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Ask HN: Help with Social Skills?

3 points by sambapa ↗ HN
What is the best way to learn and practice social skills? I know the generic advice "just go out and meet people", but when I do it I feel like I have to solve a partial differential equation when I have problems with adding fractions. And you can't go back to kindergarten... So what is the proper way to do it?

12 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 34.7 ms ] thread
kstenerud
Simplest way is to hire an expert. Look for a social skills coach.
DamonHD
"Simplest"? Some (maybe most) of us have never found or hired any such person, and doing so has its own stresses and inhibitions...
kstenerud
Most have never hired a lawyer either. But it's either that or try to learn as you go, with all the dangers and pain and suffering that entails.

Hiring an expert is simple by comparison:

1. Research a few experts in the domain.

2. Go for consultations (paid or otherwise) with 3 of them.

3. Hire the one that you're most comfortable with.

DamonHD
Get out there gently. Not everyone has to be a massive extrovert, and certainly not all at once. Some of it gets easier with gentle practice for some of us... And maybe read some of those words (and videos) online by people who know they have trouble with social stuff and how they make it work at least some of the time.

(I think of myself as fairly a introverted technical, but found myself putting down 'social' as one of my key skills on a grant application last week. And I may just have been out nightclubbing last night, not exactly being a wallflower, ho hum...)

pestatije
what for?

everybody out there socialising are doing it either because they like it or for some other goal...you obviously hope to join the second camp, so what is it?

sambapa
I have a high libido, so gf would be nice.
cadme
If you have a hard time discerning and mirroring emotions this might be helpful:

emotionlab.cc

(Disclaimer: I made it)

DamonHD
Site seems broken for me (both Chrome Canary and Firefox with NoScript with all scripts temporarily allow: both on macOS, all latest versions).
cadme
Just to make sure, you are not talking about the 'No video with supported format and MIME type found', right? You have to upload your own mp4 video for it to start. I tried it on Safari and Firefox with NoScript(with temp allow) on MacOS and it seems to work, and I tried Mozilla with NoScript(with temp allow) and Internet Explorer on Windows 10 and it also works.
DamonHD
I got that MIME type issue in Firefox yes.

In Chrome there just didn't seem to be anything to do on the page: it was dead with no instructions and no clue what kind of file I was being asked to upload.

cadme
It seems to work fine on my side with Windows and MacOS using Chrome Canary. I can't find where the problem is at, but I will keep on looking for it. If I manage to find it I will try to shoot you a message, and if you can find/think of anything else feel free to contact me.
DamonHD
Feel free to send me a message showing what it should look like. I may be missing something very obvious...