My stages of learning to be a socially normal person

Because unlike the other my journey posts, this one is sharing acquired knowledge and framing it through his (in this instance relatable since it explains the reasons) experience.

Other my journey posts are look at me with only enough subject matter to disguise it.

This post is about sharing knowledge, the others are about sharing experiences.

The problem with accounts of life like the author is that it sums up a whole hell of a lot of time into a nice short Saturday morning read. In this case, it sounds like it spans multiple decades. It sounds like you feel socially awkward. You really don't think you can do something about that in thirty years? In November of 2055, you expect you'll be the same bag of awkward you are today? 1,500 weeks or so from now, you don't think you can leave the house or go somewhere multiplayer online to meet up with me people and make mistakes until there's a close enough impedance match that they signal (you) isn't too attenuated or overpowered? This weekend's not over yet, get out there!

I felt the same way when I was in University and High School. In fact I ended up focusing on it so much at the time that my grades really suffered, and I feel like I could have ended up at a better University and career if I had focused more on my grades and learning.

Either way, I did learn my lesson, and I'm now much more comfortable with myself and not seeking validation or connection from others so much.

Well, in the timeline, this was after the author was bullied.

Also, he says:

> In essence, I became an example of obnoxious precocity, a heartfelt young wordcel.

So it doesn't sound like disagrees with you either way.

The post has just enough minor grammatical imperfections that a LLM wouldn't make that I don't for a second believe this copy was written by an LLM .

>obsessive seeking of external validation which I have never felt myself

if you've never felt it, why are you mentioning it? why are you so focused on it?

A useful psychoanalytic rubric is "there is no negation in the unconscious mind". Negation is a conscious mind idea, the unconscious mind just thinks of things, it doesn't think of something and claim it's not thinking of it.

so, rephrasing what you wrote in the unconscious sense, "obsessive seeking of external validation which I have felt myself": yes, you have identified something, identified with something, interesting, about other people and about yourself. If you are aware that you are not seeking external validation, but also aware when other people do, you have to ask yourself...

if your complaint about this argument is along the line of "no fair, i can't escape from this!", you're getting the point.

That's interesting. People are really different. I had my own stages to being still not socially normal person. I always wanted friends, sometimes had some, sometimes felt lonely. In case you happen to read this, did you not have friends in childhood but didn't feel bad about it?

"hey call you when they need something

Trees for the blunt, the g's for the front

I found a way to get piece of mind for years

And left the hell alone, turn a deaf ear to the cellular phone

Send me a letter, or better, we could see each other in real life

Just so you could feel me like a steel knife

At least so you could see the white of they eyes

Bright with surprise, once they finish spitting lies

Associates, is your boys, your girls, ______s, _____s, homies

Close, but really don't know me

Mom, dad, comrade, peeps, brothers, sisters, duns, dunnies

Some come around when they need some money

Others make us laugh like the Sunday funnies

Fam be around whether you paid or bummy

You could either ignore this advice, or take it from me

Be too nice and people take you for a dummy

So nowadays he ain't so friendly"

- Deep Friend Frenz DOOM

i can sort of relate. ive been told by my family that i dont like people much. im also confident in conversation and social situations. i think the latter is true because i feel no pressure to perform and naturally seek novelty to entertain myself

If you were actually disinterested in people there'd be no point in writing to them here on HN

> the cure was already under way

What's that cure?

I don't know whether author is on the spectrum, but for many people on it, it feels exactly like this.

I think you're bang on the money fwiw. But also worth mentioning that it's OK to ask rather than trying to predict and feeling that having to ask means failure

It's like we're all solving the same puzzle, just with different pieces

He's just like me, for real

Most people from what I've seen don't want unique as much as they want somewhat famailiar. If it deviates too far away from that then they are repulsed, and I can give you an example right here.

I'm going to commit suicide. I've known this for the last 15 years. It'll probably be another 10 years before I'll die, but I know my end is half laying down with a 1.5 inch nylon strap tied cinched on my neck and a tree trunk in the dead of night so that no one will be able to find me in time. The reason I haven't is because I'm taking of elderly relatives, but they are the only reason I'm still here.

That's the real me. The one that looks forward to dying even though there doesn't seem to be any reason why I want to die.

I wonder how many in this thread would be utterly horrified by this vs accepting of this.

Because not being normal results in being lonely, rejected by society, and often unable to keep a decent job. After a lifetime of struggling just to achieve fairly pitiful social success, I would give a great deal to be able to be normal.

I never got the sense the author was trying to push people or himself into a box, more that he wanted to be able to connect to others more easily.

This to me reads as someone who has never been "the bad kind of unique". Not being normal carries very heavy practical repercussions in some cases.

"Just be yourself" is only good advice for people whose 'self' is acceptable and well-functioning.

I've always hated it when people juggle me and when I notice that I'm getting played. "Normal" people seem to absorb this strategy subconsciously throughout their lives and train themselves to do it too because they notice that it works better. To someone who notices this consciously it seems psychotic because well of course it's always easier to cheat, lie and fake your way to an advantage. You should be choosing not to live this way on purpose. I don't think that the person in the article did it from a bad heart which usually makes all the difference but tons and tons of people do it purely for self gain with no regard for the people getting exploited. Here it was his job to do this and arguably it was for the other person's benefit too to get better service so it was not bad. But we should still be able to name it what it is. This tier of strategy is polluting non-work social environments too. The last thing we need is more people who are getting better at faking being interested or caring.

I'm aware that if such people stop fake caring then they will stop caring altogether. Well good, stop gaming yourself to life advantages please that you shouldn't have. Of course it's harder to actually care about things compared to fake caring. It's harder to be an actually good person vs faking being good and it's probably far less rewarding for most to only be getting what they should be getting in life. Luckily most people are not that good at being fake because like you said, it still takes effort. But people who do it all their life no longer feel that effort and this is how you end up with lifelong fake people.

In general we will never get people to stop faking and lying their way to advantages in life so what decent people are left with is to develop an even harder armor that fake people can't get through with these strategies. It's sad but that's what life seems to be: You have to find people who aren't just here play and beat you like you're a videogame or for a darker analogy play you like you are an asset and they are a CIA agent.

It really depends on what you want to do with your life.

If you want to do engineering, or play music, or be a professional chef, you don't need these skills.

If you want to be in sales, or a working actor, or manage a high-end restaurant, or be a professional interviewer, then these skills become pretty important.

Blessing and a curse combined. With great power, great responsibility, etc. etc.

Like his wife bluntly telling him many women had crushes on him and it must be coming from something he was doing.

He could have went different directions with that information. And chose the direction that was best for his marriage.

He kind of goes from normal to super-normal, and has to deal with how to handle this outlier social competence responsibly.

I recognized her name when one of her blog posts was trending on HN yesterday (from the same submitter as this one, actually).

For what it's worth: She has something of a history in the professional poker world of being a less than reliable narrator. To be fair, the fallout during her time in the poker world overlapped with her admitted drug addiction problem. However, from what I recall from that era I'd suggest taking some of her stories with a grain of salt.

She is very good at storytelling and charming people, though. There is probably a lot of value in studying how she delivers messages, puts spin on the past, and charms audiences.

Yes? I mean...why is it so hard to imagine people having difficulties with things you find easy or natural?

You don't usually realize that's why you're the way you are until much later.

At first it might feel like "these people don't like me cause of how much better I am than them", or "these people don't like me, well fuck them, I don't need anybody".

People have all kinds of excuses they tell themselves to feel better about the needs they can't satisfy.

Yes, I have dedicated most of my life to trying to connect with people. In my experience, since I can't connect with people none of my other strengths or skills matter.

We are legion,I am sorry to say. I can recognise co-sufferers, but not necessarily help them. In older parlance, we would typically just be described as 'a bore', but there is something a lot more specific going on. I am old now, but watching my child daughter now going through the exact same motions, including doing her damndest to impress people with her many skills, and tragic-ironically driving people away from her with that exact behaviour. And I can't figure out how to help her figure it out. (past-50 insights don't resonate with 11year olds, unless you can relate them in youtuber-speak).

I'm curious what your bubble is.

The peice is relatable to me at least. A great many of the lessons were something that I also arrived at through deliberate practice. Though the paths we both took are radically different, the main ideas are universal and the resulting destinations are similar.

I can't list all of the times when someone has shared that they didn't mean to "share all that" because it happens often enough that it's become countless.

As mentioned elsewhere, it illuminates the spectrum of interpersonal and social intelligence where it becomes impossible to not notice how some people repeatedly, and perhaps even compulsively are their own impediment to personal connection.

Do you mean wanting to connect with people?

Or not being able to connect with most people?

Unfortunately I communicating ti exchange facts. I have a lot of trouble with people and I straining to get better.

> Honestly I think lesson 7 is nobody's normal.

There are only two types of ppl: "the wrong kind of crazy" and "the right kind of crazy". Why would I want to connect with the wrong type of crazy? Ok, I don't work as a waiter.

Wow, this is something else. Reading about Williams Sindrome is a bit shocking, you sound like such sweet people, but it seems easily preyed upon. I'm curious how you managed the difficult parts, did you share your experience anywhere in the internet? Excuse my curiosity, but I read about it a while ago and found it fascinating. Hope I don't become off rude.

The book is called “how to win friends and influence people”, after all.

The numbers represent progressive stages of growth away from socially abnormal behavior. Numbers 1 and 2 represent the author's abnormal behavior. Numbers 5-6 are their later stages, where they've achieved competency in social normally behavior.

If the limit of someone's behavior winds up making everyone happier-off, I don't understand why I ought to care. In that sense, calling it "manipulative" seems either inappropriate or not very useful.

At least with something like adultery, there's a pretty obvious ill consequence of someone finding out what's going on behind the scenes. But if I looked behind the curtains of someone like OP and found out that the reason they're so charming is because they thought about people a bunch: I couldn't be burdened to care.

Through all their gyrations there is still something inherently contrived and performative to their interpersonal relationships that are far afield from normal, but pass well enough to permit connection. This line really resonated with me:

> I was going around dangling the possibility of emotional connection indiscriminately, ignoring the fact that it’s entirely reasonable to interpret this as flirtation.

I am still struggling to understand the way in which many people naturally form casual connections with others. In this example, a casual connection might be a hookup or a makeout session without it turning into a relationship. In another case from their article, it may be exchanging some personal stories at a house party without it turning into a four hour ordeal, or following up and developing a close, meaningful friendship. I perceive a lot of confusion here - and in my own life - about personal wants and needs being met, meeting someone else’s needs, where one’s personal boundaries lie, and how we effectively communicate them - or not.

In consent-forward spaces you get a lot of neurodivergent people using explicit verbal negotiation and agreement on everything, but this is a consent style that very much may not land well for people outside of one of those subcultures. Therapy and other trauma-informed modalities carry similar problems. It’s fine and great to develop subculture norms for the people participating in them, but it may not help them navigate the rest of the world. And yet, I’m not sure what else can be done. My social development mirrors the author’s, and I’m still unsatisfied with my results, even though I have more meaningful connections now than I used to, so this is not all without merit. It may just be the best that some people can do.

He seems like an odd duck.

> a lot of the points felt more like learning how to charm, manipulate, and game social interactions.

A lot of stuff "normal" people do is charm, manipulate, and game social interactions. Except because they are not conscious about it, we give them a pass. One of the characteristics of autistic-spectrum individuals is that they must make a conscious effort to achieve goals that are achieved unconsciously by most of us. If we prevent such individuals from learning all that rarely-written-down stuff consciously because it seems "distasteful" to us, then we are disadvantaging such individuals socially.

    > When you have a real indication of dealing with a master manipulator