Vibing the social slipper
Firstly you need to be aware of vibing even though you already vibe with people all the time.
What do you mean by vibe?
Remember the time when you had the most fun or interesting conversation with someone? Likely, they enjoyed it as well. If so - that's vibing.
Vibe: A distinctive emotional aura that is experienced instinctively.
It's the energy in an interaction. Vibing is the way we interact with each other. We vibe to get bond and form stronger relationships with each other. Vibing is a natural process.
When you go out for a drink, you don't just go out to specifically have a drink and then go home. You have a drink, gossip, joke around, catch up on commonalities and maybe go someplace else after. Going out with a friends basically shows how much you value each others friendship.
Think about it, why do people jump out of planes? It's not so they can get to the ground. If they wanted to get to the ground then they could just fly back down and get out. They jump out for the feelings they get, the adrenaline rush, the experience.
Anyways, what is this Social Slipper?
A social slipper is someone who makes slip ups socially and is unaware they are slipping up. He will try to create or keep rapport (mutual trust and understanding) in many different ways. The problem is people sense fake rapport as opposed to rapport that happens naturally. We can get away with a hell of a lot of "social mistakes" and be fine but the more screw ups you make, the more uncool/fake you will seem.
Mr. Slipper will try maintaining rapport by doing things like over explaining himself or asking completely obvious questions and laughing when somebody expects them to laugh.
Ever listened to someone talking and begin to notice a pattern in how they talk, where you can predict the exact sentence they will say next?
Here are some common phrases:
- Basically
- You know
- At the end of the day
- To be honest
- Like
People have trademark words they use by habit, so it gets used to fill-the-silence in what they are saying while they gather information in their head. Also they tend to use it way too often and when people are aware of it, its very distracting. It would be more powerful to keep quiet, think and then respond.
I'm sure you already know this but how many times a day do you hear people filling in their mind blanks with gibberish. The “umms” and “errrs” are pretty common.
Social unintelligence and social screw ups we tend to make (this is the 55 ways):
- Being completely logical in a social situation - We aren't here to impress anyone with our intelligence
- Being concerned about being right or wrong about something - this is ego
- Take ages explaining something - The other person wants to get away or change topic
- Laugh at their own jokes when nobody else does - This is because they are feeling the pressure of everyone else and because nobody is laughing they try to "keep the vibe going" by laughing and it makes them look stupid
- Laugh at unfunny things - laughing for the release of social pressure
- Ask obvious questions they know the answer to
- Constantly look for things to be funny (listening to every word, looking for every mistake)
- Use lots of "umms" and "errr"s…' while talking
- Nod too much - giving too much approval
- Never nodding or showing any signs of acknowledgment
- Say "yeah" or "right" too much when someone is explaining something
- Saying please and thank you obsessively (Go to Subway and listen to the customer after the questions, it happens a lot)
- Don't say please or thank you at all
- Remember excessive details about a person they just met and brings them up regularly - even days or weeks later
- Following what others are always doing
- Making excuses and rationalizations, defending yourself - who you are does not need to be defended
- Qualifying yourself to others
- Conforming to what everybody else is doing
- Always trying to be different
- Criticizing people often
- Too much thinking - mental noise
- Try and come up with a perfect witty comeback
- Taking insults personally
- Taking something ambiguous the wrong way
- Speaking quietly, mumbling etc
- Hardly ever making any eye contact
- Making too much eye contact
- Letting people disrespect you by not sticking up for your self - know your values and boundaries
- Complaining
- Whining about things - instead of dealing with them or accepting
- Not deciding on something because others wont approve
- Never admitting you are wrong
- Admitting you are wrong just to keep the peace / apologizing when it's not your fault
- Supplicating to other people
- Overcompensating by trying to be better
- Not apologizing when you are wrong
- Being happy for other peoples misfortunes / failures
- Putting your self worth on the responses of others
- Taking criticism and praise personally
- Letting people physically mess around with you
- Always agreeing
- Never agreeing
- Acting in a way where you're a victim
- Answering stupid questions logically
- Answering all questions that people ask you
- Doing people favors when they wouldn't do the same for you
- Making up drama, rumors
- Comparing yourself with others, if you're perceived as better or worse - I.e. “I have a car and you don't so I am better than you”
- Not doing anything because of what other people might think - “come dance”, “no, I'm ok” etc
- Making sure everything you say is completely correct
- Focusing on the negative
- Not speaking up when something is not right
- Not asking for help
- Using lots of self deprecating humor
- Button pushing - Doing things purely to get a reaction
Because much of this happens unconsciously its hard to stop.
How can you not do something if you don't know you're doing it?
Just choose a couple of things to focus on when interacting with people. First you realize when you do it and then you can work on changing it and brush up your communication skills.
I do some of this myself, I write this article from observing and experience. Thanks for reading, I hope it was useful for you.
