The more important question isn't "are you correct," it's "does it matter to be correct right now?"
Maybe you do actually know better than everyone else, but why do you have to prove it to others? You can just quietly make your argument and shut up. It's their loss, and people may remember that you were right.
Maybe it's about an important decision at work, but if your correctness pisses everyone off, no one is going to listen to you again. You've won the battle but lost the war.
> You can just quietly make your argument and shut up.
This is generally the right approach, unless you're on the hook for the consequences of whatever the group decides. Continuing to argue a point that you've already made isn't likely to change any minds that weren't open to it the first time you said it. I think that's even in the HN guidelines.
If you're the one responsible for a decision, listen to what others have to say but if you still feel strongly that your contrary view is correct then go with that and live with the responsibility.
I like this answer. For me it's not about showing others that you're correct. Instead, it's about feeling like you're being heard/acknowledged.
I'm not trying to be the "lone free thinker". But if I see a hivemind, I occasionally insert my opinion with the intention of having a different perspective be recognized.
It's important to feel heard, but an issue in an argument is that no one is being heard and you're yelling past each other. You don't feel heard by more strenuously arguing your point; you make a calm, genuine effort to hear them, and then hopefully they'll reciprocate the favor. At the very least, you break out of the doom loop and walk away.
Yeah, it's just narcissism. Spiritual bypassing. The people who have really figured it out feel no need to tell others, and simply live quiet, decent lives.
By all means, continue learning how to enjoy yourself alone, and stop feeling like you "should" be more like everyone else. That's actually healthy.
At the same time, though, consider the possibility that there may be more for you outside your house, and you just haven't found it yet. You don't have to force yourself to be social, but try different things that sound like they might be appealing to you.
It doesn't have to be either/or. Keep enjoying your solitude, but budget a small amount of your energy to exploring in case it unexpectedly pays off.
I remember a time around 2010 where I benefitted from social media, Facebook in particular. It wasn't addictive, I used it for 15 minutes at the end of the day to catch up with what foreign family was doing, we would organize real-life parties through Facebook, share photos of those events, tag each other. If you traveled internationally it was easy to keep in touch with people you met along the way.
I'm afraid we will never get to that point anymore but I do think there was a point in society where social media was a positive addition.
It could still be like that if there was no opaque algorithm and even better if there was no endless feed to doomscroll. If you only got alerts for messages directed at you and otherwise had to actively visit a person's page to check up on them. But that wouldn't be as engaging (ie addictive) and there wouldn't be nearly as many opportunities for ads or even the collection of data to drive those ads.
> There is a diversity of physical attractiveness, innate and learned social grace, social environment, and phenotypic variability in psychosocial capacity
I say this with respect: the kind of attitude you're describing does more to isolate people than anything mentioned in the original post.
Bitterness or even just muted disappointment will drive people away more than any of the factors you mentioned, by a factor of 10. Have any of you gone on a date with someone who looked great on paper, but seemed unhappy to be there or resentful towards you? That's the ultimate connection killer.
You can have all sorts of setbacks, but if you're chill and have a good attitude people will want you around (barring a few assholes, but it's important not to worry about them). OTOH even if you're very good looking, no one will want to approach you if your vibes are bad or inward facing.
Respect for developmental diversity does more to isolate people?
Because it seems like you and several other people are projecting a lot of “trauma
is my identity” ideas on me that aren’t in what I wrote.
What I wrote is that telling people “get good, I did” is really unhelpful. Put more work and thought into how you try to connect with people whose experience is very different from yours.
Why do you assume my experience is so different? There are tons of people on forums like these who've dealt with extreme shyness and severe problems, yet managed to persevere. Your struggles might not be nearly as unique as you think.
I am assuming this because you are projecting all over me and not distinguishing between me and the people I was making the point about. I was pretty clear in my comment that I do not struggle with shyness. Some people experience debilitating levels of shyness, and some people have done the work necessary to understand the perspective of those people, but in my experience they do not communicate like you do.
People say this a lot, but I bet you’re like most of them and don’t hold your tongue whenever people misuse words related to whatever you’re passionate about.
No, I used to be a huge word nerd. Being really good at language was my identity for most of my adolescence. Now I realize "who cares" and "none of that matters."
I think the ideal solution is to spend a lot of time in the analysis phase to load your brain up with the correct context, but then be ready to throw out the overengineered solution and just build what feels right.
Don't fall prey to sunk cost fallacy. Just because you spent hours researching a PhD level topic doesn't mean you now have to use it in your project, if it's not quite the right application.
Maybe you do actually know better than everyone else, but why do you have to prove it to others? You can just quietly make your argument and shut up. It's their loss, and people may remember that you were right.
Maybe it's about an important decision at work, but if your correctness pisses everyone off, no one is going to listen to you again. You've won the battle but lost the war.
People shouldn't be that way, but they are.
reply