Making Yourself Likable

http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2009/04/want-to-make-friends-eight-tips-for-making-yourself-likable.html

by mhb • 17 years ago

48 27 17 years ago

happiness-project.com

wallflower• 17 years ago

> 2. Be easily impressed, entertained, and interested. Most people get more pleasure from wowing you with their humor and insight than from being wowed by your humor and insight.

I have struggled with this in the past. The key takeaway I've learned is that the person is just trying to relate a feeling to you - about what they are talking about - e.g. not to convince you. Stop trying to be a know-it-all or Mr. Logic.

Example: Woman friend enters wearing thrifty-looking but interesting pea coat.

Friend: "Hey, check out my coat. Guess how much I paid?"

Me: "Hmm. $25?"

Friend: "No. $30"

Both: Silence

What I should have said: "$100?!"

Or even better?: "Let's go case out that store. I want one in my size." (joking)

It's not about getting the correct answer - this is not a game show "The Price is Right" - being friendly is more about letting someone express their emotion behind their words and maybe even brag a little

kristiandupont• 17 years ago

Absolutely right. I know a person who does that and it almost feels as if he is deliberately trying to break rapport. Does anybody have any idea how to inform this person without being patronizing?

palish• 17 years ago

You can't. I have the same problem ("being Mr Logic"), and my girlfriend points that out to me a lot. Each time she does, it feels like she's accusing me of actively trying to be that way -- of being broken. She's not, of course. That's just how it feels to Mr Logic.

And maybe people like us are broken, in a sense. It feels like I'm missing something everyone else around me seems to have: an ability to immediately understand the reason why people phrase things the way they do.

The person you're referring to probably knows he has the problem and has forgotten about it. If you want to point it out to him, pretend like you're pointing out an embarrasing bad habit, like picking his nose. So you probably want to tell him in private, etc. Also he'll probably deny having the problem. Let him deny it. Just tell him specific examples of what you've noticed. The more specific, the better. A video would be ideal. (Not that I think you'll get one; I'm just trying to convey that telling him specific examples is very important, because otherwise he won't be able to make the mental leap "I have a problem" => "Here's how I fix it".)

Alex3917• 17 years ago

qeek• 17 years ago

It reminded me of a conversation I had a few months ago:

Buddy: I did bungee jumping last summer, did you know?

Me: "umm... all right?"

...

uncomfortable silence

Faking enthusiasm is something I find very difficult to do, but I guess I should at least start trying.

Also, how to stop assuming that other people are not sincere when they show interest to me?

zhyder• 17 years ago

The problem is that your friend will eventually ask the same question to an honest person, or otherwise discover that $25-30 is really the widespread going rate for the coat. And then feel even worse (especially if she actually overpaid for the coat and lost the chance to return it within 30 days). By making yourself likable, you're potentially reducing the long-term happiness of the friend. Of course this example is about a frivolous thing, but what if the original question was "what do you think of my startup idea"?

There are some cases where being brutally honest has no long-term benefit so you might as well white lie, but it takes too much mental overhead to figure that out at every such stage in every conversation. I hate it when people default to always white lying.

I default to being honest, to the extent that I respond truthfully to the dreaded "does this make me look fat" question. I hope we can still be friends.

silentbicycle• 17 years ago

> but it takes too much mental overhead to figure that out at every such stage in every conversation

This is the heart of the matter, I think. A large part of the brain's power seems to be tuned for sensing status and other social friend-or-foe questions. It's a genuinely complex problem, and it's hard to do while you're also thinking hard about something else.

(The flip side of this is that sometimes it's useful to anthropomorphize the elements of the problem, and that explaining a problem to someone else often brings out aspects you've overlooked.)

3pt14159• 17 years ago

The one about smiling is soooo true. Same with laughter. Has to be real, but it really does help.

sfphotoarts• 17 years ago

Handing out $100 bills is another way... This all seems more about projecting or acting the role of a likable person than actually being genuine. There are times though when that is necessary, interviews I suppose.

mhb3• 17 years ago

Except that the cause and effect of smiling, for example, is not unidirectional. Not only do people smile when they're happy, but forcing yourself to smile makes you happier.

dawson3• 17 years ago

I don't see how by changing the way you really are or act, and pretending to be impressed or entertained is going to help you make friends? Because, you're not being "you", and surely that's the whole point? I want people to like me for me, and I want to be friends with people who I sincerely find entertaining and interesting. If you're pretending, well... might as well join Twitter and make yourself feel better with hundreds of followers (Friends?) who don't really give two shits about what you say, if they even read what you're saying (doubtful). If it makes you feel better about yourself... I guess.

mechanical_fish• 17 years ago

you're not being "you", and surely that's the whole point?

You need to be careful with the notion of "just being you". That phrase is based on a specific conception of what "you" means: "You" are a Platonic ideal personality that exists independently of its instantiation, your physical body and its actions are a window on this One True You, and the best modes of expression are the ones through which the One True You is most clearly visible.

But this is just a mental model. And it's not always the most useful model. Here's a different model: "You" are a product of your environment as well as your mind. When you're writing on HN you're a different person than when you're writing for Twitter. When you're writing for business you use a different voice than when writing for pleasure.

When you make a deliberate effort to smile, to enjoy people and be entertained, you are a different person. You're not necessarily just impersonating a happy and interested person -- you might be surprised to find that you genuinely are happy and interested! You'll have a lot more friends. You'll get better practice at making friends. Various feedback mechanisms will kick in: biological ones, social ones. You'll be a different person than you are when you sit alone in your apartment.

There is nothing insincere about having multiple aspects of your personality, cultivating them, and applying different ones in different situations. We all do this. Humans are far too complicated to be constrained by a single persona, and our behavior and mood is conditioned on environment and on training.

dawson3• 17 years ago

"There is nothing insincere about having multiple aspects of your personality, cultivating them, and applying different ones in different situations."

I agree, and I never said that, I was talking about faking these emotions, pretending to be interested in someone or that they're amusing, when they're in fact not. This is insincere, and it's not being "you".

ambulatorybird• 17 years ago

Being likeable and making friends aren't necessarily the same thing. For example, as a teacher I try to be likeable to my students so that they have a more pleasant and interesting time in the classroom. But I don't try to be their friend, because then they might be tempted to try to take advantage.

Conversely, with my friends I am often not all that likeable, but they understand that it's just part of my gruff, honest personality.

dawson3• 17 years ago

"Being likeable and making friends aren't necessarily the same thing"

Good point, thank you.

briancooley• 17 years ago

It's called being sociable.

Nobody will develop a deep friendship with you in the first few minutes of conversation. On the other hand, you might miss out on potential friendships if you are aloof and off-putting in the first few minutes of interaction.

Just get something started and iterate. The relationship may never amount to more than an acquaintance, but at least give it a chance to get off the ground.

christofd• 17 years ago

It's not that easy. Just being nice will probably not make you gain any friends. It's a "mixed-martial art", a combination of stuff: the right socio-economic status, the right age bracket, the right education, looks, health, personal taste... everything.

Advice to just smile at people and they will like you is bogus. There aren't any tricks... and if there are any, they are not this simple.

quizbiz• 17 years ago

Does anyone have any tips for remembering peoples' names? I hate the fact that it takes me forever to learn names. As soon as the conversation moves beyond, "hi I'm ____" I forget. It kills me inside.

mhb3• 17 years ago

The usual advice is to create a wacky visual association when you hear the person's name. Ideally the visual association would relate the name to a feature of the person.

So maybe you meet someone named Henry. You would imagine that there is a hen on top of his head laying an egg.

Now you just need to remember to create the initial imagery whenever meeting someone.

barry-cotter• 17 years ago

Address them by name every so often during the intrnoductory conversation. Look at them while repeating their name in your head.

sho• 17 years ago

While good-natured, this article is suspiciously generic and I question its applicability to what I would consider the "hacker" stereotype, unless what you are wishing to "hack" are social barriers. Let me run through the list:

1. Smile

This sounds like something very easy to get wrong.

Some people smile a lot; some don't. Some people smile too much. One should not be afraid of smiling, but smile only according to how much is natural or merited. I would question any conscious attempt to modify or fake this outward emotional indicator.

2. Be easily impressed, entertained, and interested.

How easily? I've made the mistake before of pretending to be interested in whatever random stream of crap is currently amusing $whoever. I am inevitably rewarded by being forwarded plenty of lolcats, dumb videos, or 3rd-hand "memes", and on and on. I usually have to end up blocking such people.

Look, intelligent people are not easily amused. If you want to fool the receptionist into thinking you're "fun" then go right ahead and pretend she's interesting but you'll regret it.

3. Have a friendly, open, engaged demeanor.

Again I am not sure if I am reading a friend-making manual or a salesperson's guide. I have never made a friend because they leant towards me, nodded, and said "uh-huh". What kind of ego-stroking nonsense is this?

I'll stop there; this list is ridiculous. Who here has ever made a real friend based upon any of these principles, or even evaluated someone highly because of them? Hell, some of my best friends are complete pricks. But at least they're interesting.

Play Mr Light-and-breezy all you want if you want to engage shallow people in profoundly boring and meaningless conversations. But if you hate all that crap, why invite it?

At a previous job it seemed the whole company talked about Rugby all the time. Seriously, 50% or more of all conversations were about, or started from, Rugby. "Do you follow the rugby?" "I'm obsessed!" etc etc et fucking cetera. People would ask me if I'd seen the weekend game or followed a team or X, Y or Z and I'd just say "I'm not interested in Rugby". That shut them up good and quick. But you know what? I didn't care, because I am not interested in Rugby.

The same principle could apply to this whole list. Who are you trying to fool? And why do you want people to like you, anyway? If you're smart, other smart people will recognise it, and you'll accrete friends. As long as you meet some people, and there is some worthwhile thing about you, you can hardly avoid striking up friendships. And they will be real friendships, based on merit and natural kinship.

Interesting people seek out and find other interesting people. Forget all this "smile and look into each others' eyes" crap, just be interesting! Sure you might not win the adoration of the celebrity gossip brigade but trust me, you don't want to talk to them anyway.

This article is titled wrong: it should be "How to be superficially likable". It's missing the accompanying articles of "Why would you want to be superficially likable" and "The cost-benefit analysis of making boring people think you are interested in them". You might well have some benefits in mind (those receptionists can be quite cute, after all) but it's hardly a foregone conclusion that "the more inane chitchat you make, the happier you are".

philh• 17 years ago

Why do I want to be superficially likable? Because I meet many people for only brief periods of time; not enough for them to learn how deep and interesting I may be. At the same time, I don't want them to think that I'm boring, or that I didn't like them. Maybe we'll meet again in future. Being superficially likable is social lubricant.

I agree you can't forge deep friendships on the basis of anything other than mutual compatibility, and trying to fake that is doomed to failure. But casual friendships are open to hacking, and that's what the advice in this article is about. Casual friendships can also be the starting point for deeper ones, so messing them up is probably inadvisable.

dkarl• 17 years ago

The recommendations are misconceived, but they are useful if interpreted properly. All of those things happen naturally if you feel a certain way about the person and the situation. If I am not getting along with someone the way I want, I ask myself, "How am I acting with this person, and why? How do I feel about this person and situation that makes me act this way?"

Whether the feeling is boredom, distaste, fear, or inferiority, once it is identified, the next question is whether the feeling is appropriate and whether my desire to get along with the person is appropriate and realistic. If my desires are inappropriate (such as when trying to get a phone number from a woman I dislike) or my feelings are inappropriate (such as when I feel anxious in a situation that isn't dangerous) then I concentrate on dealing with the inappropriate desires or feelings.

If both the feeling and the desire are appropriate, then that's a different situation that requires acting. This is rarely strictly necessary when socializing, though it might be an optimization. In general, most social difficulties in social situations are best dealt with honestly.

Your post seems to say that there's no point in trying to be friendly with people when it doesn't come naturally. I don't think that's always true. Everyone has some leftover knee-jerk reactions that aren't consistent with what they have learned rationally. I often find myself behaving rudely or distantly toward people I want to be friends with, because the way I learned in adolescence to intuitively categorize people as "potential friend" or "probable enemy" or "waste of time" don't work reliably now (in a different environment and a different time in life.) Paying attention to how "likable" my behavior is helps me realize when my adolescent gut has categorized someone as an enemy when my rational mind knows he is a smart and decent person.

kubrick• 17 years ago

"Trait Transfer" is an interesting idea, one that had not particurly occured to me in my 45 years on Earth. I'm gonna work on that one.

Making Yourself Likable

Related Stories