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Comment by zschuessler | Hacker News Reader

One tip mentioned is to raise your eyebrows. As example: when you first meet someone, raise your eyebrows slightly (or one), smile, and tilt your head and greet them. Making someone else feel special makes you charming.

Along the same lines: I find that voice cadences, and inflection, work pretty well for being charming! Take time to enuncicate the whole sentence you want to say, throw emotion into your words. And if you happen to do the eyebrow trick at the same time - it's charm overload.

Surprised audio cues weren't mentioned more :-)

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Of course, if you do these things wrong you've just plunged yourself into the uncanny valley, and are now creepy.

It's a fine line, isn't it? Ha! You're correct of course.

To anyone with fear of being creepy: my good friend shared a video with me recently on vulnerability. It forced me to rewire my brain:

https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability

One item I'd add to the article on being charming: be vulnerable. Vulnerability is relatable, it's genuine.

You also have to accept the possibility of being creepy. People have varied and different responses to things and there is no way to 100% eliminate the possibility that any given person sees you as a threat to their safety. All you can do is take reasonable precautions so that a reasonable person would not be creeped out. Keep in mind that "reasonable" is culturally-dependent, so you should pay attention to the local social norms as aspirationally advocated and actually practised. One useful thing to do is to go into a situation with at least one friend so that you can check in with them when situations are ambiguous.

Someone once told me that the way they can always tell if someone is an American traveling abroad in their country is that they always have this stupid shit eating grin on their face and most everyone else keeps a neutral expression.

If you are out of your cultural element, you can cross the line into apparent insincerity with surprising ease. Always know thyself.

Many Londoners (or Australians living in London) find that expression somewhat charming. Just don't talk to strangers on the tube.

How did this TED Talk affect you? I watched it, but I can't say I feel a great sense of unworthiness in my life.

Nothing is genuine if you're doing it deliberately. The longer an interaction goes on, the more likely you are to be incongruent.

Just trying to get ahead and put best foot forward

Winks awkwardly

Like everything else, you need to train it.

I have seen babies learn to walk, they don't get it the first, or the fifth time, but their parents encourage them, and most learn it.

However social skills are a completely different beast: here we just accept it as whatever you happen to learn is whatever level you will just have to live with.

Take time to enuncicate the whole sentence you want to say, throw emotion into your words.

That is how the French talk. It always seems like they are telling you a story.

This entire thread feels like a conversation between sociopaths on how to manipulate people. On reading through it, do you feel the same way?

How grossly manipulative

You could take that view or you could think of it as putting your best foot forward. How manipulative it is depends on your intentions.

Tools are tools. Some people use these techniques to be manipulative. Others use them to protect themselves from those that use them maliciously, or as a social prosthesis the same way they might use a meticulous journal to combat an attention or memory disorder.

I can see how one may think that!

I see charm as a way to make connections with others (which is awesome!). It's also crazy fun to inflect your voice. Everyone has a better time when you're okay being silly.

Would you treat a new acquaintance like they had the plague? Probably not. Is it manipulative to be nice to someone? I don't think so. Being silly with inflection, or using any of the tools described in the article, for me is just another way to relate to others.

I won't deny some may use the tools for manipulation - but the practice isn't inherently manipulative in my opinion.

Nothing you said here changed my view, I feel like you’ve just obscured the point.

Beyond being manipulative, it's coming across in your descriptions as childish and weird. How about you just act how you feel? That seems a lot more relatable.

> How grossly manipulative

Thanks for this. It's interesting to see that the main comment threads are:

- how interrogations leverage psychological manipulation to divulge information - how to use verbal and visual tricks - tabeth pointing out how people perceive social interactions as insincere

Yet a lot of people claim that it's ok to deploy psychological manipulation when your intentions are "good".

It's been said that the end doesn't justify the means.

The ends do not justify the means, rather the means determine the ends you get. And if the means you use are a complete and obvious disinterest in other people...

So much so that some of it appears bordering on psychopathy: concentrate on the colours in someone's eyes to pretend you care about what they're saying, indeed!

As opposed to staring at your lap or the middle distance to demonstrate how you couldn't give a flying rat's ass about them?

As opposed to actually caring about what they have to say. There's a much more agreeable part of the article that talks about finding common ground with the second party.

Is it manipulative to attempt to invoke emotion in music as well? If not, what would be the difference?

Yes, it is. The difference is that I generally choose to listen to specific types of music (or to see performances that I willing choose to let manipulate me). If a random person on the street came up to me and started playing any sort of music, that would be incredibly rude. (Note that this is different than buskers who are not generally targeting a specific person and generally need a permit to perform in a specific place.)

Some people are naturally and unconsciously charming, and others, through a confluence of nature and experience, aren’t, and might not even realize it.

Is it fair for the less charming people to be at a permanent disadvantage? Or does being conscious of what is for others unconscious make one automatically manipulative? What if after a few months or years of intential charm, it became automatic?

Compare it to being a poor driver that is unknowingly causing stress and danger to fellow drivers. They take a course in defensive driving and consciously learn a few techniques like counting the distance between them the vehicle in front, not passing in the right lane, anticipating red lights, etc. After a couple of years of consciously driving like this these habits become automatic and traffic around them functions more smoothly. Practicing social skills is more like this than you probably think.

Learning how to write clearly and persuasively is another example that one could dismiss as manipulative at their own peril.

Who is being manipulated?

Manipulative, maybe. But why grossly? All you are doing is making the other person feel good. It should be encouraged and celebrated. If you have a choice between making someone feel neutral, or feel great, why wouldn't you choose great?

Because it's manipulative, if I don't know you.

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