IRL, the trick is to only bother if you know they’re very open-minded or are part of a tight-knit open-minded community. But that would usually mean you’d have to find a solution to the “making close friends as an adult” part too.
Nah, the trick is being good at manipulation to the point people don’t even consider the fact you’re gaslighting them, they actually think you’re helping them. Granted, it takes a certain amount of natural charisma to pull this off but it works.
Source - just some guy I know who is really awesome and totally has his shit together for real. Believe me, he told me.
Practice can help with both of those. I’m fairly introverted, but I constantly force myself to say stuff to people even if I think it might be cringey. Of course, in the beginning, it was, but eventually I got better at talking to people. Now, I can make friends with my co-workers fairly well, and articulate my points coherently enough (and importantly, in real-time) that I am able to bring people over to ‘my side’ with reasonable success.
Down side is, it’s exhausting for me to do, so if I have a week at work where I’m in a lot of meetings or have a lot of interactions like that, my brain is so well and fried by the weekend that all I want to do is sit there and stare at a wall for 48h. WFH during Covid has helped considerably with that aspect, as it’s moved most of my conversations into chat or email, but that also means I have to work a bit harder at forcing myself into situations where I have to communicate.
IRL, the trick is to only bother if you know they’re very open-minded or are part of a tight-knit open-minded community. But that would usually mean you’d have to find a solution to the “making close friends as an adult” part too.
Nah, the trick is being good at manipulation to the point people don’t even consider the fact you’re gaslighting them, they actually think you’re helping them. Granted, it takes a certain amount of natural charisma to pull this off but it works.
Source - just some guy I know who is really awesome and totally has his shit together for real. Believe me, he told me.
Practice can help with both of those. I’m fairly introverted, but I constantly force myself to say stuff to people even if I think it might be cringey. Of course, in the beginning, it was, but eventually I got better at talking to people. Now, I can make friends with my co-workers fairly well, and articulate my points coherently enough (and importantly, in real-time) that I am able to bring people over to ‘my side’ with reasonable success.
Down side is, it’s exhausting for me to do, so if I have a week at work where I’m in a lot of meetings or have a lot of interactions like that, my brain is so well and fried by the weekend that all I want to do is sit there and stare at a wall for 48h. WFH during Covid has helped considerably with that aspect, as it’s moved most of my conversations into chat or email, but that also means I have to work a bit harder at forcing myself into situations where I have to communicate.