One of the most upvoted and rewarded posts I’ve seen on this sub was about how people don’t care if you’re interesting, just if you’re interested in them. I’ll link it: [https://www.reddit.com/r/socialskills/comments/kqaiow/if\_you\_think\_you\_are\_boring\_read\_this/](https://www.reddit.com/r/socialskills/comments/kqaiow/if_you_think_you_are_boring_read_this/)
But is that really the case? I fit in that boat and feel like people are gonna see me as creepy or desperate, when I’m not really either.
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Be funny and talkative. That’s it.
Creepy people do creepy things. Desperate people do desperate things. Interesting people do interesting things.
If you try a new hobby and talk to people doing that hobby, they consider themselves interesting probably, and youre doing the interesting thing theyre doing. So youre interesting
What are you looking for from those people?
If it’s a deep connection and a real relationship, they will need way more than just your asking them small-talk questions and showing interest in their hobbies/interests. I’m not going to sit there and read that whole post or all the comments, but it comes off to me as one of those things that’s like a self-help pep talk. Those get upvotes and rewards before people go out and try those things, because what is said makes them feel good and gives them hope–not because it works.
It’s not that it doesn’t work, but it sounds like the type of thing you’d tell people who are new on the job at a brand new workplace–not the type of person who is trying to find the love of their life or a really good group of friends, which are both way more important than being liked by my co-workers, to me.
In other words, that advice is for shallow relationships/conversations or the very beginning attempts at forming a real relationship. And people like me just fine in those circumstances a lot of the time. But where things fall apart is when they eventually realize we don’t have certain things they want in common or I don’t fit certain societal expectations they have for people my age or I’m not good-looking enough and so on and so forth. For me, it tends to feel like setting myself up for rejection at a later date.
Also, to circle back around to my point about “small-talk questions.” Tons of people view “what do you do for fun” as small talk. Lots of introverts and people who are more focused on intellectual interests or getting shit done do not want to hear that question. I know I don’t.
I want to be friends we people who are interesting because after I’m done talking about myself, I want to know what’s to know what’s interesting about you.