Or the teeth-grating “Smile it won’t happen”
My response is always a deadpan “It just has”.
4 Likes
My IRL people skills suck and I can’t people at all most days. It’s a good week if I can get away without any face-to-face contact with anyone.
Like, I need a filter and barrier, something that I can use to think about what I say before I say it. Keyboard and screen is so much easier. 
But if I could reach through the internet, I would defo have a good few words with that smug wanker in the video while smacking him upside the head. 
6 Likes
Quite. I think the problem with all the ‘a friend is a stranger who you haven’t met yet’ aspirational poster BS is actually, when you overhear conversations, or talk to most people, there isn’t much there. I think part my ‘shyness’ is the fact I don’t like football or sports or celebrity culture, I don’t really do universal small talk and prefer to talk deeper or more meaningful stuff, which tends to not be part of first conversation. So it’s just awkward.
I know wearing headphones doesn’t help meeting people, but the problem is the head-smackingly dull conversations you hear around you on public transport and public spaces (why I love travelling, I hope people are having wonderful, intense deep conversations but probably not, but it’s a relief not to understand them), and the nerves I have in social situations are calmed by music.
7 Likes
I like people, mostly. Like, I find them interesting and complex and beautiful and stuff I just can’t handle dealing with them. It gets all weird and not in a good way. Pressure and anxiety and panic and it all gets a bit out of hand. 
And I don’t do conflict at all well.
Sports isn’t too bad for me, but I’m a sportsball fan. It’s a clear topic with laid out boundaries and it’s easy to navigate. And you can get away with a huge amount of nerdery in some of the more stat-heavy sports. 
But it really sucks if you’re not into it.
I don’t get out much, but at one point I was in a shared house with a load of Fillipino students which was awesome for exactly this reason.
They liked that I didn’t get all sulky if they spoke their own language and I liked just letting conversation wash over me without needing to say anything. Wins all round that. 
3 Likes
Oh, yeah. In my first year at my career I sported a mustache. Then came Halloween and a party to go to as the character ‘Dim’ from Kubrick’s ‘Clockwork Orange’ (one of the gang members). Off came the mustache… and on came the at-work comments about the “getting” my “mouth lowered”. That, and the fact that I look a lot like my Mom, garnered stares for a couple of weeks. (The gals seemed to like the change, so… no ‘stache from then on!)
4 Likes
No but the Electric Leg does, if you take the Theremin track.
2 Likes
I’ve lived in SoCal for more than half my life and I’ve learned that – in general – smiling at passing strangers appears to be normal and accepted here. A couple of years ago, after being away from my old hometown, NYC, for several years, I was back there visiting and forgot where I was and smiled (as an ‘excuse me’) as I walked through a sidewalk crowd that was gathered in front of a Three Card Monte game. Withering looks from two guys in the crowd followed by “What the fuck is HE smiling at?” reminded me of where I was. The thing is that I didn’t and still don’t have a problem with what happened. From my own experiences, the much more easily made SoCal friendships seem more transient than the hard fought yet firmer, lasting NYC friendships; both cultures have their good points and drawbacks… yet it’s all good, and incredibly interesting to me as far as human relations.
6 Likes
I’m a Midwesterner. We’re nice, but it’s largely superficial passive-aggressive niceness.
Transient ephemeral friendships don’t do very much for me. Any relationship I have with anyone will be hard-fought.
4 Likes
That got me thinking: I wonder if the driver for the two differing cultures (easy/transient versus hard/lasting) has to do with differing perceptions of their respective environments and what’s ‘determined’ to be proper action.
Easy/transient might make sense in a “safe” environment, (Hi! Let’s be friends!/Well, gotta go now; didn’t really need to buddy-up for mutual survival)…
…while hard/lasting might make sense in a “dangerous” environment, (What are you looking at! I don’t trust you since I don’t know you. /Well, now that I’ve come to know you and trust you, we can watch each other’s back.)
3 Likes
The books behind him could break the ice also.
2 Likes
From my own experiences, the much more easily made SoCal friendships seem more transient than the hard fought yet firmer, lasting NYC friendships; both cultures have their good points and drawbacks…
Same in London - El-P talks in his raps about ‘wrapped up in my New York Shit’ - basically ignoring other people, keeping yourself to yourself - there is ‘London Shit’ too. I’m a Northern transplant in the South, and initially it seems rather cold versus the warm North - but I also come from Greater Manchester who tends to be a little dour and distanced from strangers, not as much as Londoners are. Also in North they poke their nose in your business - where my parents come from in Yorkshire are particularly bad for that, and the warmth is quite shallow. The endless cups of tea and cake are a way to get rid of visitors in fact, and the family is quite guarded, using politeness and friendliness as a shield. Lots of fairweather friends up there, I find - and I also studied in Sheffield for 3 years, didn’t make a single local friend outside my course.
So both have downsides - visitors in the North get upset at people not smiling and not responding well to being talked to on the Tube and being called mate - but on the other hand, the friendships are deeper once you get through the armour and no games like in Yorkshire. Northerners pride themselves in being open and friendly, but I find in reality they are as guarded against outsiders - I mean where I was born there was a race riot! - as Southerners, they just hide it better.
2 Likes
Citing poster LearnedCoward observation re “passive-aggressive”, I’d say the tea/cake thing must be at the extreme lower end of the p-a spectrum. Does that really work?
1 Like
I recently made a list. I have 27 close friends.
2 Likes
I’d say the tea/cake thing must be at the extreme lower end of the p-a spectrum. Does that really work?
Yes…only so much tea and cake you can eat…and frequent mentions of '‘ooh look at the time!’ etc leading up to a less passive aggressive blunt ‘when are you going?’. Even with family or not-close friends.
A bit like Game of Thrones, the guest right is strong, but never in the South has anyone ever talked about ‘outstaying your welcome’, like my Dad and his family does. It’s like a cardinal sin. Whereas I am of the opinion that friends or invited guests can stay as long as we are both having a good time…but that idea of ‘imposing’ is baked into (some of?) the Northern psyche. Can’t speak for definite about all the North, but it’s there in South Yorks anyway.
1 Like
- You lucky, lucky bastard, That’s huge:
How many close friends does the average person have?
The poll, conducted Dec. 11-14, finds that, on average, Americans have nine “close friends” (a mean of 8.6), not including their relatives. This includes 45% of Americans who say they have six or more close friends, 39% who have between three and five close friends, and 14% who have one or two close friends.
Americans Satisfied With Number of Friends, Closeness of … - Gallup
www.gallup.com/poll/.../americans-satisfied-number-friends-closeness-friendships.aspx
4 Likes
I’m sorry, but I can’t read that comment without picturing it coming out of the mouth of Monty Python’s Terry Jones (in drag)!
1 Like
You’ve met some of my relatives then, lol. 
That’s about right. In fact one of the Pythons went to the same grammar school my Dad went to, so it’s not a stretch they modelled those on the South Yorks grand dames.
Going back to the original video, I think this reveals a problem with the idea that friendly = good and shy = bad. When the friendliness is false, a performative ‘Keeping Up With The Joneses’ - all about self-image rather than really giving a shit, then being gruff, shy or dour is the more honest approach, surely?
2 Likes
… is definitely not a recipe for success in cut-throat, kiss-ass, step on the other guy to move up, types of businesses, so… yep!
1 Like
Somebody let the cognitive behavioral therapists out, didn’t they?
4 Likes
