Over the years, I’ve learned most of the social skills I missed out on as a kid, but I’ve grown in my own direction and I can’t ever completely hide that.
Being overtly different from the people you meet puts one in danger of ostracism.
Over time I’ve found a few ways to reduce the likelihood of this outcome.
People are psychologically geared to live in small tribes. Whenever we meet strangers, they are not truly people in our eyes.
Thus, the importance of initial impressions.
This is the time in which you are either grouped into the ‘insider’ or ‘outsider’ bin.
Once a person you have met has succeeded in establishing an empathy bond with you, you can begin to gradually relax, but at first, a single misstep can end in ostracism. You have to establish that you’re someone who can be sympathized with.
-Always eat meals with the people you’re living/working with if possible.
Humans instinctually form communal bonds when they eat together.
Eat what they’re eating, even if it tastes horrible, at least for the first few months.
This is the easiest and most effective way not to get ostracized.
-If you are offered some food, a ride, whatever—never refuse, even if you don’t want or need it. Even if the one who offers isn’t your favorite person. To accept is to become a person in their eyes and a member of the community.
Helping others makes people feel good. By extension, they will feel better about you.
When younger, I interpreted what people were saying much more literally. I got in trouble countless times by offending people who were just trying to be nice.
-With members of the opposite sex who are close to your age, never, ever try to ignore them. Both males and females will subconsciously feel rejected, even if there’s no attraction.
Courteous attention and some polite conversation can prevent what could otherwise cause the worst sort of social tensions.
Females especially, are prone to mobilizing all their friends and boyfriends against you if they feel you’ve given them the cold shoulder. And they will nearly always succeed in kicking you out.
This is one of the most common ways I’ve gotten myself ostracized.
Because of the general negative social feedback I got, I didn’t realize until my late teens/early twenties that women found me attractive and were trying to flirt or just trying to feel personally validated by receiving attention from a man they found attractive.
-Keep divergent interests in sci-fi/fantasy, computer games, any unusual hobbies concealed until you’ve known people for a few months. Anything nerdly or out of the ordinary that’s put fragrantly on display right away will cause people to judge you quickly.
-Show familiarity with their favorite brands, TV shows, bands, etc. Go on wikipedia if necessary.
I generally don’t research the group’s belonging tokens online because it’s usually not necessary to achieve the bare minimum of avoiding expulsion. Besides, I don’t want to clutter my mind with that stuff. Worse, one can come across as a douche or a soulless walking encyclopedia if you know the requisite information but clearly aren’t enthusiastic about it.
But wiki-clicking is worth considering if the stakes are particularly high.
-If you see public opinion turning against you, control the damage as best you can and make an exit plan.
Once you’ve overstayed your welcome, things will get ugly.
This one took some years to sink into my head. Socially inept, I would always think that things would just proceed normally, willfully ignoring or missing all the little warning signs that people drop.
I eventually stopped lying to myself and formed an axiom: If you are not seen as part of the group, the group will devise a way to eject you sooner or later. On the instinctual level, you are not a person to them. Beware!
The good news here is you mostly just have to handle the introductory first few months reasonably well. Once people feel that you are an ‘ordinary’ human being they usually won’t begrudge unorthodox habits and interests.
You won’t be everyone’s best buddy, but people will tolerate you and let you live in peace.
Very practical. Thank you.
This is an excellent article. You seem to have identified the important tribal signals to enable to you find a way to work with a group. I think introverts are not naturally tribal. It goes against their authenticity drive and tribal customs often seem silly and superficial. It’s great that you have found a way to make it work for you. This is an important subject for introverts and introvert HSP’s. I thank a lot of people would find it valuable and it could become an ebook.
Thanks for that. I find your information….or ruminations…or whatever, useful.
Jesus
“-Keep divergent interests in sci-fi/fantasy, computer games, any unusual hobbies concealed until you’ve known people for a few months. Anything nerdly or out of the ordinary that’s put fragrantly on display right away will cause people to judge you quickly.”
or be confident of your tastes and preferences and select your company on that basis, rather than striving to be accepted by a bunch of Katy Perry fans. Fuck em.
We often can’t choose who we must associate with.(ie. work, school)
Fitting one’s square peg into a round hole is a thankless task but it is preferable to being stuck in a cage with hostiles(school) or getting fired(work).
The key is compartmentalization.
As a rule of thumb, If I must tailor myself to someone, I keep them well away from my inner circle. My primary goal is to defuse them as a threat, not to make them a friend.
Your ideas are definitely superb. But I am not very sure as to how to implement them in my life. Currently I am very asocial and my social life is limited to my workplace and work acquantainces. I have been through chronic depression through most part of my life. Only slowly I am making progress.
Your posts definitely speak the hard hitting truth. But it also makes me immensely sad that the world outside is so hostile and the doors remain so firmly locked, that we have to literally work our way out to get in. You were correct in one of your earlier posts stating that “The new mentality more resembles that of a royal court full of scheming—a place where only the clever and well-connected survive.”
It almost seems that genuine, good natured, broad minded people are almost condemned and reviled. Everyone out there is just involved in a mad rat race where stopping for a while and contemplating seems a laughable idea. And the result of the mad race is still nothing but just a small piece of land in a mass society, where the individual will continue to be a small drop in a large ocean of people.
At times I wonder whether we belong to an endangered species. Has the dirty law of evolution written us off? You may call me wishful but I sincerely hope that the world will give us our genuine place under the sun where we can carve a niche for oursleves.
Aditya – I can’t disagree with anything you wrote, but I still see some benefit in (cliche warning) “doing as the Romans do.”
Many of these people whose behavior we criticize are genuinely nice people, though collectively they do sometimes make you want to stick a fork in your eye…..
One trick I picked up from an Ian Fleming story is to answer questions with monosyllables that are not actual words, but which signal that you have heard the other person and you are waiting for him to talk more.
You can even follow this up with a declarative sentence encouraging more talk.
For example:
A: Did you see how those Lakers kicked ass?
B: Unn. You saw it.
A: Boy, when Jones hit Kelly at the 44 line…. [bla bla]
I’m surprised that you’ve written a sort of handbook on faking it. If I’m not too horribly depressed, faking it is the natural thing to do. Smile and grunt for the required amount of minutes. On days (or months or years) I can’t fake it, then I don’t care anyway. If there are no common interests, it’s not interaction, it’s submission. But I guess you don’t figure this out until after your high school years are over.
It’s not that I think most people are awful or mean or even stupid, many people are clever in their own ways, but that doesn’t make them interesting. But getting people to like you isn’t as important as you liking them.
I’ve never been fired or bullied (except by my siblings) for being different or not being part of the group (but I’ve quit jobs because of it), but career paths I’ve pursued are those where I could work by myself (I didn’t realize this until later in life). I’ve tried to seek out people I could talk to all my life but they don’t come along often. I’m not smart enough to fit into the intellectual set but refuse to dumb myself down to average so I’ve pretty much accepted a lifetime of loneliness and not letting on who I am. I guess I’m up for a lifetime underachievement award.
I listened to your radio interview today. It was fascinating to hear you speak. The truth is I’d like to interview you myself. I hope you’ll ask the moderator to fix the word “cacooning” in the text unless it’s perhaps a word I’ve never heard of.
Find an Outlet,
I didn’t know Uncle Gluon is heard on radio. If yes, then on which channel? Even I would like to hear his voice. Will it broadcast in my country (India).Many times I even wanna talk to some of you guys, maybe voice chat. If you guys are up, please let me know.
Aditya, I’d like to talk to you too. My email address is on my blog…if you write me a note I’ll have your address and I’ll respond.
Aditya-
Reason Radio Network, a blog for Whites.
http://reasonradionetwork.com/20120111/the-stark-truth-interview-with-giovanni-dannato
I thought the interview was painful. Stark’s voice is obnoxious. But respect, Giovanni, for having your act together.
I love your insights. I just find it too bad that any of us (as people, not just as a person who may fit into a certain category) may feel we have to work/hide who we are in order to fit in or feel accepted by anyone. Diversity is one of the coolest most interesting things and “social norms” or judgements (whether perceived or not) can take so much away from that.
You have to wonder how many people are hiding awesome interests, talents, traits, etc. in order to “fit in.” Maybe if more of us weren’t afraid to just be ourselves we could find true acceptance and appreciation from those who actually matter.
your grasp on basic social concepts is fundamental and flawed, though it’s nice you’re trying
Ok. What are some of these fundamental flaws?
“though it’s nice you’re trying”
You realize that comes across as rather patronizing? Do I get a pat on the head?
Uh-
One thing I would like to say that many ideas that have been formed on this site can apply to a different races and nationalities of people in this world, and need not be limited just to whites. Myself for that matter, am not a white American, yet can find a lot of similarities.
Uh-
One thing I would like to say that you are attacking a strawman in your comment.
Nowhere in this blog post says that this only applies to the White race. So what is the point of your message?
To pull a similar rabbit out of your hat, maybe you just hate White people and can’t stand the thought of someone even associated with being proud of their own people.
Not nice when the shoe is on the other foot, huh?
I was talking about a comment from Uh about Reason Radio Network….which he said is a blog for Whites.
I did not say anything about KoI blog being an exclusive blog for whites, because I also find a lot of similarities with views expressed by Uncle Gluon. This should not be interpreted as my hatred for white people, as that is not at all true. I am sorry if it came across that way.
The fellow who interviewed me was from a site about issues in the white community so I naturally spoke of the identity issues that plague modern whites.
Nothing on this blog is race specific nor do I intend it to be.
When I was a kid, I faced a lot of ostracism: I was puny, dark, bespectacled, shy, ‘always right’, too serious and old, deeply lost in my books, totally unresponsive to peers’ idea of fun, and a huge introvert. But I was happy, and sadly, my parents weren’t. They thought it was a destructive behavior (they still think so! some things never change!), so they told me to try becoming more outgoing. I tried that for a week (to keep them from repeating nonstop) – saying stupid things and being ‘young’. By the end of the week, I was desperate to be me. I knew I could not be them. I had only one thing in mind – one can either be a non-entity and have ‘friends’ OR be a proud head above strong shoulders with no one on my side. That and now 15 years later, I and my situation haven’t changed (only got worse!).
Your tricks are for those who are the in-betweens. But, a true introvert never really changes. For him/her, ‘acceptance’ and ‘self-love/pride’ are the only things that work. And nobody can make you feel that except you. Self-esteem can’t be gained. Either it is or it isn’t.
Civilization is constructed by Neanderthals. Once it is built and they add the front doors and issue keys, the first thing they do is to lock the Neanderthals out of the civilization they created. Imagine the original pony express riders, brave reflective males with a deeply ingrained independence and resourcefulness, fitting in if they took a job at the modern post office. No Neanderthals need apply.
You can tell when a society goes into sharp decline. All competent enthusiasts become persona non grata.
If you understand Homo Sapiens, you will understand why he can never succeed at anything other than killing Neanderthals and taking their women and substance. It’s the only thing he ever did well. After that one accomplishment it was all downhill.
Once you arrive in a civilization you discover you cannot staff it.
In a way, I’ve followed these guidelines all my life but, still, time and time again I am eventially ostracised and kicked out of the ‘group’. It seems as if ‘they’ know, instinctively, that I’m an imposter – an outsider – so my times of safety and belonging are always short-lived. However, the pain of being cold-shouldered, of being ostracized, of being ‘sent to Coventry’ without so much as a fare thee well, by your leave, or even the common courtesy of an explanation cuts as deep as ever no matter how often it happens. You write the guidelines most eloquently and, yes definitely, should consider an ebook.
“time and time again I am eventially ostracised and kicked out of the ‘group’.”
Once you arrive in a civilization you discover you cannot staff it.
This calls to mind something Paul Goodman said: ‘Our society cannot have it both ways: to maintain a conformist and ignoble system and to have skillful and spirited men to man that system.’
Being an introvert makes you feel outcast by people around you. I’ve tried to fit in their group but I always end up being ostracized. The most recent event I had gave me a trauma and cause me so much depression and low self esteem. Worse is that people around puts me down and thinks I’m a failure because I’m not sociable as them.
Reading this article and your comments gives me relief. It’s like telling me that I’m not alone and it’s not wrong to be me.
You’re not alone. There’s a reason you have these qualities. They are extremely successful genes that carry a high penalty if you grow up in a civilization of otherwise unremarkable extroverts.
One anthropologist has said that the Neanderthals probably had a lot of trouble getting somebody to clean up the dirty dishes or other menial tasks. They were very exceptional individuals, moody, gifted and enthusiastic about whatever it is they wanted to do – and nothing else. This was their nature.
It is easy to guess when Homo Sapiens absorbed these genes into his gene pool. It’s the exact time that mankind took off and began to make progress. With Neanderthals you had a whole race of Michelangelos who never got anywhere and did not share information. They lacked regimentation.
With Homo Sapiens you had a bunch of highly regimented extroverted easily organized bipeds who were otherwise mentally about on par with a housefly. When 1 out of 5 of their children had Neanderthal traits combined with a large number of … well, highly organized plagiarists, they began to advance quite rapidly. Instead of all just standing around for 160,000 years murdering and raping they now had bright flashes of introverted brilliance in their midst. These were the guys making the superior flintheads, superior bows, plows and fire kilns that they shamelessly ripped off and disseminated widely.
The first 99% of recorded history, no innovator was ever repaid for his innovation. Others around him steal it, implement it and usually tell people it was their idea. It is only in the last 100 years we have had any serious enforcement of intellectual property rights.
Without introverts, civilization would not exist. It would be a lot of mud huts with people eating their meat raw and charging other tribes to kill them and take their women. Like it was before Sapiens did this very thing to Neanderthals in Europe.
Having fought my true nature all my life, I can finally rest, for over the last week I came to see through reading your exceptional writings and Susan Cain’s book Quiet, that introversion is not an inferior personality type, and not a kind of mental illness that can be overcome. I never did believe that one could change his personality orientation but I loathed mine just the same—the effort expended to fit the norm is a chore that never gets done. So, how liberating this is! In fact it’s deliciously mind blowing and will probably take a while to sink in and for the joyful acceptance to be fully incorporated into my behavior. I’ll have to be mindful and not overcompensate for a lifetime of fake outgoingness (draining!), being a reluctant “happy-smiley people person” (ugh!), and pretending to enjoy small talk. No more denying that the real reason I use self-checkout at the grocery is to avoid unnecessary human interaction.
Wasn’t there a time (in recent Western culture) when left-handed children were taught that left was wrong and the right hand was the correct one to use? Being pressured as kids to come out of our shells, in fact being graded on how well we get along with others (in first & second grade) etc., reminds me of that absurdity. I’m going to review & possibly journalize my life from the age of 6 in this context . . . I suspect the catharsis will continue for some time.
Keep writing, Gluon. Your musings go deep, not wide, and we Innies need the deep.
Sounds to me like a recipe for a pretty miserable life. Spending time with people you don’t like, talking about stuff you aren’t interested in, eating foods you don’t like … man, that’s quite a price for avoiding rejection by people who probably don’t think about you much one way or another.
True, but I believe this great essay was coming from the vantage point of trying to cope with extroverts in the workplace. So for a working introvert, this does mean “spending time with people you don’t like, talking about stuff you aren’t interested in, eating foods you don’t like”, etc. Yeah its miserable sometimes, but we all have to eat.
“Females especially, are prone to mobilizing all their friends and boyfriends against you if they feel you’ve given them the cold shoulder. And they will nearly always succeed in kicking you out.”
I have not found this to be true at all…I’ve seen it happen fairly equally in both genders.
The more I read your posts, the more I wonder if what you are dealing with is actually ‘introversion’ alone. Have you looked into Asperger’s syndrome? Coming from an introvert, much of what you type powerfully strikes me as belonging much more along those lines. If that does end up being the case, there are actually quite a lot of steps you can take to get to where you want to be socially.
The whole business of females ostracizing you for failing to conform is nearly an inversion of the exogamous matriarchy of Neanderthals. It is a formula for smaller brains each generation and that is exactly what Homo Saps has been getting for the past 20,000 years.
The females are supposed to select for exceptional traits, clear evidence of a keen analytical mind and a highly developed sense of self. These are the traits a Neanderthal female wanted to produce in her offspring and they made brains bigger and bigger under this criteria scheme. She wanted a male who could both operate completely independently of others and cooporate well with a group. If it sounds like it is asking a lot of a male, you are right. Neanderthal females selected for genetic perfection in men and they were almost close to getting it after a half million years.
They perceive correctly that being able to navigate group hierarchies is survival trait number one in the modern world.
This is in part the natural outcome of a mass society where people eat the same food, drink the same coffee, read the same books, and watch the same TV shows across a 2500 mile expanse of land…and beyond.
On paper we can believe in any religion we want and say whatever we want, but it would be most inadvisable to dress wrong, talk wrong, walk wrong, or think wrong for the demographic you’re supposed to belong to.
The real killer is not doing business through families or people who have known you a long time.
You can be ‘weird’ perhaps if everyone in town knows you have talents that counteract your weirdness and that you can be trusted and mean well.
However, if you’ve got 30 seconds to please someone before they write you off…GAME OVER, MAN!…GAME OVER!
You’ve got an entire breed of humanity that’s effectively kicked out of the human race.
And as you like to point out, Tex, these are some of the brightest and most capable people who are being excluded precisely because they deviate from the mass trend in every way.
A fundamental problem of modern mass society and perhaps a cause of the present state of decline: it’s all about sticking to the precise center of that bell curve, even if every form of excellence must suffer.
Every time I read this post it seems more and more like instructions for surviving confinement inside a primate reserve. Of course, that is exactly what is being discussed here.
Ordinary corporations and groups don’t hire people for their competency and they don’t retain them for that reason. They hire people who comfort them by being the same. This is why the Western economy looks like an amateur whorehouse run by chimpanzees.
We all decide who to associate with by tribal affinity first, by competence and other concerns later.
In the ancestral environment we needed group loyalty before all else.
You have to know before going into hard times or going into a fight that your people are behind you. It doesn’t matter how competent they are if you end up getting stabbed in the back or cheated out of the food you need to survive.
The same logic extends to business and everything else.
The article is a primer on how to placate a local ruling tribe that controls resources needed for survival.
Making it as an outsider isn’t easy; it requires a measure of guile perhaps.
As I’ve discussed in the past on this blog: the optimal situation is a tribe of outsiders who control sufficient resources that they no longer have to resort to these measures in order to survive.
Part of maintaining a civilization is open communication about problems. When people can say out loud there is a problem, somebody can be found to fix it all other things being equal.
A society where everyone is pressured not to notice or admit to noticing problems is a society where bridges mysteriously collapse, highways slide into rivers, buildings fall over from lack of maintenance and neighborhoods drift into increasing lawlessness … all without anyone raising the alarm. The girls might shut you out for being a weirdo if you did that.
This is why declining civilizations are run by females and wherever females are running things the way that seems best to them, everything is falling apart. I doubt this was the case with Neanderthal females but Homo Sapiens females are incapable of touching anything on the larger scale without making it worse.
As an INTP female, I doubt my personality could deviate more from our society’s expectations of my conduct. I agree, eating together and not ignoring others are good suggestions but I don’t see the need to hide my “nerdiness” or forcibly expose myself to popular culture. Neither do I bother with “damage control”. Yet, I have managed to foster a few close friendships and several warm acquaintances simply by being true to my INTP personality.
“just be yourself” is actually meant as “be your best self as others perceive you…..”
I’m sorry, but as much as i want to agree with these, it all comes down to trying to get others to accept you, and acting a different way. I’m sick and tired of pretending to be the alpha that likes the same things as everyone else in the tribe. No thanks. I’d rather not live my life as a clone sheep that follows.
I’ll continue reading, but I hope the rest of the blog isn’t just full of “man up” attempts.
This gave me a giggle although I can’t entirely relate. For some inexplicable reason people seem to like me. My long suffering, frustrated beyond belief partner has commented on numerous occasions that people seem to seek me out no matter how much I try to hide. He is completely stumped as to what the attraction is.
On a more sober note, this does nothing to assuage the frustration and loneliness I feel from being so profoundly misunderstood. I imagine it must be very painful to feel ostracized. But being accepted by a group doesn’t mean that you feel you belong.