Hacker News Reader

Comment by electrondood | Hacker News Reader

You have to go first. If you don't make it happen, it doesn't happen.

This is especially true in adults relationships. If you don't put yourself out there and voluntarily assume the risk of going first, risking rejection, etc. then nothing is going to happen. Other people are not going to call you to hang out.

View on HN

I think you're right about this. Regarding people not calling you to hang out though, I do think once you achieve a certain critical mass of relationship building (usually within a group setting) you will end up getting reciprocal invitations. But like you said, you have to put in the work first before you get to reap those rewards.

That's also about how much you give to others. I find that if I am at my 'normal' energy level I receive few reciprocal invitations. But if I deliberately give off 'high-energy' it's like people have found a button which they can press to have fun, and I receive nothing but invitations. The thing is, it's generally not fun for me to be high-energy.

This includes breaking up

This rings true for me. I did my undergraduate in commercial music as a piano player which required me to take 2 years of performance practicum with piano performance majors. They were leagues better than me and I knew it, but we all had to perform many times in front of everyone each semester on very technical baroque, classical and romantic era pieces. Since I knew I was the most out of my depth, I knew I had nothing to lose by performing in front of much more seasoned pianists. The funny thing is how reluctant the performance majors were to go first. So I always volunteered first and often to practice humility, and as a way of breaking the ice. It gave people confidence to go for it if a relative neophyte was performing and doing okay. It was sometimes embarrassing if I performed poorly, but it made a HUGE difference in helping me to learn what I was doing wrong and to get rid of my fear of failure. I learned my craft a LOT quicker during this time. Fail early and often and learn :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com