Post 43: Intentionally Making Close Friends
第 43 篇:刻意交朋友

Introduction 简介

One of the greatest sources of joy in my life are my close friends. People who bring excitement and novelty into my life. Who expose me to new experiences, and ways of seeing the world. Who help me learn, point out my blind spots, and correct me when I am wrong. Who I can lean on when I need support, and who lean on me in turn. Friends who help me grow more into the kind of person I want to be.
我生命中最大的快乐来源之一是我的亲密朋友。他们为我的生活带来兴奋和新意。他们让我接触新的体验,以及看待世界的新方式。他们帮助我学习,指出我的盲点,并在我犯错时纠正我。当我需要支持时,我可以依靠他们,反之亦然。朋友们帮助我成长为我想成为的那种人。

I am especially grateful for this, because up until about 4 years ago, I didn’t have any close friends in my life. I had friends, but struggled to form real emotional connections. Moreover, it didn’t even occur to me that I could try to do this. It wasn’t that I knew how to form close friends but was too anxious to try, rather, ‘try to form close friendships’ was a non-standard action, something that never even crossed my mind. And one of my most life-changing experiments was realising that this was something I wanted, and actually trying to intentionally form close friends. 
我对此尤其感激,因为直到大约四年前,我生活中还没有任何亲密的朋友。我有一些朋友,但我难以与他们建立真正的感情联系。此外,我甚至没有想过我可以尝试这样做。这不是因为我知道如何交到亲密的朋友,但又太焦虑而不敢尝试,而是“尝试交到亲密的朋友”是一个非标准行为,我从未想过。而我人生中最具改变意义的实验之一就是意识到这是我想要的,并且真正尝试有意识地交到亲密的朋友。

It’s easy to slip into a passive mindset here, to think of emotional connections as ‘something that take time’ or ‘need to happen naturally’. That to be intentional about things is ‘inauthentic’. I think this mindset is absolutely crazy. My close friendships are one of the most important components of my life happiness. Leaving it up to chance feels like passing up an incredible opportunity. As with all important things in life, this can be optimised - further, if done right, this adds a massive amount to the lives of me and of my future close friends.
很容易陷入被动的思维模式,认为情感联系是“需要时间”或“自然发生”的。刻意为之是“不真诚”的。我认为这种想法简直是疯了。我亲密的朋友是我生活中幸福最重要的组成部分之一。把一切都交给命运,感觉就像错过了绝佳的机会。就像生活中所有重要的事情一样,这可以优化 - 而且,如果做得好,这会给我和我未来的亲密朋友的生活增添巨大的价值。

The first half of this post is the story of how I approached intentionally forming close friends, and the second half is an attempt to distill the lessons I learned from this. As such, this post is more autobiographical than most. Feel free to skip to the advice section if you don’t want that. Further, what you value in close friendships is highly personal - this post will focus on what I want in friendships and how I try to get it, but you should adapt this to your own situation, values, and what feels missing in your life!
这篇文章的前半部分讲述了我如何有意识地结交亲密朋友的故事,后半部分则试图提炼我从中学到的经验教训。因此,这篇文章比大多数文章更具自传性。如果你不想看,可以跳过建议部分。此外,你对亲密朋友的价值观是高度个人化的 - 这篇文章将重点关注我想要在友谊中得到什么以及我如何努力得到它,但你应该根据自己的情况、价值观以及你生活中缺少的东西来调整它!

Exercise: Think about your closest friends, and how these friendships happened. What needs are you fulfilling in each other’s lives? Are you happy with this state of affairs, or is something missing? What could be better?
练习:想想你最亲密的朋友,以及这些友谊是如何发生的。你们在彼此的生活中满足了哪些需求?你对现状感到满意吗,还是有什么缺失?什么可以更好?

My story 我的故事

The Problem 问题

Back when I was in school, I never had close friends. I had friends, people I liked, people I spent time with, whose company I genuinely enjoyed. But I was pretty terrible at being vulnerable and forming emotional connections. These friendships rarely went beyond the surface level. In hindsight, I expect these could have been far richer (and I’ve formed much stronger friendships with some of these friends since!), but I never really tried.
我上学的时候,从来没有过亲密的朋友。我有一些朋友,我喜欢的人,我一起玩的人,我真心喜欢和他们在一起。但我真的很不擅长敞开心扉,建立情感联系。这些友谊很少超越表面。回想起来,我认为这些可能会更加丰富(我和其中一些朋友后来建立了更牢固的友谊!),但我从来没有真正尝试过。

I find it hard to introspect on exactly what the internal experience of past Neel was like, but I think the core was that trying wasn’t available as a possible action. That I spent much of my life doing what felt socially conventional, normal and expected, for the role I saw myself in. And ‘go out of your way to form emotional connections’ wasn’t part of that. It wasn’t an action I considered, weighed up the costs and benefits, and decided against - it never even occurred to me to try. It didn’t feel like a void missing from my life - things just felt normal. It was like playing a video game, and having a list of actions to choose from, like ‘ask about their day’, ‘complain about a shared experience’ or ‘discuss something cool I learned recently’; but this list contained nothing about ‘intentionally form an emotional connection’. It wasn’t in my reference class of things I could do.
我很难准确地回顾过去的我内心经历过什么,但我认为核心是尝试并非一种可行的行动。我人生的大部分时间都在做一些我认为在社会上是常规、正常和预期的事情,因为这是我给自己设定的角色。而“主动去建立情感联系”并不属于其中。这不是我考虑过、权衡过利弊、然后决定放弃的行动——它甚至从未出现在我的脑海中。它不像是我生活中缺失的空白——事情只是感觉很正常。这就像玩电子游戏,有一系列可供选择的行动,比如“询问他们的近况”、“抱怨共同经历”或“讨论我最近学到的酷事”;但这个列表中没有关于“有意建立情感联系”的内容。它不在我能够做的事情的参考类别中。

One of the core parts of my life philosophy now is the skill of agency, of actually doing things. The skill of going out of your way to make opportunities. To identify what’s missing in my life, and in the world. Finding the actions that I don’t need to take, that no one else will make me take, or do for me, and deciding to take them anyway. Fixing that which is broken. Finding that which is not broken, and deciding to make it better anyway. Exploring and trying new things. Challenging my self-image and growing. Fundamentally escaping the mindset of needing permission, and breaking past the illusion of doing nothing. I think this is one of the most valuable skills anyone can learn, and one I cherish, though I am far from perfect at it. And this experience is a large part of why I value it. Not realising I could make close friends was a failure of agency, an unknown-unknown that cut out a massive amount of potential happiness, without even realising it.
我现在的人生哲学的核心部分之一是行动力的技巧,即真正去做事情。主动去创造机会的技巧。去识别我生活中和世界上缺失的东西。找到那些我不需要做的事情,那些没有人会强迫我去做,或者为我做的事情,然后决定无论如何都要去做。修复那些破损的东西。找到那些没有破损的东西,然后决定无论如何都要让它变得更好。探索和尝试新事物。挑战我的自我形象,不断成长。从根本上摆脱需要许可的心态,打破无所事事的幻觉。我认为这是任何人都可以学习的最有价值的技能之一,也是我珍视的技能,尽管我离完美还很远。而这段经历是我重视它的一个重要原因。没有意识到我可以交到亲密的朋友,这是行动力上的失败,一个未知的未知,它剥夺了我大量的潜在幸福,甚至没有意识到。

The solution 解决方案

Despite all this talk of agency, I stumbled my way out of this problem pretty much by accident. When I was 18, in my final year in school, I ended up in a long-term romantic relationship (with a girl who, thankfully, was far better at taking initiative than me!). And this was one of my first times really feeling a deep, emotional connection with someone. And, surprisingly, found that this was great, and added a ton to my life! And further, got a bunch of surface area on what emotional connections actually felt like, and how they formed.
尽管人们一直在谈论自主性,但我几乎是偶然地摆脱了这个问题。18 岁时,在我高中的最后一年,我开始了一段长期的恋爱关系(和一个女孩,谢天谢地,她比我更善于主动!)。这是我第一次真正感受到与某人之间深刻的情感联系。令人惊讶的是,我发现这很棒,为我的生活增添了很多!更重要的是,我获得了对情感联系的实际感受以及形成方式的很多了解。

That relationship ended in my first year of university. And as part of trying to move on and recover, I did a lot of introspection on how the relationship had changed me, and what now felt missing from my life. And one of the biggest things missing was having a deep emotional connection with someone. So I decided to fix this.
那段关系在我大学一年级时结束了。为了努力向前迈进并恢复,我做了很多反省,思考这段关系如何改变了我,以及现在我的生活中缺少什么。而最缺少的一件事就是与某人之间深刻的情感联系。所以我决定解决这个问题。

The obvious next question was, what to actually do? In full 19-year-old-Neel fashion, I took a pretty reductionist approach to this. I made a list of all the people I considered close or close-ish friends, and tried to figure out how we became close friends. And in each case, I identified the main shifts in our relationship after intense, 1-1 conversations, where we were both being emotionally vulnerable and authentic, and talking about personal things. So, to make more close friends, all I needed to do was engineer more of these 1-1 conversations!
接下来显而易见的问题是,该怎么做?以我 19 岁时典型的尼尔风格,我采取了一种相当还原论的方法。我列出了所有我认为是亲密朋友或比较亲密的朋友,并试图弄清楚我们是如何成为亲密朋友的。在每种情况下,我都会发现,在我们进行过深入的、一对一的谈话后,我们的关系发生了主要变化,在这些谈话中,我们都表现出情感上的脆弱和真实,并谈论个人问题。所以,为了拥有更多亲密朋友,我只需要策划更多这样的谈话!

This was also inspired by a time when I was 17, and at a rationality camp for high-schoolers. We were doing a workshop on Comfort Zone Expansion (CoZE), where the intention was to identify something we were uncomfortable with but wanted to explore and try in a safe environment. I and another participant noticed we were both uncomfortable with being vulnerable and authentic, and tended to use humour to deflect from anything personal. So, we decided to find a private place and spend two hours having a fully authentic conversation, with no deflection allowed. This was kinda terrifying, but also a really great comfort zone expansion experience, and I felt much closer to him afterwards.
这同样源于我 17 岁时参加的一个 针对高中生的理性营 的经历。我们当时正在进行一个关于舒适区扩展 (CoZE) 的研讨会,目的是找到我们感到不舒服但又想在安全的环境中探索和尝试的事情。我和另一位参与者注意到我们都对脆弱和真实感到不舒服,并且倾向于用幽默来回避任何个人问题。因此,我们决定找一个私密的地方,花两个小时进行一次完全真实的对话,不允许任何回避。这有点可怕,但也 非常棒的舒适区扩展体验,之后我感觉离他更近了。

One decent way of engineering an authentic 1-1 conversation is to go through a bunch of personal and vulnerability-inducing questions together, a la 36 Questions that Lead in Love (after cutting the ⅔ of questions that I found dull). So I made a list of questions I considered interesting, which I expected to lead to authentic and vulnerable conversations. And then went up to the 10-20 people I felt most friendly with, explained the experiment, and asked if they’d be interested in blocking out a few hours, and going through the list together. 
模拟真实一对一对话的一个不错方法是,一起完成一系列个人问题和容易让人脆弱的问题,就像36 个引向爱情的问题(剔除掉我认为无聊的⅔问题之后)。所以我列了一份我认为有趣的问题清单,预计这些问题会引发真实而脆弱的对话。然后,我找到了 10-20 个我认为最亲近的人,向他们解释了这个实验,并询问他们是否有兴趣抽出几个小时,一起完成这份清单。

Somehow, this worked! About 80% of the people I asked said yes, and I felt much closer with about 50% of them afterwards. Some people were weirded out, but most of my friends were down to try the experiment. With some people the questions felt awkward, but with some people I really vibed. And some people were extremely enthusiastic about the idea from the start - I explained the idea to a guy I vaguely knew, he loved the idea and suggested doing it together, we hit it off immediately, and he’s now probably my closest friend. 
不知怎么的,这竟然成功了!我问的约 80% 的人同意了,之后我感觉和其中约 50% 的人更亲近了。有些人觉得很奇怪,但大多数朋友都愿意尝试这个实验。和有些人一起问问题感觉很尴尬,但和有些人我真的很有共鸣。还有些人从一开始就非常热衷于这个想法——我向一个我认识但不太熟的家伙解释了这个想法,他很喜欢这个想法,还建议一起做,我们立刻就聊得来,他现在可能是我最亲密的朋友了。

If you’re interested in the questions, you can see the full list here. Some of my favourites:
如果你对这些问题感兴趣,你可以在这里查看完整列表这里。我个人比较喜欢以下几个:

  • What’s the best way to get to know you as a person?
    了解你个性的最佳方式是什么?

  • What’s your life story? 你的故事是什么?

  • What traits do you envy/value in those around you?
    你羡慕/欣赏周围人哪些特质?

  • What do you feel insecure about?
    你对什么感到不自信?

    • This one is higher variance - I don’t recommend leading with it!
      这个问题的答案差异性很大,我不建议用它作为开场白!

  • What do you value in friendships? What are the best ways they add to your life?
    你最看重友谊的哪些方面?友谊如何才能最好地丰富你的生活?

  • How, historically, have you become close to people?
    历史上,你是如何与人亲近的?

  • If you could design a personal set of social norms for how your friends interact with you, what would they be? 
    如果你能为朋友与你互动设计一套个人社交规范,你会设定哪些?

  • How would other people describe you? How does this compare to how you want to be perceived?
    别人会如何形容你?这与你希望别人如何看待你相比如何?

  • What in life do you get truly excited about?
    生活中什么让你真正兴奋?

Retrospective 回顾

I am incredibly happy I ran this experiment. It has made my life massively better. And, in hindsight, I am still really surprised that the success rate was so high! If this idea sounds compelling, I would highly recommend people try it - it was an excellent growth experience.
非常高兴我做了这个实验。它让我的生活变得好多了。而且,事后看来,我仍然很惊讶成功率如此之高!如果这个想法听起来很有吸引力,我强烈建议大家尝试一下——这是一次很棒的成长经历。

That said, I still somewhat cringe looking back on that. I think having a literal list of questions made the interactions much more artificial. Since then, my conversational style has evolved to be a lot more natural, while trying to preserve the spirit. I really like asking questions, and will often weave these questions into a conversation if appropriate. And strongly try to create an atmosphere where people are comfortable being honest and vulnerable, and where I show vulnerability in turn.
话虽如此,回想起那段经历,我仍然有点不寒而栗。我认为列出明确的问题清单让互动变得更加做作。从那以后,我的谈话风格已经变得更加自然,同时努力保持其精神。 我真的很喜欢问问题,如果合适的话,我会经常把这些问题融入对话中。并且会尽力营造一种氛围,让人们能够坦诚相待,无所顾忌,我也会相应地展现自己的脆弱。

One of the main reasons I’d recommend others try this is that it broke me out of a bad equilibria. I was trapped in a ‘normal’ mode of conversation - making small talk, being inoffensive, feeling aversion to being weird, respecting where I thought other people’s boundaries were. But when I tried something totally different and super weird, it often went great! Sometimes other people hate small talk too, and also seek a genuine connection. But by default, this would never have happened - it took one of us taking initiative to break past the trap of social norms. And only by having a bunch of unusual and scary conversations yet having them go great did I develop the courage to be weird. Respecting other people’s actual boundaries is important, but the conventional approach assumes an un-negotiable, one-size-fits-all to boundaries. And empirically, this picture is often totally off - some people think I want them to act normally, but are open to a much wider range of conversational styles if I initiate it.
我推荐其他人尝试这个的主要原因之一是它打破了我原有的平衡。我被困在一种“正常”的对话模式中——进行着闲聊,避免冒犯,害怕显得奇怪,尊重我认为别人界限所在。但当我尝试一些完全不同且非常奇怪的事情时,结果往往很好!有时,其他人也讨厌闲聊,也渴望真诚的连接。但默认情况下,这种情况永远不会发生——需要我们中的一方主动打破社会规范的陷阱。只有通过进行大量不寻常且令人害怕的对话,并取得成功,我才获得了变得奇怪的勇气。尊重他人的实际界限很重要,但传统方法假设界限是不可协商的、一刀切的。而从经验上看,这种看法往往完全错误——有些人认为希望他们表现得正常,但如果我主动发起,他们会对更广泛的对话风格持开放态度。

Another key lesson is that closeness isn’t just about spending a lot of time being friends - intentional, authentic, 1-1 time together makes a big difference. Sometimes I feel closer to someone after a single amazing conversation, than to people I’ve considered friends for years. Emotional connections aren’t something that just happen to me - they’re something I need to actually try to form. And effort, intelligently applied, can really pay off.
另一个关键的教训是,亲密不仅仅是花很多时间做朋友——有意的、真实的、一对一的相处时间会产生很大的影响。有时,我与某人进行了一次精彩的谈话后,感觉比与我多年来一直认为是朋友的人更亲近。情感联系不是自然而然发生的——我需要主动去建立。而明智地付出的努力,真的会带来回报。

Advice 建议

So, that was my story. Now, I want to try distilling some key lessons that I think might apply to other people’s quests to form close friends.
这就是我的故事。现在,我想尝试提炼一些我认为可能适用于其他人建立亲密友谊的关键经验教训。

A key caveat to everything that follows: I argue for being much more intentional about social things than normal. When doing this, it’s easy to come across as cold and calculating. I think it’s super important to try to remain authentic, and to signal authenticity. I find it helpful to generally be friendly, make jokes, be honest and transparent, and be willing to be vulnerable. Eg, being open about the strategies I’m running and why, if it ever comes up. 
以下所有内容的关键前提是:我主张在社交方面比平常更刻意。这样做很容易让人显得冷冰冰、算计。我认为保持真实,并传递真实性非常重要。我发现通常友好、开玩笑、诚实透明以及愿意脆弱很有帮助。例如,如果有人问起,就坦诚地谈谈我正在使用的策略以及原因。

Seek excitement 寻求刺激

A key mindset I use when forming connections via conversation is: “If we aren’t both excited about this conversation, do something differently”. This applies especially when talking to someone I don’t know well, and want to figure out whether we might become good friends. 
我与人交谈建立联系时,一个关键的心态是:“如果我们双方对这场谈话都不感到兴奋,那就换个方式”。这尤其适用于与不太熟悉的人交谈时,我想弄清楚我们是否有可能成为好朋友。

Most social norms optimise for conversations that feel safe, not ones that feel exciting, so I need to do something differently! This means asking the other person questions. This means taking a genuine interest in what we’re talking about - and if I can’t take a genuine interest, then I am doing something wrong. 
大多数社会规范都优化了让人感觉安全的对话,而不是让人感觉兴奋的对话,所以我需要做一些不同的事情!这意味着要问对方问题。这意味着要对我们正在谈论的话题表现出真正的兴趣——如果我不能表现出真正的兴趣,那么我就是在做错事。

A tactic I find helpful here is what I call recursive curiosity. I lead by asking an open-ended question that invites a detailed answer. Then, I introspect and try to notice excitement, find the part of their answer I find most interesting, and ask a follow-up open-ended question about it. Then, I repeat this process on their new answer. After about 3-4 iterations, we’ve normally gotten somewhere that feels alive and novel, where we’re both learning, rather than the same stale conversations they have all the time. The follow-up questions don’t need to be thoughtful or elaborate, often just ‘[specific detail] sounds interesting, tell me more’ or ‘[specific detail] didn’t really make sense to me, can you clarify? Did you mean [naive interpretation]?’ are more than enough. Introspecting on confusion or curiosity also works well. Often, rather than having a clear purpose to my questions I try to maximise surface area - just asking questions that point at my confusions and try to maximise the new information I gain, and the amount that I learn. This tends to feel fairly reactive - just responding to whatever was most interesting in the last thing said.
我发现这里一个有用的策略叫做递归式好奇心。我通过提出一个开放式问题来引导对话,这个问题会引出详细的答案。然后,我会进行内省,试图注意到兴奋点,找到他们答案中最令我感兴趣的部分,并针对它提出一个后续的开放式问题。然后,我会对他们的新答案重复这个过程。经过大约 3-4 次迭代,我们通常会到达一个感觉生动新颖的地方,在那里我们都在学习,而不是像他们一直进行的那些陈腐的对话。后续问题不需要深思熟虑或精心设计,通常只需“ [具体细节] 听起来很有趣,告诉我更多”或“ [具体细节] 我不太理解,你能解释一下吗?你是指 [天真的解释] 吗?”就足够了。对困惑或好奇心的内省也同样有效。通常,我不会对我的问题有一个明确的目的,而是试图最大化表面积 - 只提出指向我困惑的问题,并试图最大化我获得的新信息和学习的知识量。这感觉起来相当被动 - 只是对上一次对话中最有趣的部分做出反应。

Sometimes I feel trapped in a boring conversation direction because the structure of small talk feels hard to break out of. When this happens, I like to go meta, eg observing ‘man, I feel like I keep having the same kinds of conversations at these places’ or ‘let’s get the boring questions out of the way - [standard small talk done rapidly]’. If they seem to empathise, this is a good opener for a more fun question, eg: ’what kind of things do you get excited about?’, ‘what’s something cool you learned recently?’, or ‘have you had any particularly memorable conversations in [this context]?’
有时候我会觉得被困在无聊的对话方向里,因为闲聊的结构很难打破。当这种情况发生时,我喜欢用元叙事的方式,比如观察“天哪,我感觉自己一直在这些地方进行着相同类型的对话”或者“让我们把无聊的问题都抛开——[快速完成标准的闲聊]”。如果他们似乎感同身受,这将是一个很好的开场白,可以引出更有趣的问题,例如:“你对什么事情感到兴奋?”、“你最近学到了什么很酷的东西?”或者“你在[这个环境]中有没有过特别难忘的对话?”

I’ve found that practicing this skill has made me much better at forming instant connections when meeting new people, and is much more fun than small talk! Even beyond meeting new people or following concrete algorithms, the spirit of ‘seek the most exciting thread of the conversation’ makes talking to friends way more fun!
我发现练习这项技能让我在结识新朋友时更容易迅速建立联系,而且比闲聊有趣得多!即使超越了结识新朋友或遵循具体的算法,这种“寻找对话中最令人兴奋的线索”的精神也让与朋友交谈有趣得多!

Warning: these tactics sometimes get the other person to monologue - I am fine with this, and most people enjoy talking to an engaged audience, but some people feel bad at one-sided conversations. If you apply these techniques, I recommend being willing to monologue in turn if the other person seems interested - otherwise it can feel like you’re being insincere.
警告: 这些策略有时会让对方滔滔不绝地说话——我对此没有意见,而且大多数人喜欢和一个投入的听众交谈,但有些人会觉得单方面对话很不好。如果你使用这些技巧,我建议你也要准备好轮流说,如果对方看起来很感兴趣——否则会让人觉得你不真诚。

Being vulnerable 脆弱

For me, vulnerability, and especially shared vulnerability, are really core to forming emotional connections. But this is difficult to manage because vulnerability, by definition, is hard. Different people have very different boundaries and comfort levels, and respecting boundaries is super important here. But, conversely, successfully creating shared vulnerability is really valuable and worth striving for.
对我来说,脆弱,尤其是共同的脆弱,是建立情感联系的核心。但这很难管理,因为脆弱本身就很难。不同的人有不同的界限和舒适度,尊重界限在这里非常重要。但反过来,成功地创造共同的脆弱是真正有价值的,值得努力。

My main approach is to create a space in which it feels safe to be vulnerable, but try to avoid creating obligations. I try to be honest and vulnerable myself, and freely share things that feel authentic throughout the conversation. I prefer to express lots of small vulnerabilities throughout the conversation rather than sharing something major and making it feel like a big deal - the latter tends to create an obligation/expectation of reciprocation, while the former better establishes a ‘I consider this fine and normal’ norm. I also find that both are effective for breaking people’s social scripts/default ways of acting by being weird and unexpected - I find this is often a good first step to actually having a meaningful conversation. I find that sharing anxieties and insecurities can work particularly well here - almost everyone has them, it feels stigmatised to discuss them but people tend to respect you when you do, and they’re often much more common and relatable than people think. I’ve had a bunch of these conversations, and still find it exciting (and sad) when I meet someone with really similar problems to me!
我的主要方法是创造一个安全的空间,让人们敢于脆弱,但尽量避免制造义务。我会尝试诚实和脆弱,并在整个对话中自由地分享真实的东西。我更喜欢在整个对话中表达许多小的脆弱,而不是分享一些重大的事情,并让它感觉像一件大事——后者往往会制造一种互惠的义务/期望,而前者则更好地建立了一种“我认为这很好很正常”的规范。我还发现,这两种方法都有效地打破了人们的社交脚本/默认行为方式,因为它们很奇怪,出乎意料——我发现这通常是进行有意义对话的第一步。我发现分享焦虑和不安全感特别有效——几乎每个人都有,讨论它们会让人感到耻辱,但人们往往会尊重你这样做,而且它们通常比人们想象的更普遍,更容易引起共鸣。我已经有过很多这样的对话,当我遇到一个和我有着非常相似问题的人时,我仍然感到兴奋(和悲伤)!

The ‘without obligations’ point is particularly important here, and hard to thread - sometimes people would enjoy sharing something vulnerable, but fear that it would make me uncomfortable. I like to ask questions that invite a vulnerable response, but to give the person an ‘out’, some kind of reasonable excuse they could use to deflect without losing face. And by gauging their reactions, and seeing how much further to probe.
“没有义务”这一点在这里尤其重要,而且很难把握 - 有时候人们会乐于分享一些脆弱的东西,但担心会让我感到不舒服。我喜欢问一些能引出脆弱回应的问题,但也要给对方一个“退路”,一些合理的借口,让他们可以用来回避而不失面子。然后通过观察他们的反应,看看可以探究到什么程度。

Overall, this is pretty hard to gauge and balance. It definitely takes a lot of practice, and I’m far from perfect at it. But I find it very worthwhile to practice. 
总的来说,这很难衡量和平衡。这肯定需要大量的练习,而且我离完美还很远。但我发现练习非常有价值。

Personally, I tend to be very anxious about whether I’m making other people uncomfortable, so I find this technique pretty aversive at times. My main approach to motivation here is internalising that I want to be a person who actually does things - that being vulnerable and welcoming vulnerable are skills I find uncomfortable but value, and I am growing as a person if I cultivate them. And, empirically, I’ve found this really useful to practice. I find this often leads to really awesome interactions, often in my first interaction with someone.
我个人很容易担心是否会让别人感到不舒服,所以有时我会觉得这种技巧很反感。我主要的动力来源是将“我想成为一个真正做事的人”这一理念内化——我认为脆弱和欢迎脆弱是让我感到不舒服但又很珍视的技能,如果我培养这些技能,我就会成长为一个更好的人。而且,从经验上来说,我发现这种方法真的很有用。我发现这通常会导致非常棒的互动,尤其是在我与某人第一次互动时。

Hits-based Befriending
基于点击量的 交友

Alternate title: Making friends like an r-strategist
备选标题:像一个r-策略者一样交朋友

Another key insight about friendship is that it’s all about upside risk. I will meet many, many more people in my life than I could ever sustain friendships with, let alone close friendships. Thus, if I am meeting new people and want to find potential close friends, I want to filter fast for compatible people. Further, compatibility is heavy-tailed - I won’t really vibe with most people, but some people are awesome. I want to explore and optimise for information. This pushed towards high-variance strategies. If I meet 100 people, and want to pursue a friendship with just a handful, this is great! 
关于友谊的另一个关键见解是,它完全是关于上行风险的。我一生中会遇到很多很多人,比我能维持友谊的人数多得多,更不用说亲密的朋友了。因此,如果我正在结识新朋友,并且想找到潜在的亲密朋友,我想要快速筛选出合得来的人。此外,兼容性是重尾的——我不会真正与大多数人产生共鸣,但有些人很棒。我想探索和优化信息。这推动了高方差策略。如果我遇到 100 个人,并且只想与其中一小部分人发展友谊,那就太好了!

This is a very, very different mindset from standard social norms, which push me towards being bland and inoffensive, and minimising the probability of bad interactions. A bad interaction (so long as it doesn’t damage my reputation) is just as useless as a mediocre interaction for finding potential friends. Instead I want to maximise the probability that, if someone is compatible with me, we have an awesome interaction. This is a key part of why I push for excitement and vulnerability - many people won’t vibe with that, but it makes it much more likely that I hit it off with the right kind of person.
这与标准的社会规范截然不同,标准的社会规范促使我变得平淡无奇,不冒犯任何人,并最大限度地减少不良互动的可能性。一次糟糕的互动(只要它不会损害我的声誉)与一次平庸的互动一样无用,因为它们都无法找到潜在的朋友。相反,我想最大限度地提高以下可能性:如果有人与我合得来,我们会有一次很棒的互动。这是我为什么推动兴奋和脆弱的关键原因之一——很多人不会与之产生共鸣,但这使得我更有可能与合适的人一拍即合。

Further, I am not constrained by the number of people I could meet - there are a lot of interesting people in the world. This means it’s OK (but sad) if some people I could be compatible with don’t vibe with my approach. Some people are pretty closed at first, and take a while to warm up to new people, but are awesome once this happens - my strategies around eg minimising small talk work much less well on this kind of person, which is sad. But the ability to filter fast is crucial. (Note: The trade-off between efficiency and precision depends on your situation, and I expect I’m further towards efficiency than most readers)
此外,我不受能认识的人数的限制——世界上有很多有趣的人。这意味着,如果一些可能与我相合的人不喜欢我的方式,那也没关系(但很遗憾)。有些人一开始很封闭,需要一段时间才能对新人敞开心扉,但一旦这样做了,他们就非常棒——我关于例如尽量减少闲聊的策略对这类人效果不太好,这很遗憾。但快速筛选的能力至关重要。(注意:效率和精度的权衡取决于你的情况,我预计我比大多数读者更倾向于效率。)

An important part of this is that a good filter is something that identifies people I’m compatible with and convinces them that they’re compatible with me - if it feels like I’m coldly analysing or interviewing them, this is unlikely to go well. This is another part of why I am excited about approaches centred on excitement + vulnerability, those tend to go well if reciprocated.
这一点很重要,一个好的过滤器应该能够识别出与我相合的人,并让他们相信他们也与我相合——如果感觉我在冷冰冰地分析或面试他们,那结果不太可能好。这也是为什么我对以兴奋和脆弱为中心的策略感到兴奋的另一个原因,如果得到回应,这些策略往往会很有效。

Warning: This logic does not apply with people who I will need to interact with regularly anyway, eg co-workers/classmates. Social norms around minimising weirdness/potential for bad outcomes make much more sense in those situations, since downside risk is much higher. These mindsets work best when eg meeting people at a party or meetup or friends of friends, where I won’t necessarily interact with them again.
警告:这种逻辑不适用于那些我需要经常与之互动的人,例如同事/同学。在这些情况下,尽量减少怪异/潜在不良结果的社会规范更有意义,因为负面风险要高得多。当例如在派对或聚会上或朋友的朋友那里认识人时,这些心态最有效,因为我可能不会再与他们互动。

Another key part of hits-based befriending is meeting lots of people, and exposing myself to lots of possible hits. Some of my favourite approaches:
基于“命中注定”的交友方式中,另一个关键部分是结识很多人,让自己接触到更多潜在的“命中注定”。我个人比较喜欢的几种方法包括:

  • Going to meetups 参加聚会

  • Going to events that will attract people with similar interests
    参加能吸引志同道合的人的活动

  • Talking to people around me in talks/lectures
    在演讲/讲座中与周围的人交谈

  • Asking my friends for intros to their friends - both generically (‘do you know anyone I might get on with?’) and specifically (‘can you introduce me to [specific person]?’)
    向朋友寻求介绍他们朋友的机会 - 包括泛泛地问“你认识什么人可能跟我合得来?”以及具体地问“你能把我介绍给[具体的人]吗?”

  • Proactively reaching out to people who seem interesting
    主动联系那些看起来很有趣的人

    • I find this pretty anxiety-inducing, but it has a surprisingly high success rate. Most people are flattered!
      我觉得这挺让人焦虑的,但出奇地成功率很高。大多数人都会很高兴!

  • Having public forms on my website for people who want to have a chat or go on a date
    在我的网站上提供公开表格,供想要聊天或约会的人使用

Exercise: What traits do you value in your friends? What kind of person would you love to be friends with? How could you identify these traits in someone in a first meeting?
练习:你重视朋友的哪些特质?你希望和什么样的人做朋友?在初次见面时,你如何识别这些特质?

Take Social Initiative 积极主动地社交

See longer form thoughts on this in Taking Social Initiative
关于此主题的更详细想法,请参见积极主动地社交

A key second step to the hits-based befriending mindset is to follow-up once I identify someone cool! I try to make sure I get their contact info, and reach out shortly after meeting them trying to arrange a call/meetup. I find that many people are too socially anxious to do this, but this is a really useful skill to practice. The vast majority of my current friendships would not exist if I was bad at reaching out. Most people find this great and flattering, don’t overthink it.
基于“命中注定”的交友心态的第二个关键步骤是,一旦我发现了一个很酷的人,就要主动联系他们!我会尽力获取他们的联系方式,并在见面后不久就联系他们,安排通话或见面。我发现很多人在社交方面过于焦虑,无法做到这一点,但这是一种非常有用的技能,值得练习。如果我不善于主动联系,我目前的大多数友谊都不会存在。大多数人会觉得这很好,很讨人喜欢,不要想太多。

If you feel convinced of this logic, but still feel anxious about it, my main advice is to practice. Find some safe-ish ways to try it at first, eg with people you really hit it off with, or who seem incredibly friendly, or who you feel really comfortable around. If you’re overthinking it, talk it through with a trusted friend and let them talk you into it. If you’re concerned you won’t know what to talk about, do some research on the person and make an agenda: a list of possible topics or questions to ask them. Initially, it takes a lot of willpower and effort, and may feel super anxiety inducing - this is normal. But after I did it a few times and it went well, my mind started to update, and it now feels like a habit. I find that a similar strategy works for most forms of comfort zone expansion.
如果你认同这种逻辑,但仍然感到焦虑,我的主要建议是练习。首先,找到一些相对安全的方式尝试,例如,与你非常合得来的人,或者看起来非常友善的人,或者你感到非常自在的人。如果你过度思考,可以和信任的朋友谈谈,让他们说服你。如果你担心不知道该聊些什么,可以先做一些关于对方的调查,并制定一个议程:列出一些可能的话题或问题来询问他们。最初,这需要大量的意志力和努力,而且可能会让人感到非常焦虑——这是正常的。但在我尝试了几次之后,结果还不错,我的思维开始更新,现在感觉已经成为一种习惯了。我发现类似的策略适用于大多数突破舒适区的行为。

Another tactic for overcoming anxiety is to other-ise. Imagine you met someone at a party, they thought you were cool, and messaged you afterwards asking to meet up again. I don’t know about you, but I’d find that pretty flattering. Or, imagine a specific friend coming to you with an analogous situation, asking whether they should follow-up. What advice would you give to the friend? And, if it differs from your internal thoughts about your situation, why? Personally, I have yet to find a situation where the advice I give to the friend is worse than the advice I give myself.
克服焦虑的另一个策略是将自己置于他人视角。想象一下你在派对上遇到一个人,他们觉得你很酷,并在之后给你发消息想再次见面。我不知道你怎么样,但我认为这会让人感觉很受宠若惊。或者,想象一下一个特定的朋友遇到类似的情况,来问你是否应该继续联系。你会给朋友什么建议?如果它与你对自己情况的内心想法不同,为什么?就我个人而言,我还没有发现给朋友的建议比给自己的建议更糟糕的情况。

A related and important skill is keeping in touch. Most people are really bad at keeping in touch, especially without a structure like university that keeps you in frequent contact. This means that many friendships fizzle without this structure. And this is really sad! I find a common mindset is ‘if friend X really valued this friendship, I wouldn’t be the one to always reach out’. But, empirically, I am confident many of my friends value our friendship, but also suck at reaching out. Being conscientious and organised is just hard, and varies a lot between people. Some people are very organised and keep in touch with everyone with ease, others easily lose track of close friends. ‘Does this friend reach out to me?’ is an incredibly noisy signal for how much they like you, and I consider it to convey approximately no information. I want to be good at keeping in touch, because I want to be able to remain friends with less conscientious people. And if I want to know if a friend actually likes me, there are much more direct ways of asking them. 
保持联系是一项相关且重要的技能。大多数人都不擅长保持联系,尤其是在没有像大学这样的结构来保持频繁联系的情况下。这意味着许多友谊在没有这种结构的情况下就会逐渐消失。这真的很令人难过!我发现一种常见的思维方式是“如果朋友 X 真的重视这段友谊,我就不应该总是主动联系”。但是,根据经验,我相信我的许多朋友都重视我们的友谊,但也很不擅长主动联系。认真和有条理很难,而且人与人之间差异很大。有些人很有条理,可以轻松地与每个人保持联系,而另一些人则很容易失去对亲密朋友的联系。“这位朋友是否主动联系我?”是一个非常嘈杂的信号,用来衡量他们有多喜欢你,我认为它几乎没有传达任何信息。我想擅长保持联系,因为我想能够与那些不太认真的人保持朋友关系。如果我想知道一个朋友是否真的喜欢我,有更直接的方式问他们。

But, fundamentally, keeping in touch should not be that hard - you just need to regularly reach out to arrange a call/meetup. This can be solved by being highly conscientious and having a good memory, but if you’re lazy like me, the correct way to solve this is with systems. I have a pretty barebones spreadsheet (see template) that lets me set an interval of N days to reach out to each friend, and reminds me to reach out N days after our last call, which has completely solved this problem. Other systems, such as Calendly, are great for streamlining both following-up and keeping in touch, by making it trivial to schedule things.
但从根本上说,保持联系不应该那么难 - 你只需要定期联系安排通话/见面。这可以通过高度自律和良好的记忆力来解决,但如果你像我一样懒惰,解决这个问题的正确方法是使用系统。我有一个非常简单的电子表格(查看模板),它允许我设置一个 N 天的间隔来联系每个朋友,并在我们上次通话后 N 天提醒我联系他们,这完全解决了这个问题。其他系统,例如 Calendly,非常适合简化后续和保持联系,因为它可以轻松地安排事情。

For me, much of the anxiety around following-up and keeping in touch centre on being a burden, and bothering other people. A mindset I find helpful is reframing it all as providing a public good. Taking social initiative is hard and most people aren’t very good at it. But most people do value fun social interactions. And, for some reason, people often enjoy interacting with me. This means that by taking social initiative, I am creating more opportunities for both of our lives to be better, which is something I find deeply motivating. ‘I want to be a person who creates win-win situations’ is fairly core to my identity. Whether it’s following-up, keeping in touch, organising parties, suggesting group activities, etc, I want there to be more people in the world who do this. So I want to cultivate this skill myself.
对我来说,围绕着跟进和保持联系的焦虑,很大一部分来自于担心自己会成为负担,会打扰别人。我发现一个有用的心态是将这一切重新定义为提供公共利益。主动社交是困难的,大多数人都不擅长。但大多数人确实重视有趣的社交互动。而且,出于某种原因,人们通常喜欢与我互动。这意味着,通过主动社交,我为我们双方创造了更多让生活变得更好的机会,这我内心深处的一种动力。“我想成为一个创造双赢局面的人”是我身份的核心。无论是跟进、保持联系、组织派对、建议集体活动等等,我都希望世界上有更多人这样做。所以我想培养自己的这项技能。

Deepening Friendships 加深友谊

See my post on Friendships for a deeper dive into what my ideal friendship looks like
参见我在友谊上的帖子,深入了解我理想的友谊是什么样的。

My guess is that a surprising amount of the variance in friendship quality comes from finding the right people, and that things can often flow easily from there. But I think that it is also clearly valuable to practice the skill of deepening existing friendships. I have less time actively optimising this skill, and feedback loops are harder, but here are some thoughts:
我认为,友谊质量的差异很大程度上取决于找到合适的人,一旦找到,很多事情就会自然而然地发展。但我认为,练习加深现有友谊的技巧也同样重要。我花在积极优化这项技能上的时间较少,反馈循环也更难,但这里有一些想法:

  • All my thoughts so far on vulnerability, excitement and authenticity also work for deepening friendships - I find that having regular authentic and meaningful conversations really help me feel closer to people
    我之前关于脆弱、兴奋和真实性的所有想法也适用于加深友谊——我发现进行定期、真实和有意义的对话真的能让我感觉更亲近他人

  • Spending time together 共同度过时光

    • In particular, searching for unusually fun/fulfilling ways to spend time together. Pay attention to their interests, experiment, and take social initiative!
      尤其要寻找一些非比寻常的、充满乐趣和满足感的方式来共度时光。关注他们的兴趣,尝试新事物,并主动社交!

    • Relatedly, actually make time to spend together. Protect your Slack, and spend it on the people you care about. It’s easy to make the mistake of considering social stuff the low priority thing to cut when I’m busy.
      相关地,实际上抽出时间在一起。 保护你的 Slack,把它花在你在乎的人身上。 当我忙的时候,很容易犯把社交活动当作低优先级的事情来削减的错误。

  • Don’t feel constrained by fear of seeming weird, or social norms
    不要因为害怕显得奇怪或社会规范而束手束脚。

    • Some social norms are good, some are bad. But if I really care about someone, I want our relationship to be optimised for their preferences. And this means figuring out what they want, and setting explicit boundaries and norms with each other
      一些社会规范是好的,一些是坏的。但如果我真的在乎某个人,我希望我们之间的关系能够优化到他们的偏好。这意味着要弄清楚他们想要什么,并彼此设定明确的界限和规范。

      • Eg, do they value honesty? Politeness? Bluntness? Proactivity? Compliments? Affection?
        例如,他们重视诚实吗?礼貌?直率?主动性?赞美?亲密?

  • Relatedly, have good and clear communication about what we both want out of the friendship, and how the other person adds to our life
    相关地,要就我们双方对友谊的期望以及对方如何丰富我们的生活进行良好清晰的沟通。

    • People often find this hard - it’s hard to eg communicate about ways the other person annoys you without harming them. For me, a key is creating clear and explicit common knowledge that we both value this friendship and are invested in it. This frames all clear communication as being on the same team - we’re trying to work together and share information, so we can both forge a better friendship
      人们常常发现这很难 - 例如,很难在不伤害对方的情况下,就对方惹你生气的方式进行沟通。对我来说,关键是创造清晰明确的共同认知,即我们都珍视这份友谊,并投入其中。这将所有清晰的沟通都置于同一个团队的框架下 - 我们正在努力合作,分享信息,以便我们都能建立更好的友谊。

  • Seek positive externalities - be a pleasant person to be around, and find ways to add joy to the lives of those around you
    寻求积极的外溢效应 - 做一个令人愉快的伙伴,并找到方法为周围的人的生活增添快乐。

  • Try to form a coherent model of how they add value to my life and vice versa. Once identified, try to actively optimise for the ways I add value.
    尝试构建一个连贯的模型,了解他们如何为我的生活增值,反之亦然。一旦确定,尝试积极优化我增值的方式。

  • Practice relevant skills:
    练习相关技能:

    • As above, good communication
      如上所述,良好的沟通

    • Love languages - different people have very different ways of expressing affection, and it’s easy to typical mind fallacy. Some people really value appreciation, others value your time, others value gifts, others value physical affection, etc. I find it hard to empathise with people with different love languages, so it’s important to explicitly notice and account for this, and understand what my friends want
      爱情语言 - 不同的人表达爱意的方式截然不同,很容易陷入 典型的思维谬误。有些人非常重视赞赏,有些人重视你的时间,有些人重视礼物,有些人重视肢体接触,等等。我发现很难理解与我拥有不同爱情语言的人,所以明确注意到这一点并加以考虑,理解朋友们想要什么很重要。

    • Emotional support/debugging - one of the most valuable parts friends play in my life is providing emotional support, and help solving my problems. And I want to be able to provide this in turn. But this is really hard, and definitely a practicable skill! 
      情感支持/调试 - 朋友在我生活中最宝贵的价值之一是提供情感支持和帮助解决我的问题。我也想反过来提供这些。但这真的很难,绝对是一项可实践的技能!

      • My main tip is to avoid jumping to conclusions about the problem and what is needed, and instead to explore the problem more than feels necessary. I often explicitly ask ‘what kind of help are you looking for?’ - sometimes they want a solution, sometimes they just want to vent
        我的主要建议是避免对问题和所需内容妄下结论,而是要比感觉必要时更多地探索问题。我经常明确地问“你想要什么样的帮助?”——有时他们想要解决方案,有时他们只是想发泄。

      • See this post for more advice
        查看 这篇文章 获取更多建议

But remember, these are just my takes, according to my friends and my values. You should experiment, try things, and figure out what works best for you!
但请记住,这些只是我个人的看法,基于我的朋友和我的价值观。你应该尝试,探索,找到最适合你的方法!

Exercise: Make a list of your good friends. Which of them do you feel closest to, and what has led to this? What blocks are there to being closer to some, and what are you going to do about it?
练习:列出你的好朋友。你最亲近哪一个,是什么原因导致了这种亲密关系?你和某些朋友之间存在哪些阻碍,你打算如何解决?

Conclusion 结论

Close friends are very important to my life. And solving the problem of intentionally making close friends has added a ton of value, helped me make many friendships I cherish. Further, I’ve managed to add a lot of value to their lives. Friendship is one of the best mutually beneficial trades I’ve ever made.
亲密的朋友对我的生活非常重要。而有意地建立亲密友谊,解决这个问题,为我的生活增添了许多价值,帮助我结交了许多我珍惜的友谊。此外,我也设法为他们的生活增添了许多价值。友谊是我所做过的最互惠互利的交易之一。

The ideas in this post are all specialised to my tastes, and my experiences. I am a massive fan of 1-1 conversations, and of shared vulnerability. But your mileage may vary! You should experiment, try things, and forge your own vision of what intentionally forming close friendships looks like for you.
这篇文章中的想法都是根据我的个人喜好和经历而来的。我非常喜欢一对一的谈话,以及彼此坦诚相待。但你的情况可能有所不同!你应该尝试不同的方法,探索不同的可能性,并根据自己的想法,打造属于你自己的亲密友谊模式。

A point I’ve made throughout is that this is a skill. These are all things you can practice, experiment, iterate and get better at. It’s easy to think of friendships as just something that happens to you. But I assert that, for most people, the cap on how awesome their friendships can be is far higher than where they are right now - it would be weird if that wasn’t the case! Relationships are complex. 
我一直在强调的一点是,这是一种技能。这些都是你可以练习、实验、迭代并变得更好的事情。很容易把友谊看成是自然而然发生的事情。但我断言,对于大多数人来说,他们友谊的潜力上限远高于他们现在的水平——如果不是这样的话,那就很奇怪了!人际关系很复杂。

Finally, my key lesson from all this is that I need to take agency. It’s easy to go through life never solving this problem, never even noticing the lack. Nothing will go visibly wrong. Nobody will stop you, or solve this for you. If you need permission from someone to do something differently, let this post be it - if you want your social life to be better, the only one who will fix this is you.
最后,我从这一切中得到的关键教训是,我需要采取行动。在生活中不去解决这个问题,甚至没有注意到它的缺失,是很容易的。表面上不会有什么问题。没有人会阻止你,或者为你解决这个问题。如果你需要别人的许可才能做一些不同的事情,就让这篇文章成为你的许可吧——如果你想让你的社交生活变得更好,唯一能解决这个问题的人是你自己。

If the ideas in this post have resonated, I encourage you to take a moment to stop and reflect on your social life: Are you happy with how things are going? Do you feel happy with your ability to emotionally connect? Could it be better, and if so, how? What have you tried to do about this so far? And looking forwards, what are you going to do about this? 
如果你对这篇文章的想法产生共鸣,我鼓励你花点时间停下来反思一下你的社交生活:你对目前的情况感到满意吗?你对自己的情感连接能力感到满意吗?它可以更好吗?如果可以,怎么做?到目前为止,你尝试过什么?展望未来,你将怎么做?

Exercise: Set a 5 minute timer, and list as many concrete ideas as you can for experiments to run, and things to try doing differently.
练习:设定一个 5 分钟的计时器,列出尽可能多的具体想法,包括要进行的实验和尝试不同做法。

Bonus exercise: Actually do something about it.
额外练习:真正做点什么.

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Great post! Some of the lessons can be applied to family as well!
很棒的文章!一些教训也可以应用到家庭中!

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Helps a lot. Thanks Neel
非常有用。谢谢 Neel

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Enjoyed reading your article. This is a big reason why I'm building the FourHere (www.fourhere.com) community. I worked in Silicon Valley for years, and moved to different cities; but still struggle to find the free time, and platform that help me build better friendships.
很喜欢读你的文章。这也是我创建 FourHere (www.fourhere.com) 社区的主要原因。我在硅谷工作了很多年,搬到了不同的城市,但仍然难以找到空闲时间和平台来帮助我建立更好的友谊。

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Thanks for reminding me of the technique (which I first read on LessWrong I think?) about setting a five-minute timer and sitting there and writing out solutions to a problem. Surprisingly powerful!
感谢你提醒我这个技巧(我好像是在 LessWrong 上第一次看到的?),就是设置一个五分钟的计时器,然后坐下来写出解决问题的方案。效果出奇地好!

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Thank you! I've learned many similar things as you have, but it's so neat to see them all written out. I love your humble tone in this article, too. And little bits of caveats/warnings.
谢谢!我学到的很多东西和你一样,但看到它们都写出来真是太棒了。我也很喜欢你在这篇文章中谦虚的语气,还有那些小小的注意事项/警告。

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Friggin SOLID article. Think I do many/most of these things, but it took me 20 years to stumble into them. Love that you put into into explicit words.
非常棒的文章!我想我做了很多/大多数这些事情,但花了 20 年才偶然发现它们。我很喜欢你把它们用明确的语言表达出来。

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Thank you for putting into clear words what I have been experiencing and learning in the past months. This is the stuff that parents should show their children early on, and which I had to learn painfully through therapy and basically unguided otherwise. It did change my life substantially. Congratulations to you that you found this for yourself at such a young age.
感谢你用清晰的语言表达了我过去几个月经历和学习到的东西。这些是父母应该早点教给孩子的东西,而我却不得不通过痛苦的治疗和基本上没有指导的方式才学会。它确实改变了我的生活。恭喜你在如此年轻的时候就发现了这些。

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These were rather similar conclusions I came to, albeit from a less logical perspective and a more emotional one. Different people also seek or provide different things when it comes to friendship. Most people seem content to vaguely know you in their day to day life, as opposed to actively engaging with the substantive elements of one's individual character.
这些结论和我得出的结论很相似,尽管我的视角更感性,逻辑性更弱。不同的人在友谊中寻求或提供的东西也不同。大多数人似乎满足于在日常生活中模糊地认识你,而不是积极地参与你个性的实质内容。

For me, I value the genuine above all else. And it's as you say. One must take agency themselves to find the people who can provide what they need, and need what they provide. And vulnerability goes a long way to establishing a genuine connection - something I've seen posited in an anime named 'Neon Genesis Evangelion' as the Hedgehog's Dilemma.
对我来说,我最看重真诚。正如你所说,人必须主动去寻找能提供自己所需的人,以及需要自己提供的人。而脆弱性对于建立真诚的联系至关重要——我在一部名为《新世纪福音战士》的动画中看到了这一点,被称为“刺猬困境”。

In some respect it's still a number game. No one's a prophet or mind reader either. Sometimes you will hit your busts in terms of getting to know someone you think is right, before finding out they're not later. But I want to add it's important to not get a sense of sunk cost fallacy. Because for friendship, relationships and life, it's not worth settling for less when you can easily find what you want.
从某种程度上来说,这仍然是一个数字游戏。没有人是先知或读心者。有时你会遇到挫折,你认为合适的人,后来发现并不合适。但我想补充一点,重要的是不要有沉没成本谬误。因为对于友谊、关系和生活来说,当你很容易找到你想要的东西时,没有必要将就。

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Really great post, love the systemization of what we usually think of as a more "natural" process. Question - can you offer some examples of small vulnerabilities? The only ones I can think of are more generic, less revealing ones (tendency to procrastinate, laziness in some habits, etc).
这篇帖子真的太棒了,我喜欢你把我们通常认为是“自然”的过程系统化。有个问题 - 你能举一些小漏洞的例子吗?我想到的都是比较通用的、不那么明显的漏洞(比如拖延症、一些习惯上的懒惰等等)。

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Thank you for this post. It's full of good ideas and inspiration. It found me at a time when I just made building deeper connections a priority. I made some notes and already used some of your strategies. Keep up the good work :-)
感谢你的这篇文章。它充满了很棒的想法和灵感。我正想把建立更深层联系作为优先事项,就看到了它。我已经做了一些笔记,并开始使用你的一些策略。继续加油!:-)

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Really great post, thanks for writing it.
非常棒的文章,谢谢你的分享。

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Love this post! I’m moving to a new city soon and have been really anxious about finding fulfilling close friendships there - now I’m actually kind of excited about it! :)
喜欢这篇文章!我很快就要搬到一个新城市,一直很焦虑,担心在那里找不到志同道合的亲密朋友,现在我反而有点兴奋了!:)

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