I've been a friendly extrovert from the age of 6 to 12. Ugliness, puberty and bullying then turned me into an outcast up until my 22nd birthday. From 22 to 26 I have tried to be more social, friendly and smiling because I got tired of solitude. Here are my experiences and observations:
- Attitude does make a big impact in how you are treated by other people. If you're gloomy, anxious, arrogant or poorly groomed, or too eager to be friendly (insecurity), you'll get negative results. If you're smiling, nice and aloof (but not arrogant), you'll get a lot more positive results.
- These positive results are limited however. For example, so far I have been able to make friends and be invited into social circles, resulting in agreeable things, but the power imbalance in most relationships always strikes me and depresses me.
- What I mean by power imbalance is that in all human relations someone has more power over the other. It's not a cynical viewpoint but an objective one, validated by the field of social psychology. You can assess who has the most power by subtle clues like share of speaking time, eagerness and reluctance to suggest activities or conversation topics, disparities in texting response time, ratio of contact initiation.
- I realized after a while that in all my friendships I was the submissive person. I nearly always initiate contact. When I don't, weeks or even months can pass before my "friends" contact me. I always answer their text messages immediately, they answer five hours later, two days later and sometimes even 6 months later.
My conclusion is that human nature is a catastrophe. In all relationships there is a dominant and a submissive. Equality is not the norm but the exception. I fully understand those who refuse to participate to social life out of a refusal to be the inferior individual. However, complete solitude is hardly better psychologically than humiliation.
- Attitude does make a big impact in how you are treated by other people. If you're gloomy, anxious, arrogant or poorly groomed, or too eager to be friendly (insecurity), you'll get negative results. If you're smiling, nice and aloof (but not arrogant), you'll get a lot more positive results.
- These positive results are limited however. For example, so far I have been able to make friends and be invited into social circles, resulting in agreeable things, but the power imbalance in most relationships always strikes me and depresses me.
- What I mean by power imbalance is that in all human relations someone has more power over the other. It's not a cynical viewpoint but an objective one, validated by the field of social psychology. You can assess who has the most power by subtle clues like share of speaking time, eagerness and reluctance to suggest activities or conversation topics, disparities in texting response time, ratio of contact initiation.
- I realized after a while that in all my friendships I was the submissive person. I nearly always initiate contact. When I don't, weeks or even months can pass before my "friends" contact me. I always answer their text messages immediately, they answer five hours later, two days later and sometimes even 6 months later.
My conclusion is that human nature is a catastrophe. In all relationships there is a dominant and a submissive. Equality is not the norm but the exception. I fully understand those who refuse to participate to social life out of a refusal to be the inferior individual. However, complete solitude is hardly better psychologically than humiliation.
