Hacker News Reader

I always had a hard time being social and friendly. When I first moved to the bay area, I forced myself to go to a lot of meet ups and progressively learned how to appear fairly friendly and engage with people. I recommend doing that instead of reading up "hacks"- you'll quickly pick up on what the most charismatic person in the room does to appear as such (or both, but those hacks lack a lot in subtlety- stuff like "repeating the last 3 words" sounds fake if you're not genuinely interested).

It's really a skill like learning a new programming language or playing the guitar- totally learnable with some efforts. I wish more socially challenged hackers realized that, cause it really helped me. (of course, my normal resting state is still highly introverted, but at least now i can fake it)

Does everything have to be a 'hack' these days?

But more constructively, I'd recommend "How to make friends and influence people" by Dale Carnegie. For socially awkward folks like myself, it was helpful to have the basics explained.

How to make people like you: 6 science-based sexual reproduction hacks

Trying to make me like you will have the exact opposite effect