BC
New Member
Re: Meeting People
i very much agree with what sarah has very well said above.
green goblin, i have a few comments in response to what you say. now, please do not take any of this personally, the very last thing i want to do is come across as being confrontational or patronising. i have not met you, so my responses are only to what you have typed here, i'm not going to make any judgements on your personality.
what you say would seem to display a fairly narrow view of people and a very restrictive and rigid perception of what you want. i do understand where that can come from, many people at a particular point in their lives have the same manner of viewing the world. in fact, all beliefs that people have are subject to a perceptual trait called "confirmation bias". basically, we look for all the things that support our beliefs and we tend to ignore those things that disprove our beliefs. this goes for all forms of belief, its a universal human trait which can be negative or positive depending on it. as a general example, people who think the world is shit will tend to pay a lot of attention and attribute a lot of significance to those crappy experiences that everyone encounters (in extreme cases, i really do believe that bitterness can poision people who let themselves get taken over by it). likewise, people who are genuinely upbeat and optimistic don't read much significance into negative occurances.
it may seem very obvious, but it is a very important thing to bear in mind. if you have a very narrow view of the world, you will find the world is difficult and disappointing. try to broaden your view, the world is not black and white, it's colourful. in this metaphor, colour-blindness is absolutely a matter of choice. people who are very successful in communication and interaction have an ability to pick up on how different people say and do things in their own individual ways, and then adapt their own behaviour to match them, and so create rapport. people who can strike us as very charming and likeable do this process unconsciously, but it's not something that is hard-wired into people, it's a learned experience, and it's developed through being open-minded and respectful of that fact that individuals do things in individual ways.
another thing which may seem rather obvious is that people are not static, personality does change, and nobody is either totally introverted or extroverted. these notions - like confidence and motivation - are not concrete, they are a matter of degree and change considerably depending on one's own perception of one's self and situations. and again, if you have a narrow and rigid perception of your own self-image and of other people, you can expect to find it difficult to relate to others.
because have you ever thought about the difference between what you think you want and what would really truly fulfill you if you were to find it right in front of you? you would then know the difference between those two things. if you can ask yourself that question, it's quite profound and it's worth thinking about. typically, as you get older you generally have a better understanding of the difference, but when you are a teenager you have very fixed ideas about what you think you want. (and i'm only being mostly literal in talking about age, after all, i have met 18 year olds who are absolutely wise and clued-in, and also know some remarkably childish people in their sixties ;-) )
there is a habit in our western culture to define ourselves according to what music we listen to, what books we read, what pictures we have on our walls, what clothes we wear (in fact, for many young adults the music one listens to is a form of clothing in a sense). while all these things undoubtedly feed into our thoughts, it's how we react that says more about who we really are. i'm still always surprised - for some reason - when people get upset that i say i dont like their favourite band or whatever. i mean i know that they would probably hate some of the stuff i listen to. does it have to be such a big deal? who cares? ones own perference and opinions on music / film / etc need not be an inherently personal issue when it comes to disagreements with people. i genuinely see no difference between someone who has bought every dead can dance record and someone who has bought every sugababes record. i've had girlfriends who absolutely loathed some of the stuff i listen to, who themselves might enjoy films or albums that i found excrusiating. that fact had absolutely no bearing on any of those relationships. indeed, it's true of all my closest friends - and even people i closely work with on music! - that both they and i enjoy certain things that each other cannot abide. it doesn't matter firstly because it's never a personal issue, and secondly because they and i would have fairly diverse tastes.
honestly, none of these perferences make the slightest bit of difference when it comes to charisma, charm and personability.
also, i have met people who have extremely similar tastes to my own, but who i thought were total arseholes.
if you insist weeding out prospective companions on the basis of what music you like, i can absolutely guarantee you that you will be disappointed.
the world is great because there are so many vibrantly different things out there. get out and embrace new experiences. it's like travel, in a way, it's the journey as much as the destination.
i very much agree with what sarah has very well said above.
green goblin, i have a few comments in response to what you say. now, please do not take any of this personally, the very last thing i want to do is come across as being confrontational or patronising. i have not met you, so my responses are only to what you have typed here, i'm not going to make any judgements on your personality.
what you say would seem to display a fairly narrow view of people and a very restrictive and rigid perception of what you want. i do understand where that can come from, many people at a particular point in their lives have the same manner of viewing the world. in fact, all beliefs that people have are subject to a perceptual trait called "confirmation bias". basically, we look for all the things that support our beliefs and we tend to ignore those things that disprove our beliefs. this goes for all forms of belief, its a universal human trait which can be negative or positive depending on it. as a general example, people who think the world is shit will tend to pay a lot of attention and attribute a lot of significance to those crappy experiences that everyone encounters (in extreme cases, i really do believe that bitterness can poision people who let themselves get taken over by it). likewise, people who are genuinely upbeat and optimistic don't read much significance into negative occurances.
it may seem very obvious, but it is a very important thing to bear in mind. if you have a very narrow view of the world, you will find the world is difficult and disappointing. try to broaden your view, the world is not black and white, it's colourful. in this metaphor, colour-blindness is absolutely a matter of choice. people who are very successful in communication and interaction have an ability to pick up on how different people say and do things in their own individual ways, and then adapt their own behaviour to match them, and so create rapport. people who can strike us as very charming and likeable do this process unconsciously, but it's not something that is hard-wired into people, it's a learned experience, and it's developed through being open-minded and respectful of that fact that individuals do things in individual ways.
another thing which may seem rather obvious is that people are not static, personality does change, and nobody is either totally introverted or extroverted. these notions - like confidence and motivation - are not concrete, they are a matter of degree and change considerably depending on one's own perception of one's self and situations. and again, if you have a narrow and rigid perception of your own self-image and of other people, you can expect to find it difficult to relate to others.
because have you ever thought about the difference between what you think you want and what would really truly fulfill you if you were to find it right in front of you? you would then know the difference between those two things. if you can ask yourself that question, it's quite profound and it's worth thinking about. typically, as you get older you generally have a better understanding of the difference, but when you are a teenager you have very fixed ideas about what you think you want. (and i'm only being mostly literal in talking about age, after all, i have met 18 year olds who are absolutely wise and clued-in, and also know some remarkably childish people in their sixties ;-) )
there is a habit in our western culture to define ourselves according to what music we listen to, what books we read, what pictures we have on our walls, what clothes we wear (in fact, for many young adults the music one listens to is a form of clothing in a sense). while all these things undoubtedly feed into our thoughts, it's how we react that says more about who we really are. i'm still always surprised - for some reason - when people get upset that i say i dont like their favourite band or whatever. i mean i know that they would probably hate some of the stuff i listen to. does it have to be such a big deal? who cares? ones own perference and opinions on music / film / etc need not be an inherently personal issue when it comes to disagreements with people. i genuinely see no difference between someone who has bought every dead can dance record and someone who has bought every sugababes record. i've had girlfriends who absolutely loathed some of the stuff i listen to, who themselves might enjoy films or albums that i found excrusiating. that fact had absolutely no bearing on any of those relationships. indeed, it's true of all my closest friends - and even people i closely work with on music! - that both they and i enjoy certain things that each other cannot abide. it doesn't matter firstly because it's never a personal issue, and secondly because they and i would have fairly diverse tastes.
honestly, none of these perferences make the slightest bit of difference when it comes to charisma, charm and personability.
also, i have met people who have extremely similar tastes to my own, but who i thought were total arseholes.
if you insist weeding out prospective companions on the basis of what music you like, i can absolutely guarantee you that you will be disappointed.
the world is great because there are so many vibrantly different things out there. get out and embrace new experiences. it's like travel, in a way, it's the journey as much as the destination.
