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"I also think it's weird that everyone has to learn these (and other lesson) themselves in their 20s/30s/40s/whenever "

I have also wondered about this. And recently was surprised that my kid's school has a multi-year program in which things like this are covered. They call it PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education). It includes age-approriate learnings about relationships, starting in early years with friends and family relationships, what they mean, differences, feelings, etc. It gets repeated each year and expands earlier learnings. Seems very good. I guess it's a UK thing as my kid's school is an international school following the British curriculum.

The trouble is some of those children will take that educational face value and be confused that things aren’t actually as described. Educational materials are always sugar coated, sometimes more, sometimes less. Some people who realise they’ve been lied to find this quite disturbing, others treat it as the educational lesson it is. Educators are much more motivated to look good to administrators, parents and other adults than to help children. Helping children gives them a feeling of having helped and of professional satisfaction, looking good in front of people with power can make a real difference to their likelihood of having a job next year.

It's true what you say about educators wanting to make themselves look good. But that doesn't detract from the program that I have seen. They do things like have the kids make posters about what is important to them in different relationships, and then have the kids talk about their feelings in various situations. It normalizes having conversations about those things. Sure beats anything we had when I was in school where we never discussed feelings or relationships.

This can be a good programme with broadly positive effects for a large subset of students that go through it. It cannot normalise having emotional conversations. Schools can’t even reliably enforce a norm of non-violence or of respect for learning. If school teaches one thing and society and the outside world the outside world wins every time. Children pick up on hypocrisy and adjust very quickly. Some spot pious bullshit immediately, others learn through experience and many, of course, pay no more attention than they absolutely must, in every class.

I'm going to have to disagree with this. My school when I grew up utterly failed at this. Your school may have too. I was shocked when I worked in a school that didn't fail on this front. I'm not sure it would work in a standard North American school because the main problem is that parents don't respect the teachers/education system. Teachers have to accommodate every single bizarre idea that parents have about how to raise children. But if you have a private school that isn't afraid to tell parents to go elsewhere if they don't like the education, I think it can be done. In fact, I've seen it done. The Japanese school where I taught lectured parents for failing their children more than they lectured the students for screwing up. It was incredible.

Sure, the school is not going to overpower the influence of parents and the rest of society. But the program does help normalise discussing feelings and relationships, at least in some settings, like especially amongst the kids. Which is what you want because when those kids grow up to be adults they will have better social skills when interacting with their peers.

In the Japanese high school where I taught English they had a class (once a week) for how to integrate into society. It taught everything from how to enter a stranger's house, how to greet people, how to bow, etc, all the way up to what is your life going to be like when you graduate (low level school, where more than 50% were going straight into jobs from high school). I begged them to let me sit in on it, but they said no :-( (Unfortunately unseemly for a teacher to be seen as not knowing this stuff already...). I really wish that schools put a higher emphasis on this kind of stuff rather than the 5Rs (err... how many Rs are there again...? :-) )

I bet there is a market for: My life is a mess - I can't seem to do anything right - Can you teach me the basics of getting along in society - Education. Well... I suppose the self-help market is a good indication of that, but I mean taking perhaps a more structured approach.

> why is there not a compendium of reasonable/decent ways to approach intrapersonal relationships and society in society today?

Have you seen this? https://www.succeedsocially.com/

It's funny how entertaining it is to read seemingly obvious, common sense advice on things I learned "intuitively" (i.e. trial and error as an awkward adolescent) but never heard articulated out loud.

There is something creepy about that Succeed Socially site, IMO. Perhaps it's just the somewhat inevitably bland normative nature of the advice—"white bread"—as they say. But there is also quite a high ratio of "don'ts" to "dos". The author really gets going enthusiastically when describing all the ways someone's personal hygiene can fail to meet expectations. This isn't balanced by an acknowledgement of how mentally ill people, for example, struggle with personal hygiene. The bland and normative tone seems to be accompanied by an injunction to "conform or lose". The author lives in a "Leave it to Beaver" world, apparently.

It's descriptivist advice on how to fit in and explanation of ways someone might not be fitting in. Some people are in a situation that prevents them from fitting in, and they shouldn't be judged for that, but that doesn't make the advice or explanation wrong.

I don't think it's saying "conform or lose", just, "this is how to conform".

If you can't or don't want to, more power to you, tell that advice to fuck right off. There's nothing wrong with not conforming---its explanation of how you're not conforming is still right, though.

I think the nature of the conformity that he's putting forward is problematic, though. I don't agree that there is one right way to act, the one described on his site. There are many styles, but all he offers is conventionality.

In an interview he says: "When I look back on some of the most likable people I’ve met, they were using the same core social skills we all do, but just executing on everything at a more polished, consistent level."

Likableness is not about "polished, consistent" execution of some social techniques. It has to do with authenticity, a sense of humour, intellectual strengths, etc. The idea that the most likeable people are likeable because they are skilled performers sounds like a normalisation of superficial narcissistic behaviour.

It's all a bit humourless and robotic. "Pod person" territory. Social interaction as technical performance is a way of looking at it that most people would find unsettling.

What you see as authenticity and a good sense of humor, he sees as skilled performance. And I don't really disagree with him there.

Maybe it's because you buy into their "authenticity". Or maybe it's because I don't really get social behavior.

There are "naturals", who are authentic and have a good sense of humor without doing anything for it. Everybody else needs more work/practice to get there. Basically, fake "authenticity" until you are "authentic".

FWIW, my reference to narcissism relates to the ideas of the true (deep) and false (superficial) self discussed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_self_and_false_self

There isn't a hard scientific consensus about the dynamics of narcissism. It's kind of at the intellectual stage of being a "code smell" that many very serious people have learned to detect from bitter personal experience.

In addition to there being no scientific consensus on narcissism, and it having multiple meanings, another problem with the word is that it has become a reddit/internet meme, where you have random people arbitrarily accusing people of being narcissistic. Because of this, it's starting to lose any meaning at least in general topic internet forums.

OK, I know it's a 'bad' word to use. In my innocence, I think I can use it to invoke the rich, complex psychoanalytical meanings of the word. Serious conversation is what we do here, right?

But more seriously, I don't care how diluted the word has become. It names a very recognizable phenomenon, one that we have a problem with in the current culture, but which isn't new. If you care about engaging with that phenomenon (and typically, if you do, you don't have a choice in the matter) then the professional use of the term becomes the only meaning that has significant value.

I haven't seen this interview; you could be right that he's way overselling how Correct(TM) his advice is.

But from what I've seen, I think you're reading too much into it all. You're right that all he offers is conventionality, that's the whole point, the site describes social conventions. That doesn't mean he's saying you're going to die friendless and alone if you ever dare to break the mold. The quote you cite just sounds to me like he's saying here's what people do, and for people who do it really well, it really works.

>The bland and normative tone seems to be accompanied by an injunction to "conform or lose".

presumably if one is seeking advice on how to succeed by conforming, they are already losing

If you’re willing to live with the consequences of not conforming you can not conform all you like. If you don’t want to conform you can move to a community that supports that. San Francisco puts a lot of effort into supporting people who enjoy defecating in public for example, and you see the same thing in other US West Coast cities too, though they aren’t quite as far along.

>I find extroverts remember facts like these...

I like your overall point, but disagree here. I actually find a lot of introverts (such as myself) remember MORE minutiae than extroverts because we are more prone to listen than to speak.

We just won't bring it up out of nowhere because we already know how the conversation will go or are not piqued enough by the subject matter to think it warrants a conversation.

"Oh, hows your son doing in soccer?

So great. he won/lost x/y/z games. He's such a n/m/o player and feels r/s/t about it.

Ohhh, that's great." End scene.

Exactly. I often try to hold back on mentioning details, or pretend to be surprised by them, in case it would seem weird to be so caught up on someone else's life.

Point well taken, predicting the likely impending small talk and avoiding it is definitely a thing I do a lot.

I think people are refusing to use the word that perfectly describes the wast majority of modern "friends" - they are acquaintance - people with whom one is friendly but they aren't friends.

Friends help you move.[0]

---

[0] And of course there's "real friends help you move bodies" if we want to look at the hierarchy of "friendships"

"Mawwiage is wat bwings us togedder today"

Life-long friendship-or-else, amirite?

> I also think it's weird that everyone has to learn these (and other lesson) themselves in their 20s/30s/40s/whenever -- why is there not a compendium of reasonable/decent ways to approach interpersonal relationships and society in society today? Like a farmer's almanac for human interaction.

The college I went to had a great comm course called "Sex, Relationships, and Communication" and it covered many things in this area. Really should have been a required high school course.

Was there a book used for that course? If so would you recommend it?

Book here: https://smile.amazon.com/Close-Encounters-Communication-Laur...

I didn't use it as much as lectures/notes which were very good but the reviews seem positive. I'd probably pirate it to test drive before buying given the price of academic textbooks. Different editions also tend to save a bunch of many so look for older editions too!

> The word "friend" itself takes on different meanings to different groups of people -- especially after the rise of FB -- 1000s of "friends" on a social network is very different from 100s of "friends" you've only met once which is also very different from the ~5 "friends" you see on a daily basis, and much different from 0/1/2 "best" friends who you think you'd do anything for.

Wait a minute.

Has anyone really consider their 10,100 or 1000 facebook friends as IRL friends ? Do some people really confuse both kinds ?

I think GP's point isn't that this is the same as traditional friendship, but that not everyone understands the word "friend" to mean this anymore. While you might consider "friend" to mean "IRL friend", others might not interpret it the same way. At the very least, I think you can probably accept that in certain narrow contexts, the word "friend" doesn't necessarily mean "IRL" (e.g. "I sent the Facebook event invite to all my friends"), so it shouldn't be too much of a leap to realize that other people who focus much more on social media than you might could potentially use contexts like this significantly more in their conversations.

I understand how the context changes the meaning but there's a narrative floating around that people aren't actually doing that (I take for example the "friends help you move" meme).

I have a good number of fb friends that I would absolutely recommend for a job. This has little to do with how close I am to them and a lot to do with the kinds of stuff they post/comment.

Yeah, but you aren't confusing them with `friends`, these are `facebook friends`, right ?

I think this is more tied to how much people like socializing, not their intro/extroversion.

From my understanding, intro/extroversion is how people like to process information. Introverts like to think through things. Extroverts like to talk it out. These are correlated with other behaviors, but those behaviors aren't the definition of intro/extroversion itself.

I only say this because I know plenty of introverts that do exactly what the parent comment is saying and love it.

> From my understanding, intro/extroversion is how people like to process information. Introverts like to think through things. Extroverts like to talk it out.

I have never heard that as the primary definition of intro/extroversion. The difference is really about how you "recharge". Introverts recharge by spending time alone, while extroverts recharge by spending time with others. Thus, introverts may be fine in social situations, BUT if they don't get adequate "alone time" they will get exhausted.

Thus, this really is tied to introversion/extroversion when it comes to keeping up with "weak" networks. I may like to socialize, but as an introvert, that costs me energy, so I am picky about where I "spend" it, and oftentimes I will forgo the chance to socialize with folks I don't know that well because, for me, it's not worth the energy.

> The difference is really about how you "recharge".

This is a very recent Internet cliché.

I believe that the terms were introduced by Carl Jung about one century ago, and they refer to the dominant focus of one's mental life. Introverts dominant focus is on their internal worlds, while extroverts dominant focus is on the external world.

Did Jung mention anything about alternating between both? Am I right in thinking this is a spectrum so it's perfectly fine/possible to be somewhere in the middle or is the argument this really is an either/or?

According to the MBTI it is not a spectrum; you have a preference for one or the other.

This doesn't mean you can't or don't behave in ways outside your preference; we all do, everyday. It just means that, all other things being equal, you will lean toward extraversion or introversion.

Also, please note that MBTI E/I does not equate to extraversion/introversion as it is known and understood by society at large.

But MBTI is bollocks and people do test equally strongly for different aspects on different days.

A helpful explanation I found recently on the "Personality Hacker" podcast [1] for the Myers-Briggs types is this:

Introvert / Extrovert: Introverts consider their mind as the "real world", whereas Extroverts consider the external world as the "real world". Everything that takes place in the "not real world" has to be processed and rooted back in the "real world", which is why there is the stereotypical "Introverts need to be alone" / "Extroverts need to be in a crowd"

Intuitive / Sensing: Intuitive means you think about what is "behind the curtain", Sensing means you mainly consider what is right in front of you

Thinking / Feeling: When making decisions, Feelers take personal relationships into account. Thinkers are much more "fact based" and don't consider the social dynamics as much.

Perceiving / Judging : The way they explained this one is that people tend to want to organize either the outer world or their minds. Judgers want the external world to be organized and make sense, so that they can let their internal mind wander. Perceivers want their minds to be organized so they can play with things in the external world.

I think I got that all mostly correct. They have a series they did on Myers-Briggs that I thought was really interesting.

They also talk about one called the "Enneagram", which found to be really interesting. [2] I'm a "Self-Preservation Three" in that system.

[1] https://personalityhacker.com/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enneagram_of_Personality