
Research on the benefits of “weak ties” – connecting with casual acquaintances - MaysonL
https://hbr.org/2020/04/why-you-miss-those-casual-friends-so-much
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grawprog
I never really did it when I was younger, but as i've gotten older i've
started just talking to random people I see regularly around the neighbourhood
or on my bus commute to work and honestly you end up meeting some pretty
varied and interesting people. I've ended up becoming acquaintances with a ton
of random people, many of which are people I would never end up associating
with under other circumstances. I've had some really great conversations,
heard some really cool, some really strange and some really heartbreaking
stories.

Sometimes I meet these people once and never see them again, sometimes i'll
see them regularly for a while but then they vanish and I never see them again
or in those odd cases they end up becoming friends.

The article touched on it a bit, but it has been hard not being able to talk
to random people lately with this lockdown and all. It's amazing the kind of
people you can just meet randomly in your day.

~~~
mettamage
I learned this behavior by reading the Luck Factor, but that book isn't
magical. What was magical is that it nudged me to do this.

One small tidbit that might be fun to share was when I met a seemingly shy
woman and we started a conversation and eventually I asked.

What do you do?

I program traffic lights.

What language are they programmed in?

In C

Who knew? :D

~~~
mettamage
Downvote feedback welcome. I did not expect people to downvote this. At worst,
I expected people to see this comment as neutral. I'm fine with losing points,
I am simply curious as to what goes through people their minds when they
downvote it.

My perspective:

This comment does not seem to break HN guidelines. Here is the contribution of
the comment:

\- Assuming that making smalltalk to strangers is a good thing (parent's
showcase), then what's more important is doing it. It doesn't matter how
you're inspired to do it.

\- Perhaps read the Luck Factor

\- Traffic lights are programmed in C (in my part of the world)

If the downvote comes from that it doesn't add enough. Fair enough. If it's
rather something else (tone, some form of negative emotion, civility or
anything like that), I'd be curious to know how it affects people.

If no one gives feedback after me asking explicitly, I get it.

~~~
mercer
1) sometimes comments get downvoted for no apparent reason, in which they
usually get upvoted again later. 2) many HN users downvote comments that talk
about being downvoted, as it is against the rules (and can come across as
needy/whiny). 3\. while it can feel bad to see your comments turn grey, it's
probably not healthy to let it affect your feelings (much).

I've often wondered by sometimes perfectly reasonable comments are downloaded,
and I suspect it's 1) because people just don't like the commenter because of
other comments, 2) mis-clicks, 3) bots that randomly vote to appear like real
users.

FWIW, I upvoted your original comment and downvoted this one because of 2.

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aaron695
It seems like church fits well with this, it's something very hard to replace
within societies as religion falls.

Association of Religious Service Attendance With Mortality Among Women
[https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2521827)

------
softwaredoug
During Covid, I have found people have been open to getting coffee virtually
and from 8:30 am - 9 am. It’s been a low commitment way to get to know someone
better that doesn’t encroach their work day... Frankly it’s less
intimidating/commitment than pre covid physically meeting at a coffee shop
before work. As such, in some ways I’m engaging more with some folks than
before covid.

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Mediterraneo10
I have mixed feelings about this bit: “people who were asked to ‘personalize’
a transaction at a coffee shop by smiling, making eye contact, and having a
genuine social interaction with their barista felt about 17% happier and more
socially connected.”

So the customer might feel better, but what about the barista? I think that a
lot of customer-service personnel want to remain as much in their own
headspace as possible while they are forced to stand there dealing with
strangers just to pay their bills, and so this behaviour would be imposing on
them. Also, for female baristas, customers flirting with them are one of their
biggest complaints, and it is all too easy for any social interaction to be
misinterpreted as flirting. So, unless you have observed the barista before to
see that they genuinely like interacting with customers, I think one only
risks being rude by making eye contact and trying to exchange some small
conversation outside of simply conveying one’s order.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I think if your customer representative doesn't want to connect with the
customer, you should fire them and get a new one.

Contrary to whatever business model motivated that comment, the entire point
of the business is to encourage customers to return. Its not the private
living room of the barrista where they share their weekend with the counter
staff while ignoring the line, the tables needing bussing, the overflowing
trash.

The personnel are to attend to the business 100% of the time they are being
paid to do so. That includes chatting up the customers, deflecting flirting,
asking about preferences and generally making the customer feel at home.

Don't like all that? Get a job hauling trash or digging ditches.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
Your response is a curious one, inasmuch as my comment was attempting to show
some sympathy for the workers that one interacts with during the day, while
your concern apparently is the business’s owners and whether they are
extracting maximum value out of their business, the feelings of working-class
people be damned. Also, nowhere in my comment was it suggested that customer-
service staff can freely “ignore the line, the tables needing bussing, the
overflowing trash”. I just personally hope they would at least be free to
think their own thoughts while they are doing all that. Customer-service staff
are human beings, not automatons.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Just venting. The idea that the business should be set up to convenience the
counter staff, is where it went off the rails. That's what I mean to
criticize, perhaps with hyperbole.

But be honest, we've all been to the shop where the staff seems to think
they're in their own kitchen, chatting up their mates and whoa! somebody wants
me to sell them a coffee??

I grew up on a farm. We worked. It wasn't intended to be entertaining, or
self-fulfilling, or respectful of the personal choices of the worker. It was
pitching hay, spreading manure.

The idea that kind of work is 'wrong' and workers are supposed instead to be
supported in a congenial frame of mind with their personal space respected and
only kind, polite people to interact with, is a pretty hipster notion. You
take the money, you better deliver the performance required.

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reubenswartz
As an introvert who has spent the past couple of years actively working on
this, I agree with the article. We are social mammals, we are supposed to have
conversations with other people. Even before we were sheltering in place, a
lot of people got in their cars, drove to an office where they might talk to
other people but not really have conversations (why the proverbial water
cooler is actually important), get back in their cars, come home, not really
have much connection with people at home, then consume a one-way stream of
content, and repeat. That's not a good way to live.

I can still remember wonderful conversations I had with strangers decades ago,
and with casual acquaintances I've revived over the past couple of years.
Highly recommend.

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DocG
In the last couple of years I've thought a lot that I'm really happy that I
changed schools after ninth grade and also repeated class in high school. I'm
not too outgoing person, but because of these things I have so broad
connection basis with people who I know on name basis. And this helps,
whenever I need to do business or just encounters, it is so much easier when
you know the person ten years already by name.

I would say this repeating class was highly positive for me, and way more
impactful than grades ever were in the long term.

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econcon
I used have a lot of friends and some 4000 people I've on Skype who I've met
at various events.

After that I went MIA, the thing is when you know so many people - a lot of
people try to extract value from you. I never needed help of any of these
people in my life, I am usually self driven and the way I get people
interested in what I want their help in is through showing them money and them
analysing if is worth their time.

Beyond that I've stopped trading favours and now everything is transactional
for me.

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pram
I feel ambivalent about the conclusion. Small talk is nice I guess, but
depending on your personality you might be more invested than the other
people. I've had numerous acquaintances basically just ghost me over the past
30 years. These were people I knew for lengths of half a decade+

That's life, I can't blame them, but it really starts to hurt the more it
happens. I find myself more cautious and conservative about who I invest time
with now. Having everything be so transactional seems like institutionalized
sociopathy sometimes.

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bobblywobbles
It goes to say that we all need each other.

