? Honestly I've given up on it. It tires me out too much. If I can get away with not saying anything in a group while others go at it I have no problem with taking the backseat until something interesting comes up. Maybe you should try to do that. Or if you're in a group situation like that tinder girl and her friends, try to bring up something early on in the conversation you think is interesting hear what they have to say about it and then take it from there.

Thank for trying to help user , but the core of my problem is deeper of course , and there is no time for therapy.
I say this because when i tried to respond to what you wrote i start thinking about more general and abstract problems of mine and end up concluding that i dont know myself or what i want so...

The thing is that when i am with a group of people i just shut up most of the time because for me its not interesting what they are saying. I have a problem that real world events (even normal ones like "hey you know who i met yesterday, or we should go to X place) dont interest me at all. So i just shut up and i think i seem salty to them. I would talk ideas al day.
But at the same time.. id love to be interested in the real world and get that interaction rush(because of the aproval)

Well, that's just how a relationship is, isn't it? At times you'll have to do things you don't like for others. I mean, it might not be important to you, but to them it is. So it's like the minimum that you can give, to listen to their dumb shit; maybe then people will do the same for you.

>This was extremely helpful. Are you some sort of behavioral therapist or is this sort of insight natural to you?

Glad you got something from it. After typing it I wasn't sure if it made any sense.

And no I'm not a therapist. I just self-reflect a lot (perhaps too much) and this was just something I happened to notice about myself. Veeky Forums tends to attracts a certain type of socially maligned person and I just made the leap that our thought processes could be similar. I was afraid I was projecting a bit too much, to be honest.

DO NOT get caught up in psychology. Fuck all these motherfuckers that say you need the modernistic diagnosis to remedy. Look, you're astute and you obviously feel unsatisfied with who is immediately around you. It could be lowbrow. I don't know. But, you need to apply yourself to something separate of people. Obviously, you're not disconcerted with humanity and you care (otherwise, you would not have posted); but, you're not using your potential. Fuck psychology, alright. They don't know shit about shit and their business is trying to continue their charade of empiricism on "fact".

> I want to live among the freaks but I hold back and it's keeping me from engaging in society

You need to identify what it is that drives you to your disposition. I would recommend two texts: The Meaning of Human Existence by E.O. Wilson (It pretty much overrides any previous philosophical speculation on the nature of humanity with a concrete and hard scientific premise) and something on the history of society at large. I'm reading the Story of Civilization by Will Durant. It is WAY more stimulating than any interaction I'm getting from people around me. I just go out to observe and report while studying rigorously topics that interest me and allow me to practice my profession of Journalism as I work through school. You need to look at the world at large, with an accurate context, and decide where you see yourself fitting in this whole thing.

DO NOT get bogged down with psychology and that frame of mind. Believe me, I did that. I had an excellent psychoanalyst who originally started as a mechanical engineer but found his passion in philosophy. Anyways, he turned me onto a lot of psychology (Freud, Fromm, Yung, etc) and I only really began to feel whole when I started studying history more broadly (I begun through art history, but began gravitating towards the hard records of things). It is more fulfilling and allows for more thought. Plus, a lot of the well-respected intellectuals you read will have this sort of understanding of the world to begin with (From early culture, Greco-Roman classicism through the Medieval Ages, Renaissance, Counter-Reformation, Industrialism to Modernism, etc). You gain a more thorough understanding of how society interacts with the individual (as its subject) and politics, religion, theology, science, etc.

Believe me, there's nothing wrong with you. The reality is that you might be among a small percentage of people that thing like you do and thus feel disconnected with the rest. It's not that it makes you better, it's just a particular lens from which to view the world, as many others have, and you need to discover how your lens fits in to be used best (so that you can engage with society).

By an essentialist metaphor, you are a rainbow, thoughts are all colors (blue, black, green, brown). You need to see all rainbow (philosophy, psychology, history, music, visual art, etc) before deciding which colors you like best and upon doing so may have an easier time finding things that compliment your palette.

If you want somewhere to start and you go to college, talk to your professor about a personality test. I take all of that with a grain of salt, but it helped validate my direction in terms of what I'm studying in school.

What do you mean by "the modernistic diagnosis"? (Not OP.)

This is something I've struggled with for the last 5 years.

I believe my issue stems from the fact that I'm extremely analytical and sensitive to patterns, and in social interactions I only see the patterns that everyone repeats, which makes me unable to enjoy and partake in the experience in a natural manner.

You make acquaintances by talking with people about neutral, non-committal matters(weather, what their day was like etc.) You make friendships by being interested in the other person, asking questions about his thoughts, views and ideas and in turn sharing increasingly personal thoughts with him. Perhaps you notice the traits, ideas and interests that the other person thinks(and sometimes rightly so) separates him from others and make him an unique individual, and feed those back to him("you're the smartest person I know", "I like you because you're the most genuine person I know" etc.).

>But if you're overly observant like I am then those patterns lose their essential meaning because all you see is the same things repeating over and over, just with different faces.
Is that inherently negative to you?

And do you really think that's absolutely true?

"Modernistic" in the sense of how we regarded the humanities before the inception of trans-disciplinary studies, which saw the relationship between disciplines; for example, economics, sociology, and politics. Anyone who is a pragmatic scholar will have a fairly apprehensive understanding of at least a couple disciplines if not more, like "Psychology" and "Philosophy". It's just how the world works and limiting yourself to focus on one discipline is a waste because it will codify the way in which you view the world to a very narrow lens that isn't reflective of the total reality.

I think i fell in love with you. Keep talking. I am also a creep

People get locked into the realm of psychology, as it has been deitized by western medicine, and they get stuck in this loop of indecipherable equations because they're missing variables to understanding (unless you're studying psychology in a very specialized manner that acknowledges these discrepancies).

This isn't literature you faggots.

Shut up Fred, we are having a moment here.

>You make friendships by being interested in the other person, asking questions about his thoughts, views and ideas and in turn sharing increasingly personal thoughts with him

You're doing exactly what I was critiquing and essentializing the experience. It's like how someone will say "Love is just oxytocin," which is partly true. But, that isn't the whole truth, because it doesn't acknowledge the sensation of the experience and how it materializes in art-forms and expresses itself across a wide-array of cultures. You're simply blinding yourself to your own codification of thought and need to see different perspectives, whether through a drug experience, vacation, reading, or relationship.

>I only see their flaws and neurosis
*neuroses

I know what you mean and I can disconnect myself from that sort of thinking, but I can't maintain it for long periods, probably because I'm simply not wired that way.

One reason why I think social interaction causes so much anxiety for some people nowadays is that in the past, being a "hermit" was much more common, but now with high-density cities and education&work being mostly communal, everyone is forced into some degree of social interaction, and it simply isn't in the nature of some. In the past these people could've easily kept to themselves and not even feel particularly anxious about it because social interaction wasn't prevalent everywhere, but nowadays it's everywhere, so if it isn't your "natural habitat", it's easy to feel very uncomfortable about it. "Why this is so difficult for me? What's WRONG with me?" Living in a mass society can be difficult if you're at an extreme end of some spectrum or other.

>Is that inherently negative to you?

It has its positives but often it's just more trouble than it's worth.

>And do you really think that's absolutely true?

It often feels that way, depends on my mood though, which leans to negative right now. I have times when I'm less lucid about it and consequently happier, usually when things are going well in my life and I feel like I'm progressing in some way or other. When I feel like everything is stagnating I get too much time to brood.