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GabrielDuquette comments on Mitigating Social Awkwardness - Less Wrong
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Most of the comments I see on LW regarding social difficulty sound like they're coming from rather nice people who are under-gifted with social graces.
Are there any of you out there who have problems because you can't bring yourselves to be nice? Maybe you're even actively mean to people, and you don't like this about yourself, but you don't know how to stop, so you mostly keep people at a distance? I'd like to hear from you.
I may qualify in some respects. I would say my biggest difficulty is that I often cannot make myself even pretend to be interested for a few minutes in what most people have to talk about. It is conceivable that I could carry such a conversation if I tried hard enough, which is why I tentatively answer your question in the affirmative. I am not sure I can do it though. I have a very difficult time paying attention to conversation that does not interest me.
How do you show your disinterest? Is this inability interfering with your goals (and I count "not worrying about interacting with people, regardless of desired outcome" as a goal)?
I hope the worst thing that I do is talk too little. It is possible I show other signs of being bored or even exasperated. I avoid some conversations, hopefully its rarely obvious that I do this. It does not interfere too much with my goals, I do fine career-wise. I do feel uncomfortable in some situations that "should" feel pretty normal, such as while trying to make small-talk with a neighbor while our children play at the playground. There is nothing obvious at stake here, but you never know when your relationship with a neighbor could become important.
This is roughly what I tell myself in those situations: "I'm genuinely not interested in what this person is saying and it's not my job to be magnanimous about it, nor do I need to be rude. I cannot manufacture interests. I do not need to get along with or be friends with everyone. I have friends and I am interested in the things they say." Owning the truth of how you feel, regardless of its effect on others, is immensely powerful.
You honestly don't sound like you have the problem I was asking about: compulsive meanness.