I’ve been confused by the behavior of some people for a while now.
From the outside they seem perfectly sociable, perfectly pleasant and yet… I always feel… kinda bad near them? Like it isn’t okay to be me, or to be fully me, or to be entirely me, or that there’s this strong felt pressure that there is definitely a right way of being right now and, conversely, definitely a… wrong way?
I’ve been investigating this phenomenon—not deliberately, mind you, I’m not a psycho, as a natural experiment—and I think I figured out what’s going on.
What’s happening is that there is a trove of people who have a very limited range of possible interaction within which they are perfectly competent and comfortable. Because they are very, very, competent and comfortable within that range they seem every time you look at them from the outside, perfectly social and socially competent.
But, what I’ve found, is that is only true while they’re staying strictly within their range of comfort.
I’ve found that these people can play only one social game or, at best, a very limited set of social games.
And, usually, this is true not only of themselves but of their whole group: they very often have a well-defined and long-term group with whom they play these games exclusively. They’re well-acquainted with these games, sometimes for years, and so extremely comfortable. This makes them look very social and sociable from the outside and, thus, allows them to believe of themselves, and of one another, that they are indeed very social. This is a value they hold dearly.
But I think they’re wrong. I don’t think they’re social. I’ve seen that they’re only comfortable with these few games and that, because of that, they very forcefully try to force every. single. social. interaction. into one of those games.
They actually lack essential social skills like those of compromise, of accommodating new different people, of negotiation, of translation, of finding a middle way. That is, all of the skills that would allow them to socialize with someone outside of their already very known and very limited crowd, outside of their very limited game(s). That is, the skills that would allow them to generate new games in real time.
And, thus, we can use the above to reach a very limited set of definitions: someone’s social insofar as they have social skills, chief of which is the meta-skill of being able to generate new games in real time.
Someone who isn’t social cannot do the above.
Someone who’s antisocial not only lacks the ability to generate new games but actively pushes you into playing the games they want to play, the game they’re comfortable playing, despite what you might want.
And it’s like, okay, cool, but then why not just call them “antisocial” people, then? Why call them “antisocial social” people?
And the answer is that because being social is a value they hold deeply, because they care deeply about being perceived as being social, they display all the trappings of being so—while within their very limited games—and they might’ve momentarily fooled you, momentarily gaslit you into thinking it was you who had some social difficulty because you couldn’t or, more likely, wouldn’t, let yourself be forced into their limited game.
That is, they might have fooled you, until now.
Social people Antisocial social people
Hey guy.
I think I found you on Twitter, it's good that you're writing.
I don't want to be a blowhard, but I have some advice.
In software, there's the warning that you should avoid premature abstraction. Well, I think it's even more applicable to writing. Writing should avoid premature abstraction.
I'm pretty sure that when you were writing this post, there was a specific person in your head. The post would have been interesting if it was about that person.
Suppose you have a mundane conversation with an old man, and when you think about the conversation later, it randomly sparks insight into the meaning of life.
The novice writer will take that insight, and write an article on the meaning of life, maybe offhandedly mention the old man at the end.
The advanced writer will write *entirely* about the conversation with the old man, and maybe offhandedly mention the meaning of life at the end.
If you are the ladder, the reader discovers the meaning of life at the same time that you do, because you planned it that way.
When some observations trigger a larger realization, it's tempting to boil down that realization to it's most general essence, and opine about that general principle in your writing.
Don't. Start with a story for each example, and if the connection is obvious, then it will reveal itself. If not, you can describe the insight. But not as the first thing.
Scott Alexander is good at this. He will explain [why whales don't get cancer](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/14/living-by-the-sword/) firstly, and make his argument secondly.
if you get into those ppl's friend groups and attempt to expand the range of topics & tactfully call out the behavior of the antisocial social person (ASP) you'll notice ppl often reacting positively lol, they just hadn't realized they are being restricted by the ASP