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Comment by bananamerica | Hacker News Reader

On the other hand, it is so satisfying when a conversation hits a branch you worked on for hours on end! Very useful for dating and job interviews. Especially for people with foot-in-mouth disease[1]

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/foot-in-mouth_disease

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While I do play out a lot of conversations and branches in my head, my imagined lines of conversation never really play out in reality. I find for example that my imagined conversations are a lot more hostile, I'm always imagining having to battle and batter my coworkers and managers to explain why things are the way they are - but in person I find that not only are others nicer than I imagined they would be, but I am too. I'll plot the cutting things to say, but in reality I realize that such things would be wholly inappropriate and undeserved and I don't really want to be mean anyway.

For me, this tendency is more of a problem online. This is because I can simply plot out a conversation and then write it the way I planned. It's something I need to be mindful of, to restrain my inner-jerk not just in person but online too.

The part about hostility is a perfect observation. The reason is that compulsive thoughts are usually driven by fear.

Exactly. Our brains evolved in a complex social environment where saying or doing the wrong thing could mean getting attacked or pushed out of a social group. But in modern society this is much less the case.

And what would it be like if we could train our brains to think empathetic thoughts about the people around us? This is the premise of the book How to Make Friends and Influence People. The results are very powerful and lead us further to fulfilling our aims than fear infused thinking.

Hi, that's a nice book reference. I've ran into this thread a bit late, but do you know if that book is still relevant (it's published in 1936, Wikipedia says) or are there more modern works that incorporate those ideas and work with them?

It is still relevant, They updated the copy in 1985 to keep it modern but also true to the original. The straightforward message of that book is as powerful as ever.

I love how you guys make me feel like I'm not an odd person. I have a hard time explaining what it's like in my head to other people, including my own wife. If nothing else, it's comforting to know other people struggle with interactions because of the multiple internal threads constantly churning.

> I find for example that my imagined conversations are a lot more hostile

Yes, this! I sometimes find myself getting slightly mad at someone for something that I imagined them doing (or thought they were going to do), because I then had a played-out clash with them over it in my head. As soon as I notice what I'm doing, though, I stop being mad, because it's ridiculous to stay mad at someone over something they literally didn't do.

As a man with Aspergers, that sounds so useful.. and while I can often simulate conversations in my head, real-world conversations with real people almost never play out the same way.

It probably has to do with having little ability to intuitively understand what other people would think.

Maybe but it's also very hard to predict what will happen in general I think.

From my experience, I think a lot of it is due to the fact that you can't really surprise yourself. In the conversation in your head, you try to always be the 'winner' of the debuate, and part of that is to try and come up with remarks from your 'opponent' for which you have gotcha replies. Except you know what your 'opponent' is going to say because that's you. In real life, the opponent is someone else and they may surprise you.

Interesting. I tend to think you can surprise yourself. I write stories as a hobby, and my characters often surprise me.

I'd say it's down to two things:

a) Having to imagine a different personality's perspective, and

b) Having some time to think of a better answer than the off-the-cuff one.

Point a tends to happen whenever I make an effort to see the world from someone else's point of view, or make up an imaginary character to have a conversation with.

Point b tends to happen in my own head when I get quiet time - like during a long walk or shower and a thought I'd never imagined before comes up.

It can have some predictive power, too. Imagine, for example, there's an important negotiation coming up. You'll be sitting on one side of the table wanting the things you want. It does help to put yourself in the opposite seat mentally, thinking about what they want to get, and how you'd go about trying to get it. Maybe even trying on for size the best arguments you might make for their position.

True, I didn't want to imply you can't brute force it somehow, but what I was referring to was the general, low-effort, low-stakes conversation we (apparently not) all have in our heads.

My psychologist once thought I might be on the spectrum, but IDK. I do have a few symptoms including difficulty communicating, but I plan so heavily for every situation that others hardly notice.

@TimTheTinker: May I suggest you study rhetoric and some informal logic? It helped me a bunch.

A few links:

https://bookofbadarguments.com/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-informal/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-rhetoric/

I struggle with the same thing, and I don't appear to have Aspergers. Where are my superpowers?

> Very useful for dating

Really? By far the most useful thing for dating seems to be the ability to be in the moment while conversing and being able to feel the flow of feelings and emotions - that's what makes a good interpersonal intimate conversation good and speeds up any dating goals one might have... Overthinking stuff, or even thinking a lot in general (while conversing) - does not.

You missed the initial point... preparatory thinking; it's not playing out during the conversations, but before; and for many of us, allows us to actually be in the moment with a discussion because we're prepared for standard branches of the possible conversations.

> By far the most useful thing for dating seems to be the ability to be in the moment

That obviously varies a lot. When I am actually spontaneous, bad things happen. I am able to improvise on top of a plan, but winging it is not an option.

My psychologist thinks I might be on the autism spectrum.

For what it's worth, while I'm far from infallible, my strategy on dating was successful enough the last two decades or so.

Is it though? I have found a job and wife that is OK with my foot in mouth disease and think it works better when you sell who you are. Don't get me wrong self improvement is important, but so is telling people who are going to spend time with you what they are going to get.

>I have found a job and wife that is OK with my foot in mouth disease

Makes it sound like you make foot fetish videos!

The fact the I plan conversations does not make me any less of myself. You are mistaking planning with deception.

And anyone I meet will eventually learn all my flaws, but that's an incremental process. It doesn't make sense to just throw each one of them on the first date.

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