Bit of a shower thought: Outside of limited circumstances, like interviews or therapy, nobody is really expected to give you honest feedback on how you come across.
This sucks. I’ve been told I come across as unfriendly once, but I have no idea if I was just nervous and tired at the time. I still cherish that one moment almost 10 years ago when someone told me I was funny in some corporate team building bs.
Now, I could ask friends and family, but I believe they would probably not tell me the full, honest truth. After all, they (hopefully) like me and I would probably avoid being too harsh to everyone but very close people in private.
At the same time, I know plenty of people who really should get some feedback, who probably believe they are funny while everyone is bored and annoyed and hopes they talk a little less and the like.
So, are there socially accepted ways to get feedback on how you come across?
I realize that people are strange, relationships are hard, P!=NP and anime is not real. Still, it would be nice to have.
You sure you’re not neurodivergent? This is a very neurodivergent train of thought ngl.
Not sure if this applies to you but maybe you have heard a phrase about you that doesn’t make sense fully. In my case, it was “you’re intimidating” and that took me a long long time to understand because as a woman who has a lot of insecurities and can’t physically fight this is absolutely ridiculous. Then one day I was watching some relationship guru video clip and the guy said “if you’re told you’re intimidating and can’t make sense of it, it means you are hard to impress”. That clicked. At least, within dating contexts. I don’t know. I think most of the honest feedback I’ve gotten from potential dates, from boyfriends, from family members (though that required always a difficult argument beforehand and getting feedback was never the goal) and also from teachers who get fed up with your bullshit occasionally. It’s never going to come to you from a comfortable source, but you shouldn’t be asking your enemies either, because they’ll lie too.
“Would you like to fill out a customer satisfaction survey to rate this dating experience?” :D
I try to avoid those relationship guru videos, it feels like a mix of half understood psychology and some one size fits all voodoo. Idk, do you know any good ones that don’t fall into that trap?
It’s been a while since I was in such an argument that someone questioned my character. Most honest feedback so far was relatives. But I behave very different with someone I have been knowing my whole life and someone I just met. Or worse, feel attracted to. Damn brain chemicals.
I’m a guy. Do I have to start taking social manipulation lessons from the “easily impressed” girls?
“Wow! You do laundry all by yourself every…month? Oh, man. I’m so helpless; I have to ask a cleaning service to do it for me. Can you teach me? Pretty please?”
IMO ask people you know to tell you how you honestly come across. Yeah they like you and won’t want to hurt you but as long as they aren’t completely blowing smoke, you should get enough hint of anything glaring. The little things they sweep under the rug are probably nothing to really worry about.
I don’t know if it’s a coincidence but when I met Finnish people, they always made comments about how you come across. One I remember is “you’re not very likeable but at least you’re not creepy”. So… Go to Finland?
I guess I have to. On the other hand, I heard Finnish people don’t like human contact anyway, so… meh
The Netherlands are known to have the bluntest people in the world to the point of articles wondering about Dutch rudeness proliferating across the Internet. I had no idea that Finland was similar.
Yeah, I’m not sure where that comes from. Mostly Reddit myths that people seem to take too serious. The Dutch keep to themselves mostly.
This is going to sound like a joke, but I try to be just cocky enough that people feel comfortable being perfectly honest with me. I used to be pretty agreeable, but people don’t really want to correct their nice friends, even when they’re wrong or acting uncouth, and I could tell that there were aspects of my behavior that might be off-putting but no one was telling me.
Now, threading that needle is a pretty advanced technique. It necessarily requires enough behavioral awareness to be confident enough that people correct you, but not so arrogant that they just write you off as an asshole.
But besides that, yeah it’s a tricky situation. Ironically the same consideration that keeps people from criticizing you prevents you from improving. I think the real problem is that most people don’t really actively change to improve themselves based on constructive criticism, so most people avoid rocking the boat with constructive criticism.
I suggest a tutor for giving presentations, public relations or something along those lines. They’re used to giving gentle advice and want you to do better so you can refer more people to them.
Huh, interesting. To be fair, I seem to fall into a whole different “mode” when presenting. Once I stand up and the adrenaline kicks in, I basically run on autopilot. I’ve been told I’m quite good at bullshitting my way through, so at least that’s something.
This is for the training, letting them see you how you actually are. Not the actual presentation. If you tell them what you’re after, I bet they’d help out. This would be up to you to not present anything, but treat them like your buddy.
I’ve wanted this forever!! Especially when i was younger, but still somewhat to today. It would be so great if there was some way to get honest feedback from people about what they think of me. There have been lots of times in my life when my social life wasn’t going as well as i would want, but how do you improve something when you don’t know what needs improvement?
Like do i frequently have a bad smell? Am i too loud? Are my jokes landing poorly? It would be so great if i knew what people honestly thought of me!
Yeah, right?! I catch myself debating if I should tell a friend of mine that he smells sweaty or if I shouldn’t, and I can only imagine other people have similar considerations.
What about an anonymous email?
This is actually a benefit of having a usable relationship with someone who doesn’t like you but is otherwise reasonable, they are more likely to answer these questions accurately. Even people who are willing to answer are biased by their relationship to you and won’t give you an outsider’s perspective.
It depends on what type of people you surround yourself with
I do it all the time, even calling out my female friends on bad behaviour which is a big nono in public settings (I’m a married man, I know, lol), but it requires a soft approach (a “compliment sandwich”, for instance) or else everyone starts getting sensitive and feisty, and because of that many people would just rather stay quiet and avoid doing it. In my understanding that nobody wants to be a villain/annoying cunt, I try to tell those I care about so they don’t ruin their lives unnecessarily, and I’m not scared of the confrontation that might result from it as I see it as part of the process.
Right now, you’re coming across as a very reasonable guy with more than appropriate communication skills… If you’re asking for yourself, it would be hard to determine if there’s anything weird/off-putting about you just from this post, sadly. In my experience, some of my less savoury traits HAD been called out, numerous times, but without the right attitude, wording or in a setting that would make me dismiss it. It wasn’t until later when these traits showed up in shocking, scary ways, that I started putting 2 and 2 together and looking back at what people had told me about myself. Maybe I’ll start a call line or discord chat where we can all interact and call each other out when necessary, in brotherly love… sounds like a fun project. 😅
If dogs really like you, especially strangers’ dogs, you are genuinely giving off good vibes and if they bark at you, you give off bad ones. Don’t shoot me, I am just the messenger.
That’s not true though. Some dogs hate me but most love me. Dogs have personalities just like people and as such, many are straight up assholes. Usually they are owned by straight up asshole humans. And in any case dogs do not share any universal opinion.
It’s just something I was always told. If you own a dog and the dog doesn’t like your friend, it is a red flag. They are empaths. I am really talking about big dogs. The little ones are less reliable. I know the personality of a person rubs off on the dog. But there isn’t really science behind this. Just something I observed. There really is no such thing as a bad person. Just people who do bad things. But a lot of the time dogs will pick up on Sketchy people before we do.
Right, I’ve heard that too, and I agree there is some truth to it, I just don’t think it’s reliable.
Dogs are not humans. Dogs do pick up body language and general vibes, but dogs don’t understand speech, and dogs generally don’t care if you are not a threat, bring food, play, or smell interesting.
Honestly the best example I can think of is to secretly record a conversation between you and someone else, and listen to it later. Voice is good, video is better. You’ll notice all kinds of things you don’t in the moment. Tone, timing, stutters, body language, etc. Then really meditate on who you are and how you want to present to others.
Remember that you can’t always change everything… Sometimes you have to accept certain aspects of yourself and work with what you can actually change. Personally I never tried to change anything like that, I’d rather just be authentic, but understand what that actually means and that not everybody will like me.
