Introverted Nerds at Bars

I was watching this YouTube video once where it said that if you are an introverted nerd, you should not bother going out to a bar to try to find a romantic interest. That was deemed to be not the element of such a person.

I forced myself to go to bars and clubs for a period of time. I'd go and I'd try to talk to people, including pretty girls. I'd try to get the phone number of a girl if I thought she was pretty. This never really went anywhere and after about a year and a half I dropped the practice.

While I was doing it, it felt like a job to me. At the end of it, when I'd see a woman standing there, I couldn't come up with a sincere reason for why I was starting a conversation with her.

I remember one time, I started talking to this couple about Japanese history. I was reading about it, and thought I'd talk about what I was doing with my time. It was very strange. I felt like I was being a buzzkill given the environment.

I remember one time, at a strip club, I intentionally talked to one stripper about how I would buy Brita water filters and use that to obtain drinking water. She took up the conversation and replied with how she obtained drinking water via water bottles, and I felt immediately bad for having creating the topic.

I guess when I talk to people I feel obligated to be discussing a grand mission.

When I was finishing college, I did consulting for a psychology department. I was programming a small visual experiment for them. It leveraged OpenGL and just rendered a couple of rectangular slabs in different placements. I overheard the grad students talking about their professor. They said he would talk about psychology all the time. I thought that surely, a well-rounded man should know how to "cut loose" and just have fun when work is done for the week.

I don't really worry about whether I am a social person or not.

ChatGPT and Animals

I understand that we have a private sector free market, and that ChatGPT offers promises of heightened efficiency in such a competitive environment. But it distracts us from the fact that our careers are exercises in artistry and showmanship.

Most of us fear freezing to death on a rainy day, out in the cold, due to having no job and being homeless. But if our philosophy breaks, I don't think we really give a shit how we die.

This is what people overlook when they get excited about things like ChatGPT. We are not just here to make life as comfortable as possible as fast as possible. We are here to distinguish ourselves from the animals. And showmanship, showmanship of a person (not a computer) is how we do that.

The Waymo cars are way more interesting than ChatGPT because they take care of a mindless task that is driving. But software that automates business needs is not mindless. It is cool.

Mike’s Guide to Talking to People

First off, you should probably read some books, study assigned vocabulary, and write some essays. Oh what's that, you too went to school? Terrific. You're way ahead of me.

I hope you're making it count. Learning to communicate is an exercise in cultivating taste. Not all of the idioms in use are healthy to be using. Only by educating yourself and living life can you learn the types of language that are vulgar, and the types that are suitable for use with dear friends. If you just imitate whatever you see on television or whatever you hear from trendy TikTok videos, you're probably going to learn vulgar habits. So tread carefully.

The first thing I'll say, as a part of what I'm adding by writing this blog post, is that you are not supposed to tell other people when you are having a bad time. This is particularly true when you are talking to someone you do not know well. Not everyone is going through a rough patch, but when you are, you are only allowed to bring it up with someone if they have demonstrated an interest in your day-to-day well-being. If an acquaintance says to you that they hope you are doing well, that does not count as the type of interest that I'm saying is required. Someone has to have a track record in showing interest in your daily well-being for you to erupt with bitching and moaning in their presence.

Emergencies do not count as an exception to this rule. Even if you're bleeding to death, your bet is on 911, not on people who haven't shown they care about you.

The second rule I'm introducing is that you can only bring up a topic with someone if you know they are interested in it. If you're talking to someone who doesn't give a fuck about playing the guitar, you're not supposed to talk about your guitar lessons out of the blue with that person. If that person likes baseball and you watched a baseball game, then you may use that as topic fodder. You have to talk about things that other people are interested in. Otherwise you're being needy.

The third rule is that you are not supposed to talk too much. You're supposed to make a statement or two, and then wait for whoever you're talking to to respond to those statements. This rule becomes violatable if you have a very close friend and you're in the middle of heavy discussion with that person. But for relationships where the friendship is light or possibly not even established yet, you are supposed to not talk too much before giving the other person a chance to respond (or introduce subject matter of their own).

This third rule has a corollary, which is that you're not supposed to talk to someone day after day. It is extremely unlikely that you have interesting things to say every day. You're supposed to let life events occur and react to them by yourself. After you've done this for a week, you can cherry-pick whatever parts of your week you think might be of interest your friend, and then you can unload your news on them.

The way to violate the third rule is to play your friends off each other. If you've reached a lull in the ongoing dialogue with Alice, but then you hear something from Bob that reminds you of something Alice said, you can piggyback on your memory of Bob and reengage Alice, citing the event outside your dialogue with her. You don't even need to depend on friends for such types of memories. Acquaintances or even strangers can supply them. These "outside events" are what propell you beyond a lull in the conversation with your friend, so that you're not just comiserating with your friend. Your friend wants to hear that you're fighting to survive, not that you're hiding. Outside events are evidence of such.

The fourth rule is that you are supposed to respond to electronic, written communication immediately, unless you are preoccupied with work. By immediately, I mean within a day. This is difficult for certain entire categories of people. If you can't reply immediately to emails or texts, and you're the type of person who aspires toward self-improvement, then I'd recommend trying to figure out why electronic communication causes you anxiety, or why you are so ignorant of your own motivations that you need days to prepare a response to a friend's email.

An exception to this fourth rule is lengthy emails. I don't just mean when someone is abusing your time and rambling. I mean when you are engaged in a deep discussion over email with someone. You can take your time with those.

The fourth rule doesn't really apply to group chats.

The fifth rule is that you are not supposed to confront someone about their bad behavior unless you are unsure as to what class of person they are. I hate to break it to you but humans discard their equality as they age. They do stupid tragic shit that causes them to permanently lose their innocence. If you think someone is a first class person, you can gently ask them probing questions to see why they are behaving in a way that makes no sense. This is unnecessary when people telegraph their class to you by acting like douchebags. But when you're unsure, you can probe.

The sixth rule is that your day job does not count as conversation subject matter. Not even if someone works in the same line of work as you. If such a person wants to talk to you about your day at work, they can join your company and attend meetings with you. A career is sacred. But when we are off the clock, leave work at the office.

A straightforward exception to rule six is office drama. Bullshit is always interesting subject matter among friends.

The seventh rule is that you have to give your friends a relaxation period away from you after each time you tax their emotions. Sometimes we have difficult conversations with our friends. If you know you’ve just put a loved one through a difficult conversation, prohibit yourself from introducing further subject matter with them for a week. This will give them time to recover, and it’ll impress them.

I now introduce a guideline. It is not as strong as a rule. When building trust with someone over electronic, written communication, you want to try to be the last person to have spoken in an exchange. This way, it looks like you’re being ignored, and are thus the one who has to go do something new in order for the conversation to be picked up again. This action puts your friend or loved one on the “high ground” and thus in a position of smug comfort. When you do this, you’re ensuring that they do not feel ignored. Sometimes this is as simple as typing “okay”.

Go get ‘em.