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Kawoomba comments on Open Thread, October 1-15, 2012 - Less Wrong Discussion
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As long as I'm demanding that LessWrong provide me with the answers to my personal problems, I find myself becoming more and more misanthropic as time goes on. I genuinely like only about five people out of everyone I've ever met, two of whom are family. I feel like almost everyone else is borderline homogeneous, originality seems extremely scarce and I'm bored whenever I try to talk to most people.
Context: I'm in college and not making friends. This is largely because I don't drink or follow or play in sports, I think. I'm bad at small talk. It's also because I'm unhappy with lots of what's perceived as normal around here (eg the subtle dehumanization of women).
I don't really know what to do. I believe humans are social animals and that I'd be happier with friends, but at the same time I really don't like any of the people who I talk to here. Any social advice at all would be useful for me, and anything that deals with the specifics of my situation doubly so. Misanthropy is obviously bad, but I don't know how to transition from my dislike of most people to becoming friends with them, nor am I positive that it's the right thing for me to do in this situation.
If I may offer some advice: Be careful not to rationalize social anxiety with "they are homogeneous, they dehumanize women, they aren't as original as I am, they bore me". That's externalizing an internal problem.
There are people of considerable intellectual caliber who have no qualms engaging in random small talk (a required skill in many career paths), and you'll only find out who they are once you get past that barrier.
No simple solution, but nosce te ipsum applies.
How should I distinguish between these types of people? Is there a way that doesn't require me making small talk with lots of people who I don't like?
Perhaps start by actively distinguishing between "people I actively dislike" and "people who I don't actively dislike, and am assigning the dislike label to based solely on my prior that I dislike most people".
Also, in regard to inauthenticity, do you regard making small talk as inauthentic, even if you are saying true things? For example, is it inauthentic to pay someone a compliment if you honestly believe the compliment, but are only making it as a way to start a conversation and find out whether you like them? If yes, I suggest you taboo "inauthentic" and explain why you don't like that approach. I suspect that exploring that label more generally may be fertile ground.
More generally, do you have a problem with people who are not bothered by inauthentic conversation, but also are happy to have authentic conversations? If so, I suggest asking whether this is an area where you should work to cultivate tolerance of tolerance.
To distinguish these people, I would ask what sorts of conversations you consider authentic (again, taboo that word!), and think about what sorts of authentic conversations are easier to start up than others, and what sorts of settings would be appropriate contexts for those conversations. To pick an example from elsewhere in the thread, gaming stores and clubs / groups might be a good one, because it's easy to start a conversation about what types of games people enjoy and why, or to discuss strategy for a particular game. In other words: there's an external reason that makes the authentic conversation on topic.
If you're having trouble finding such groups, have you considered making one? Start a gaming club. Start a LW meetup. Is there an athiest group on campus already?