Privacy

[nomadologist]

And conversely, most women gargantuanly overestimate their ability to read other people.

Oh really? Not in my experience. It's very easy to figure out whether you're reading someone correctly based on how they behave when tested accordingly. It's really not difficult at all to "prove" whether your readings are correct over time.

 

[nomadologist]

I'm confused--did Brits not have Friendster way way way before Facebook? Seems like social networking sites are like brandnew over there.

I've been on social networking sites for at least 7 years, and while I don't "care" at all about who joined today and put up another picture or what have you, in the U.S. it can be a useful way to keep in touch with college friends who have moved hundreds of miles away. Some people get creepily obsessed by it, but those people obviously have no "real life" social life going on anyway.

 

[zhao]

thanks biscuits... really. i feel like i've understood a major aspect of behavioral science today!

really interesting... the bit about comedians / social dominace too.

i guess i fall under the category of "easy to imagine familiarity" or even feel out-right familiar / at home with strangers.

i feel too comfortable in strange situations sometimes. which may step on people's toes sometimes maybe.

 

[swears]

What pisses me off is when a relative stranger tries to front/chief you out in a social situation. Bragging, veiled insults, sarcastic familiarity, pointless "debates", etc... The best way to deal with this behavior is to pretend you haven't noticed (that would show you care) but you still have no interest in being friendly with this person anyway, a kind of bored neutrality is required. So privacy and aloofness are very important social tools to me, there's no way I could cope with all the meatheads I have to deal with day to day otherwise.

 

[nomadologist]

i feel too comfortable in strange situations sometimes. which may step on people's toes sometimes maybe.

I don't know, I've noticed that a lot of people who are the "quitely seethe" repressive types will act aloof in public because they're massively *insecure*, not because they've truly got one over on anyone. I think naturally confident people do sometimes threaten others who aren't socially. So they react by withdrawing and trying to project disaffected coolness when they're really anxious and scared.

 

[nomadologist]

What pisses me off is when a relative stranger tries to front/chief you out in a social situation. Bragging, veiled insults, sarcastic familiarity, pointless "debates", etc... The best way to deal with this behavior is to pretend you haven't noticed (that would show you care) but you still have no interest in being friendly with this person anyway, a kind of bored neutrality is required. So privacy and aloofness are very important social tools to me, there's no way I could cope with all the meatheads I have to deal with day to day otherwise.

Yeah, this makes sense, I had to do this growing up in Backwoodsville, USA.

 

[swears]

Or almost anywhere in the UK...

 

[zhao]

What pisses me off is when a relative stranger tries to front/chief you out in a social situation. Bragging, veiled insults, sarcastic familiarity, pointless "debates", etc... The best way to deal with this behavior is to pretend you haven't noticed (that would show you care) but you still have no interest in being friendly with this person anyway, a kind of bored neutrality is required. So privacy and aloofness are very important social tools to me, there's no way I could cope with all the meatheads I have to deal with day to day otherwise.

what i do with this type of persons is try to engage with them on the subject/level they are initiating. because hey, we're in a social situation and we're all just trying to have a good time, right?

but sometimes not so. and it's REALLY aggravating when a few tries later you realize that this type of dick-face is actually NOT interested in engaging, sharing, or communicating, but only interested in forcing their stupid shit on other people. like when you return the tennis ball they don't reciprocate.

 

[swears]

Then you got fronted out didn't you?

*Gives zhao a big sarcastic backslap and a shit-eating grin*

 

[nomadologist]

sounds like I'm lucky because I like most people I meet in a general "social conversational" way, but then I really like watching people interact and shit in general

 

[Guybrush]

Perhaps you have heard about it before, but this is related to what Mixed Biscuits wrote:

So there are these two muffins baking in an oven. One of them yells, “Wow, it’s hot in here!” [I don’t get it! //Guybrush]

[...]

When the woman [participating in a study ostensibly about something else but really about the effect of ‘the muffin joke’] watching was the boss, she didn’t laugh much at the muffin joke. But when she was the underling or a co-worker, she laughed much more, even though the joke-teller wasn’t in the room to see her. When you’re low in the status hierarchy, you need all the allies you can find, so apparently you’re primed to chuckle at anything even if it doesn’t do you any immediate good.

“Laughter seems to be an automatic response to your situation rather than a conscious strategy,” says Tyler F. Stillman, who did the experiments along with Roy Baumeister and Nathan DeWall. “When I tell the muffin joke to my undergraduate classes, they laugh out loud.”

Mr. Stillman says he got so used to the laughs that he wasn’t quite prepared for the response at a conference in January, although he realizes he should have expected it.

“It was a small conference attended by some of the most senior researchers in the field,” he recalls. “When they heard me, a lowly graduate student, tell the muffin joke, there was a really uncomfortable silence. You could hear crickets.”​

What’s So Funny? Well, Maybe Nothing

 

[zhao]

When you’re low in the status hierarchy, you need all the allies you can find, so apparently you’re primed to chuckle at anything even if it doesn’t do you any immediate good.

right. and when you are the boss it's about not giving away your power and control by laughing.

i just wish people weren't so preoccupied, consciously or subconsciously, with these power dynamics and just. have. a. good. time.

 

[mms]

<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u133/exeryad/p1.jpg" border="0" ></a>

<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u133/exeryad/p2.jpg" border="0"></a>



if it is in part a self confidence thing you have to allow for the fact that many people don't have a great deal of self confidence for good reasons- their environment makes them feel that way. there's a comfort in the private and the personal...



are you joking? i prize my right to seethe inwardly! but like you said- i'm English

where are these pics from they're amazing.


yeah people trying to chief you out happens alot in london
there is so much status battling here it's tiring, pointless waste of time all around, why not just not bother with people you can tell you just won't get on with.

 

[Mr. Tea]

i just wish people weren't so preoccupied, consciously or subconsciously, with these power dynamics and just. have. a. good. time.

Party on, dude!

And be *excellent* to one another.

 

[bassnation]

But why? I've got hundreds and I'll never tell a soul, and I don't feel psychologically damaged by it.

well, there are two kinds of secrets, those which you can share with best friends and lovers, and those other ones which you actually feel ashamed of and will only share when stupidly drunk, followed by regret the next day when you realise you've told your fucking boss something that is best not shared by anyone, and even better if it hadn't happened in the first place.

 

[bassnation]

I've been on social networking sites for at least 7 years, and while I don't "care" at all about who joined today and put up another picture or what have you, in the U.S. it can be a useful way to keep in touch with college friends who have moved hundreds of miles away. Some people get creepily obsessed by it, but those people obviously have no "real life" social life going on anyway.

oh i dunno. i've got shit loads of dates from facebook, either from women from years ago where something might have happened but didn't because i was married and took that shit seriously, or from randoms i just happened to email after coming home from the pub, so its all good.

 

[bassnation]

There's something to be said for not burdening others with your own problems in inappropriate situations, and/or out of respect for their own problems or lack of interest/ability to meet you halfway. But, of course, at the same time, the insane sort of macho ideal Mistersloane referred to where repressing any conversational sense of your own subjectivity as an "emotional" or "psychological" being is completely ridiculous and immature.

yeah but thats not openess, its being intense. i mean i've been through some heavy shit but to be honest i've talked and talked and talked to family and friends and i no longer want to even think about it, its done. the last thing i'd want to do, when meeting someone for the first time or going on a date is dredge all that shit up. but i can still be open (in terms of expressing feelings, or being upfront about things that are important to me) without spilling my guts. of course, if people ask direct questions i will respond, but i know when i'm boring or burdening people and i am far too polite to indulge myself with either of those things at someone elses expense. i hope, anyway.

 

[Mr. Tea]

There's something to be said for not burdening others with your own problems in inappropriate situations

Try telling that to the woman I got talking to in a bar at about 8am after I'd been to a club (she may well have been at the same place I'd been), who thought she'd ease my comedown by telling me about her brother's recent suicide. Which isn't ideal at the best of times, but was especially unwelcome given that my cousin had died not along, too. Can't be too hard, I suppose, she was obviously pretty distraught.

 

[bassnation]

Try telling that to the woman I got talking to in a bar at about 8am after I'd been to a club (she may well have been at the same place I'd been), who thought she'd ease my comedown by telling me about her brother's recent suicide. Which isn't ideal at the best of times, but was especially unwelcome given that my cousin had died not along, too. Can't be too hard, I suppose, she was obviously pretty distraught.

well, you have to give people a break in those kind of situations as you cant help but let the emotions spill out when something like that has happened to you. but sometimes if i go out with women my own age (late thirties) i find them really bitter about previous marriages or relationships even years after the event, and thats a big turn off. i could be like that, but fuck it, why let a load of shit ruin your life and turn you into a victim? theres a time and place for talking about that stuff and when you first meet someone if you drop that on them nine times out of ten, they'll run a mile.

 

[STN]

I live in London and I don't really encounter the kind of chieftainism described by swears and mms (maybe twice in the last year, both at the same party) am I lucky or just too thick to notice?

I always find kicking someone up the arse is a good way to wipe the smile off their face and put one back on yours. You may need to make a sharp exit, but by jingo it'll be worth it.