"Give as good as you get"... okay, confused non-native English speaker googles... "If you give as good as you get, you are prepared to treat people as badly as they treat you and to fight for what you believe.". Aha. I actually know that, it's just that I never ever felt the need to do that, I basically treat everybody as my equals. No, actually I lie, I have felt the temptation to snark on people I thought weaker, but I felt so guilty at the prospect of hurting their feelings and reinforcing their low self-esteem position, I just avoid these people altogether. Especially if they admire me or look up to me, I feel very tempted to bring them further down, and I find that side of me repulsive. Perhaps I am Completely Missing The Point and I should go on and verbally abuse weaklings?
Andl, of course the point isn't to refute... unless you're on a formal debate, but given time constraints pointing out the bullshit in the opposing party's argument, if they are twisty enough, can waste so much time you don't get to develop yours. That's a dilemma I constantly face in Debate Club, and I'm conflicted about the loss of credibility bullshitting back wittily but inaccurately may cause...
Back to "friendly" socializing: In general, I kinda suck at saying stuff I know isn't true, and going for someone's masculinity or for other sources of their self-esteem is something that really doesn't come naturally to me. Back in the old nerdy days I used to clam up in indignation (or sheepish shocked sadness depending on how much I knew the person appreciated me: I mean, someone who's a true friend, and is loyal, and helpful, and nice, and suddenly out of the blue and for no reason at all Attacks Your Weak Point For Massive Damage). Nowadays I just use a wary "are you fucking kidding me" face and, if the other person keeps it up, some dry, deadpan put down heavily inspired in Batman and Quirrelmort (I only wish I could emulate the level of threat post-Azkaban Quirrelmort exuded). (Yes, much of my social repertoire is taken directly from fictional characters.)
But that's not the right way to go about it. I need to be more familiar, closer, and faster. Deadpan snarking is a good defense mechanism, but makes you appear stuck up, pompous, and with a superiority complex, and that's not the image I want to give...
So, do we have news of anyone throughly exploring "ribbing" and the mechanisms thereof?
The first 2 seasons of the TV show Entourage seems to be a good examination of how extraverts do teasing (plus it is a lot of fun to watch). Since the show is inspired by real people (actor Mark Wahlberg and some of his friends and associates) and since every episode has at least one famous Hollywood personality playing themselves, it seems to hew closer to real life than most scripted TV does.
Followup to Recovering Insufferable Genius
So, we've been talking a mighty amount on avoiding and understanding the common pitfalls and mistakes that plague most human minds for various biological, evolutionary and social reasons. This knowledge is supposed to be used for the sake of learning how to think proprely and clearly about the world, and for the sake of making the right choices, and making them quickly. Both blades of the weapon can have a dramatic effect on how we interact with people. Behaviors that would appear absurd and annoying to us would suddenly gain a history, reasons for their existence until now and even for their continued existence. The incomprehensible people around us suddenly become fairly simple and predictable, to the point that you might, every now and then, understand them better than they do themselves. They also become all that much more interesting. You find yourself observing them, gently pushing their buttons as you eagerly wait for what they are going to do next. Of course, this applies just as much to you yourself. You see your own past in a very different light, and Akrasia remains difficult to escape. But at least now you know what you're doing wrong.
Anyway, you've discovered the pleasures of socializing, and you've even acquired an "edge" over those who relied on intuition ever since they were young. What I want us to discuss here is how to reach not just some "proficiency" in social navigation, but actual social excellence. We've collected research on how to be happy, on how to confront organizational problems, etc. I think it would be nice if we also collected data on how to be polite. How to make one's company agreeable and interesting. How to make oneself elegant and glamorous. How to get people to do what you want, and then thank you for it.
Some slight bits of this are approached by PUA methods, but those are very specific in goal and scope, and require a set of skills that can be far from adequate in other contexts (that, and flirting with any and everybody all the time is just creepy and makes you look like a supervillain).
Of course, at its core, social grace is nothing but "intelligent application of the Golden Rule". So, with insight and purpose, everything should be possible... But that's a pretty huge ideaspace, and in day-to-day interaction you often don't have that much time to figure our what to do. Of course, there's rote behavior, protocol, that allows you to free brainspace for what's actually important, but too much of that and it can become blatant.
So... anyone know any actual research on the subject? We can also use some armchair philosophy, it's not like we eschew creative individual thinking here, but some backed-by-evidence stuff is very nice to have.