Just posted a follow-up, but you bring up some good points.

Getting people to speak to me generally is an easy part. I don’t have trouble approaching others or initiating some sort of conversation. Usually this will be about a clearly visible article of clothing, cool earrings, pride apparel, hairstyle, the common small talk topics.

The back and forth will last generally for 2-6 sentences, where some type of awkwardness will insert itself into the situation. Maybe I don’t know how to respond after someone has shared something about an actor or singer they like. Maybe there’s an online trend I’ve missed, or they’re shocked that I’m in my early 20s and have no mainstream social media platforms. It’s not like my intention is to reveal that I’m a crazed Linux weirdo to everyone I know, but my interests are hyper specific. I could read up about what others like, but that would remove the authenticity from the conversation.

I know that depth like this doesn’t apply to smalltalk, and I don’t want to seem like an emotional weirdo to others, but I generally will also get happy and excited when others share my interests, which can be off putting in a different sense, maybe 10 minutes into a short chat.

My tendency to delve into historical facts, geography, electronics, scientific history, in order to connect something someone said about a building or a roof can also put people off. This is what I mean about being a chatterbox. I could never run out of things to say, so this oftentimes isn’t the problem. I’ve had wonderful and fulfilling conversation for hours over food and drinks with others who don’t mind this facet of me.

Once people get to know my character and who I am, this tends not to be an issue. But developing a working acquaintanceship is the difficult part so I don’t come off as a weirdo.

So let’s start off with small talk I.e 1-3 minute interactions, and branch into medium length office chats, then conclude with a lunch or dinner conversation.

Usually when I try this strategy, I might fall flat on my face by not knowing anything at all what I just asked about. Should one thing of every small talk excursion as an onion?

What I mean by an onion is to be able to organize the depth of the conversation by extent of discussion. To transform the comment into a dialogue is most desirable. Small talk is the goal here, just not the robotic:

“I like your Kansas City Chiefs Jersey!”

“Oh thanks, did you see how Frank Footballer did that pass against the Steelers?”

“Not really, but my grandmother always had the TV on and loved the Super Bowl!”

“Cool, buddy!”

After this, it’s like a game over screen is flashed before my eyes. Not to be dramatic, but this situation happens in many domains of conversation for me.

Do you have any extended advice for this?

That sounds simple enough for me to remember! Focusing on being a better listener is what I should be working on.

But what if there are no immediate things to talk about? What if the conversation falls flat? Do you have a 3 strikes rule before you walk away from the interaction?

Maybe I’m getting too much in my head about things. Thanks for the reassurance 😊 This community always makes me feel more secure with some of my inner concerns about socializing and my perception in the eyes of others.

I relate to this viscerally. Throughout my life, the easiest way for me to genuinely connect with others has been through a setting where we don’t have in-person body language.

In real life I’ve usually been quite bubbly, but that’s because I’m usually quite happy and enjoy spreading positive energy. It’s much better to uplift others than to break them down.

My friend groups have ebbed and flown over the years, but ultimately something drives us apart. Most of the time I’m clueless as to why. I think it’s because people don’t want to hurt my feelings because I’m polite and they have a history with me, but don’t want to continue a friendship.

I prefer to slide in social situations where we are in a small group or one-on-one. It usually feels more substantive and brings people who don’t mind info-dumping, obsessions, and more often than not, they enjoy the impact of my neurotype on my personality. It’s not like people can’t enjoy my personality… Just a specific subset. However, I’ve never felt like I’ve truly belonged in any group either. Nerdy, but not in the archetype to where I fit in with a traditional nerd. Enjoy outdoor things, but not to the point where it defines my life, as I enjoy electronics, linguistics, and musicianship. Broad range of interests that are too esoteric can put people off from a lack of relatability.

Being German American with my heritage mostly detached, I’d say this is the case in both Germany and the US. I grew up teaching myself the language, and have held a semblance of being “German” as an ethnicity, but am very clearly culturally distinct from real German people. It’s weird to observe that both cultures forego their norms and cave into their humanity when it comes to socializing. All folks follow different strokes.

It just seems like whenever you want to put yourself out there, there’s some intangible barrier that blocks a true friendship from forming. Is it ineptness? Am I perceived as selfish by talking too much about an interest? What about the questions I ask? My responses… As I’ve gotten older I’ve cared far less about the opinions of others. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t yearn for some form of involvement. Hope you feel okay. This community has made me feel far less alien than I ever have.

That’s fine, but I assume you mean that you’re not sure when to say something more substantive than a simple affirmation that you’re following along. A couple of other tips I’ve picked up that help with this:

After implementing what you’ve said in the past couple of my interactions, I noticed that people were more likely to smile and attentively listen after they’ve shared something themselves. Eliciting that initial interest from the other person removed a lot of the awkward silences, as it was filled with them talking more than myself. As I’ve been focusing more on what the person emphasizes, I’m able to find out more about what excites them to talk about, so I’m able to draw more attention to their interests and make them feel heard. Very good advice here.

Generally try to ask open ended questions rather than yes/no questions. And remember my first tips that the question you ask is also a way of conveying where you want the conversation to go. So if you don’t want to talk about your own parents, maybe it’s better to ask about the beach. And don’t be afraid to say “me too” and then if they say something like “really?” then it’s your turn to talk for a bit as you relate the thing you have in common with them.

To solidify this advice… Are there any “baskets” that questions generally could be sorted into? The open-ended type sometimes falls flat if I ask it from the “wrong” basket. Exactly as you mentioned with not wanting to talk about your own parents, but asking about them anyways and then not having much to say directly afterwards. Not to neg on details, but would it be unhealthy to think a certain amount of steps “ahead” in a conversation? This has been on my mind lately, but I’m not sure how to describe it other than I’d like to engage the person and get them to think about things rather than be a captive listener or have them monologue about themselves.

I feel like I don’t understand eye contact or body language too well. We all know the awkward feeling of seeing someone far away in a hallway. I’ve never quite got this one down… If I know the person, it’s usually okay to make some strange handmotions and tease a bit as you get closer. But sometimes, I can tell the other person doesn’t want to look at me, but will raise their head to say hi as we are within 5 ish feet of each other. A strange autistic detail, but I just want to be more charismatic in general, and appreciate you taking the time to write these comments!

Someone is going to need to pull a lot of weight in planning, organizing, and leading these meetings, presentations, and projects.

I’ve never managed a project before, but assume we should gather everyone who is interested by sending out some sort of survey. It would be good to have knowledge about what people are interested in learning, send out my ideas of how this should be structured, and ask for general comments. These could be about the final project, individual time commitment, references, philosophy of learning, etc. I’m thinking 8 weeks could be a good place to start. How should this survey be sent out to others? I want to choose a service that doesn’t encroach on user privacy since we are on Lemmy. The same is to be asked of a communal repository. I don’t want to use Google Drive.

What would we need to do on our first meeting together?

Saturday mornings or Monday evenings (Pacific US Time) are some thoughts. The sessions could be between 1 and 2 hours depending on the engagement.

This is a what I mean by someone pulling a lot of weight, a teacher carousel has a slim to none chance of working out. One person is going to need to define and implement the vast majority of the curriculum. They’ll need to do a lot of research and work in advance.

I’d like to ascertain this information in the survey if anyone with expertise in particular programming domains would like to lend their expertise and put together a short slide deck. Otherwise, I’m okay to deep-dive on topics we agree on, find a healthy amount of literature as resources, and brainstorm a way that each subtopic could be useful in the grander scheme of the project. So that there is some type of cohesive narrative to this endeavor.

Hope that’s a good starting point.

This is great advice! I’ll try to implement it over the next couple of times I’m chatting with these same people. Oftentimes, I find it hard to gauge what the other person might “want” to talk about. This can be challenging with people who are more shy or not necessarily big conversationalists from what I’ve experienced.

My follow-up would be… How do you engage in a dialogue? Do you adhere to any principles as to how long you are talking, the uniqueness of words that you use to describe your ideas…? How do you balance what you’re going to say with active listening? Because sometimes I feel like I attentively listen TOO much, and I’m just there nodding and dispensing a digitized voice-line of “wow!” “awesome” “fun” “cool” “Oh that’s interesting” and so forth…

Thanks for the code example. I tried going through web3 awhile back with HTML, but need to go through at least 60% more of the course and examples they provided on the website.

I’m a bit confused on what a server is, past “someone else’s computer” or “another computer” or “a machine elsewhere that is able to take and receive requests”. When you write a “GET” request, is this pulling from another file on your machine locally, but still using the HTML framework and WASM to have “Piece of code 1” talk to “Piece of code 2”? And this all happens locally on the same machine you’re using?

Currently I’m using the Kate IDE editor since Neovim made me hurl my lunch. Spyder was what I used for Python, but it can’t be used with more than one language unfortunately. I’d assume programs with functions provided by Electron are able to cache what they retrieve… Is the “server” downloaded alongside the application, therefore not requiring WiFi connection to use the application?

Hope my questions aren’t too out in left-field and thanks again for your response!

Definitely will, I appreciate the support :) I’ll hop onto the Rust form after I’ve read the book with some questions.

That looks like a helpful guide to go through as well. I’m not too familiar with compiling/building/making (only the general notions)… In the past, I’ve abandoned programming projects because I got bogged down in the semantics of the documentation.

Should I stick to drawing high-level flowcharts pursuing a “make this” Occam’s Razor type philosophy and just condition myself to abandon unnecessary pedantic details? Just trying to make sure I follow through with my programming project this time instead of getting overwhelmed!

I’ve had murmurs of Rust throughout my time here… I’ll give it a try and attempt to make a barebones application with buttons.

Once I’ve either failed catastrophically or have created something to be reviewed, I’ll report back.

Thanks!

Right? I wish more people would consider the product life cycle analysis of what they want to purchase. Virtue signaling doesn’t help, and nor does more scrap ending up in a landfill at the end of the cradle to grave trip.

I’d love an E bike! It would be great to take the train into the city for me and use it to get around. I haven’t been able to afford insurance and still don’t have a driver’s license. It’d save me a killing and allow me to actually save my money than have it guzzled up by gas, car maintenance, and overall way less hassle for me. I’d rather not have to worry about features eventually getting pay walled by the shitfotainment system…