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Because people can tell when you don't, even if they're too polite to mention it.
That's why, btw, "How To Win Friends And Influence People" advises cultivating a genuine interest in people, and PUAs advise more or less the same thing. By becoming a connoisseur of the finer (in the sense of more finely-graded) distinctions between people, and cultivating your curiosity about "what people are like", you gain more enjoyment.
And genuinely enjoying a person's company is the hardest, most expensive signal to fake... which might be why people evolved to value it so much.
I know a couple who embody this principle, btw -- Garin and Vanessa Bader. I met them at a series of marketing workshops, actually. By their second time there, practically everybody would line up to talk to them during breaks. Not because they were presenters or anything, but just because they radiated such enjoyment to everyone they spoke with, that people could hardly help but want to spend more time with them.
The way Vanessa explained it to me, when I interviewed her for one of my own CD products, was that people are so constantly worried about what other people are going to think of them, that they no longer even notice. But the moment they encounter someone who genuinely accepts them as they are, without any judgment, they suddenly feel so much better that they can't help but want to be around you. So, she said, she and Garin just always acknowledge and accept everyone.
And that is the difference between these very charismatic (and fairly successful) people, and people who go around judging whether other people are living up to their standards. ;-)
(Fair disclaimer: I don't claim to have personally reached anything remotely near G&V's level of nonjudgmental acceptance, but I can definitely see why it'd be a good thing for me to aspire to. And I've occasionally attempted to practice it in specific situations, with some small success.)
Allow me to express polite but strong skepticism on this point. I would be very much surprised to find that they accept literally EVERYONE. Do they acknowledge panhandlers the same way as attendees to marketing conferences? How about leading politicians from the opposite party as theirs? Religious leaders from a different religion?
It's easy to say "just genuinely accept everyone" when you don't even see most of the people around you.
In fact, really acknowledging and accepting -everyone- would probably ruin them in short order as they would find all their time and resources wasted on people that they are quite right to filter. No one has the time and resources to -actually- do what they are advocating.
It's empty advice.
EDIT: fixed some typos after having a nice, stimulating cup of coffee.
I doubt they meant literally EVERYONE. I'm guessing Garin and Vanessa just meant that they're in the top percent of non-judgmentally accepting people. Just as if someone says to me 'I get along with everyone,' I don't interpret it as meaning they get along with literally every single person on the planet, I interpret it as something weaker like 'Of the people I know, I get along with almost all of them, and have a good chance of clicking with random people I meet.'
You make a valid point that the comfort zone of even the most tolerant people is unlikely to extend to random panhandlers, and if Garin and Vanessa spend 99% of their time with self help gurus and marketing conference attendees, they're probably overestimating their acceptance-ness.
I don't think this is fatal to pjeby's main point, though; it sounds likely to me that a lot of people who dislike small talk could probably improve their social hit rate by turning up their acceptance-ness knob.
(Edited to fix Garin's (not Gavin's!) name. Note to self: read what's on the screen, not what I think is on the screen.)
At the time of those conferences, they spent 99% of their time on cruise ships, working as entertainers. So I they spent a lot more time with tourists and ship staff than with their internet marketing colleagues.
And I find it difficult to imagine that they didn't mean it. I had the impression that for Vanessa at least (I haven't interviewed Garin for anything, at least not yet), it was a matter of principle.
I don't mean that they're saints or that I don't think they'd ever have a bad day and lose their temper or anything, but I do believe they sincerely look for the (potential) good in literally everyone they encounter, even if there's some distinct possibility that they might miss it or that it might not be there to be found.
Think of it like being a rationalist aspiration to always tell the truth and never self-decieve: setting that as your aspiration does not mean you always can or will accomplish it, but at the same time, it doesn't mean your aspiration should be downgraded to "being in the top percentage" of truth-telling and non self-deception!
Ah, fair enough.
!
It also doesn't mean you get to claim that you always tell the truth and never self decieve.
Having known some people who made "accepting everyone" and "being non-judgemental" a point of honour and seen the results, I find it very hard to believe that is possible to be successful and really live up to those ideals. I also don't think they're very good ideals.