I’m asking this as a genuine question. The advice on this sub is typically centered around improving as a person, and I agree with most of it. But I just wonder, how come pretty objectively bad people have no problems getting friends, relationships, etc? Like I’m not blind, it’s not a case of me not viewing situations accurately, we all know of these people in real life that are total douchebags but are still not suffering from the loneliness many good-hearted people in this sub do. Why is this?
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Superficial empathy.
An excessive amount of empathy causes you to.pick up the gaps and uncomfortable moments in conversation and interaction.
You then fixate on that and spiral down. That’s basically social anxiety at its core.
Too little and you while you don’t initially connect to people because you’re obviously glib and aren’t mirroring, but since you’re not uncomfortable you keep going. And the other person unconsciously adjusts to your tempo and let’s you take the social lead, we’ll you just created your social proof and now you have the advantage.
Somewhere between these two there’s that average amount that allows for a real connection.
But if your forced to talk to someone glib and fake, don’t spend too long with them. You’ll start to go along with it.
Most people don’t care about your moral values when deciding whether to hang out, they care if you are fun.
because social skills are just that: skills. most skills are morally neutral – having/not having them is independent of being a god/bad person.
Imho being nice is a mechanism many people use to befriend others. Most people who aren’t social inadequate don’t need to heavily rely on similar strategies hence some of them show their true colors.
great point. Adding this to my list of commonalities, which til now were reserved for those of us struggling with socialising to the point it impacts our life choices. This is a valid common trait for a certain type that doesn’t experience that.
Though I would add they may be lonely, they just seem able to function socially from their own perspective and ignore any failings they might have in that.
This is why I used to drink to get past that, and I think a lot of people do use alcohol and medication to numb themselves in order to interact. That often then leads to what you mention.
It’s because they don’t care while you care too much.
I am one of those “bad people” you talk about, but before turning to the dark side I used to be a very kind of a guy. Until the day I realized it was making me stressed for nothing so I quit giving a fk 🙂
Also some families are just more antisocial, it does damage to the kids.
You reap what you sow. What you see in those types of peoples’ live is surface level. In reality, their lives aren’t as glittery as it seems on the outside.
In the long run, being a good hearted person is a boon for _you_ it’s not meant to be a boon for others. Being good hearted makes _me_ feel good. I’m nice because _I_ like being that way. I’m not nice to others so that they may like me.
I’m %100 aware of the fact that not everyone is going to be my cup of tea and that’s fine. I’ll just stick with the people who gravitate toward me and leave the ones who don’t want to be bothered alone.
Life is about gain. Let people go who never seem to have time for you. That’s a gain. Chasing after them is a loss. Engage with the people who are always in your corner. That’s a gain too.
Assholes aren’t respected, they’re just tolerated. And the people who choose them know exactly what they’re getting themselves into. That’s on them.
I’ve seen it time and time again. You don’t live your life to please others. You live it to please yourself.
Maybe I’m just a dick and just a misanthrope. But I find that there are a lot of bad people in this world and consider that they make up 90% of the population of this world. They all think alike so they’re going to be friendly with each other, until inevitably something happens, the friendship crumbles, and neither party takes responsibility or grows the fuck up. That’s been my experience.
Time to ask my high school bullies 😭😭😭
Inhibition is what stops us a lot
>Why do lots of bad people have no social difficulties?
It’s more like…why are there so many people with such low self-esteem that they are attracted to bad people?
Look at cult leaders. As much as people talk about cults as being in a situation where the followers are like frogs slowly being boiled i.e. they don’t realize how bad things are until it’s ‘too late’ when you look at death cults, like actual photos and/or video footage, it’s obvious that the leaders were batsh!t crazy off the rip. Yet they amassed a following and led people to their deaths.
Outside of cults it’s pretty much the same thing. People with stuff wrong with them (low self-esteem, cognitive disability, mental defect, mental illness, emotional immaturity, whatever) tend to be attracted to bad people because they seem ‘strong’ or ‘capable’ in whatever way they are lacking.
Because life is unfair
Because confidence is one hell of a magnet. People love confident people – for a reason of course. Confident people often seem more interesting, they seem calm and often are more of a suitable companionship for less confident people.
It’s not necessarily the case, lots of serial killers were known to be loners. And I think if it becomes known that a person did something really bad that others will usually avoid or shun that person.
But I think there are those without a sense of empathy who appear to have social skills because they don’t care about other people and therefore don’t feel anxiety about how they’re perceived.
I mean on one hand this is a generalization and not 100% true, we have to accept that first. We see what we want to see.
On the other hand, confidence tends to be a large factor. People who don’t think about their actions/consequences don’t get bogged down by all of the insecurity, shame, etc that comes with making mistakes. A lot of confident people tend to be good people, some are terrible judgemental people. It’s best not to focus on things we can’t really change or control and hope that karma will take care of the rest.
If we never put ourselves out there, no one can ever really react or relate with us. We have to project ourselves a bit in order to have social success. People who are constantly interacting or open to interaction are going to have more opportunities to connect with others.
Consider that those “objectively bad” people might be more subjectively bad to you than to others. What would you consider bad?
Is having a bunch of people and loved ones around you some sort of desired prize? We are lead to think so, sure. I’d rather have the right people around me
some “bad people” are socially adept. some aren’t. there isn’t a connection.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis
How good of a person you are is not really related to how successful you are socially. But most people don’t like to accept that, instead they like to give feel-good comments (i.e “treat women nice and you’ll get a girlfriend”)
“Selection Bias”
Honestly, we remember and talk about the bad people who seem to easily fit in with society. In reality plenty more don’t. For every Sociopath or Narcicist that becomes a CEO, or manages to keep a rich social life despite hurting everyone around them, there’s 1000 people who fail to hide their BS and spend their life bouncing around dead end jobs while they are steadily ostracized by everyone who knows them.
You can be funny, smart, attractive, and fun without being a good person
Socializing, while being relatively safe compared to most things, is still a dangerous activity when taken to the extreme. Celebrities are more likely to be victims of all kinds of crimes simply because of their visibility to criminals compared to the average person. Choosing to be hyper social is a risky decision, so hyper social people are more likely to be risk takers and do things that the average person would be afraid of doing. These risks they take may make them seem like bad people and being a celebrity means that all your worst decisions in your life are easily viewable which may contort the public view into thinking that people are worse than they really are, sometimes.
Hello there. Here is one way to framework this paradox of yours… because isn’t being a good person the best social skills you could have?!
Social skills are different than prosocial skills.
People care more about money and status than how you got it.
People can get more money and social status faster by cutting corners.
People with money will give some of it to people who will cut corners for them.
This causes externalities that fall on the powerless and just, who can’t or won’t put the externalities on others.
It is also amoral to not provide for yourself or family, so getting that money means partaking in externality distribution.
People can’t be aware of their externalty dumping because they would be depressed always and fired for being sad.
So we have social skills and positive affect being selected for and passed on to children.
Prosocial skills are nice, but more exploitable, and not recognized as the skills to have to be good.
In short, who is going to win the war, the side with superior morals or the side who fights cheap and dirty?
So, I’d say, in summary, the reason is a general lack of analysis, and love of food and shelter.
First of all, rotten people love other rotten people – they think the same, and they understand each other’s ways etc. Also some people are sociopaths, they know how to manipulate people. Eventually people discover they are being played, so the sociopath moves on to other victims and there is nothing a former victim can do because they are being slandered and blamed for everything. And then sometimes bad people are just too rich and powerful, and have their connections etc. It just means people know they need them and can’t afford to have them as an enemy. So everyone else adapts to them. They also reward loyalty – look at Trump. But as soon as those benefits are gone, so are their “friends”. It’s not that people genuinely like them (unless that’s the way they are too), it’s just that they are willing to adapt to them. So of course, if you don’t have those benefits to bestow on others, or the cunning to manipulate them, then they are not going to bother adapting to you.
Well first off, define what a objectively bad person is.
Is a Lion a bad Animal because it kills other animals in the wild to survive and feed it‘s own family and babies?
If yes, that means we are all bad people, evil animals and sinners, including the people that decided to eat vegetarian or vegan. (Agroculture kills a lot of animals and takes away their habitat)
I think part of the answer to your question is dependent on an „lack-of-understanding“ from the individuals that describe themselves as „good-hearted people“, and lack of understanding just means there are levels to the game of how much one understands about others and oneself.
Just because someone in your life acted like a douchebag in front of you, or has become a douchebag according to most societal/your environment defined standards, doesn’t mean he/she actually is to everyone. Also social skills are as the name suggest – „skills“. you need to have a certain degree of skills, understanding and experience, to be not or less „lonely“ and have no/less social difficulties.
So there really are not much bad people out there, it‘s really just dependent on the observer’s perspective, level of understanding and judgement.
But let’s say psychopaths or truly bad/evil people, that are in a really bad vibe in that specific, temporarily episode of their life, I doubt they have no social difficulties and they also don’t necessarily see themselves as „garbage or a bad person.“ maybe they even think they are „good-hearted people“ or they actually are satisfied with the low amount of social satisfaction they have. Often times they don’t think that far ahead or learned to shutdown their conscience and not think about it and reflect on it, or are simply in a destructive vibe, where they have nothing to lose, and therefore can be confident.
The more/better you can stop thinking alongside those terms, categories and stereotypes in judging others or situations, ironically the better, social interactions become and get. You are literally holding yourself back, by thinking a certain thing about others and attaching etiquettes to yourself and others 😄, it‘s mostly our ego saying „i know already all about you and who you are in Life.“ when really that’s just an illusion and a wrong thought/idea. We have no idea. That’s why: ask questions be genuinely interested in what others have to say, practice the skill of how to professionally listen to others and nod. Body language, being funny, storytelling, how to trust others, how to not care what others think, how to use silence or overcome silent moments, how to give others or yourself the space we need etc etc. there’s so much to learn always.👍