Social Things

Other thoughts on social behavior...?

Does anyone else analyze everyone they meet? care to share some experience you've had dealing with people?

On SileNce, Christy said: Learn to converse! One of the things for me on this was going into IRC rooms (long before I heard of the nbtsc IRC server) and talking there with strangers... I learned what questions to ask to get people talking, and how to take an interest in what they're saying... I learned to watch for what things really annoy me, what things interest me about others... how to tell things about myself, and basically how to have a conversation with strangers. Not meaning to brag, but hey, I've gone to college now and that ability has come in really, really handy.

It doesn't matter really how nice a person is... there's a point where the ability to converse becomes a key in getting to know them, and if they don't have that ability, its not going to happen.

• Wow, Christy, I very much agree. tell me more. What kind of questions did you learn to ask, in what ways do you see IRC conversations differing from meatspace ones? It seems to me that one can make the jump from small talk to "big talk" much faster with online strangers than real life ones, sometimes skipping the small talk alltogether... reanna

Well.... what seems to me to be a key difference between IRC and meatspace is the directness. It seems easier online to ignore a person or tell them to get lost, so I'm less afraid of interrupting them. And for some reason... yes, it seems easier to make the jump from small talk to big talk... but then, I've asked myself why that might be and decided that I'll go ahead and make the jump with people in meatspace too... its been a choice, and I find now that I can get into really deep meaningful conversations fairly easy. I watch what I would do online to get into those conversations, and I do it face-to-face instead. - Christy

• Mmm, I do that too. I've learned how to communicate in real life a lot from IRC, though I must say my habit of not listening the first time because I can read the back log is not good. (Ari)