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Viliam comments on Open Thread April 4 - April 10, 2016 - Less Wrong Discussion
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In telling stories about acquaintances, should I be explicit with names? It helps follow the story, makes it more personal, and follow up stories paint a better overall picture. On introductions, 'Oh, I've heard a lot about you!' is great, too. On the other hand, sometimes you end up telling stories that may be slightly embarrassing for some concerned. In being explicit with their names, you may end up making the recipient less likely to open up to you (or I would assume so: I don't remember if I ever decided to be less open to someone merely because that, even after being surprised by hearing a story back from a third person. OTOH, I did definitely think deeply about my relationship with people who have a habit of shit-talking people behind their backs.)
Any other considerations? Which would you consider more appropriate?
Depending on what level you are playing at. The safe strategy is to mention specific people only if the story reflects unilaterally positively on them.
Because even if you think the story reflects on average positively for them, you are at risk that they will calculate the averages differently than you (e.g. the embarassing part may be their very sensitive spot), or more likely, that the story may reach them in a modified form, where the embarassing parts are remembered and exaggerated, while the positive parts are left out. But still the person will say that 'this is the story you told them', and upon confrontation it will be awkward to explain that "yeah, I kinda said that, but not exactly like this, and also I said this and that" when the target person is already angry at you.
Generally, you should assume that 'the world is smaller than you expect', that is, once in a while you will learn afterwards that two random people actually know each other. Most of the time this is not the case, but when it is, it could come costly.