How to Win Friends but Not Influence People...

[Jacque]

Wow...in a crowd of irritable chatter boxes, my introversion is like a magnet. It seems as though they all annoy each other to the point where they've eliminated a great majority of candidates to schmooze. I find it ironic and disturbing. There must be an unbalanced personality mix. I usually win friends, as introverts do, through one on one conversation. Not in hordes, as through public exposure, which is the extrovert's forte...literally. The trait is being advertised as though it makes me an easy friend where pleasant acquaintences are in demand. And so I'm naming this phenomena after the above title: How to Win Friends but Not Influence People.

[indie]

I had a similar idea once (for a book, that is): How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. It surely would have been a NY Times bestseller. ;)

[ApeTheDog]

I find myself somehow wanting to draw peoples attention in a online chatterbox, to prove to people that I have more interesting things to say than the ones who do most of the talking. And then when I have everybodies attention, I want them all to stop noticing me.

I'd do the same in real life too, but far less so. I'd make a funny observation, everybody would suddently notice me, and ask me questions or spur me on to say more, but I'd be silent and evasive until they'd all 'forgotten' me again. Then I'd want them to notice me again (because, dammit, I'd think I had something to say). And so on, and so on...

[Miss Anthropic]

I think INTPs in general don't do a lot of group conversing because it is annoying to have to compete to be included in a conversation, and if it is a group it is probably more extraverts, and I know I don't want to talk if I am going to be talked over, because of course my point is soooooo important that everyone must hear it. On here we all get center stage to present our very important opinions and by virture of the medium we all get equal time....of course we can ignore and be ignored, but we probably don't even know, and if we don't know it doesn't matter. Yes?

[Architectonic]

I had a similar idea once (for a book, that is): How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. It surely would have been a NY Times bestseller. ;)

This could work, if it was a humourous parody of the other book.

[Vega]

I do have things to say, but it seems like groups of people operate at the lowest IQ present. Nothing good ever comes out of a crowd.

I keep doing this talking in installments thing, only with one person present, stop the conversation if anyone else shows up, and then restart it later.

[jimkopelli]

I do have things to say, but it seems like groups of people operate at the lowest IQ present. Nothing good ever comes out of a crowd.

I keep doing this talking in installments thing, only with one person present, stop the conversation if anyone else shows up, and then restart it later.
What's the rule for determining the IQ of a group... something like "take the lowest IQ of the group, then divide it evenly among all members."
I think that's really only for mobs and stuff... because the rule doesn't apply to groups in think-tanks and stuff like that... depends on the group, I guess.

I know about the talking in installments thing too... have to pick a new subject when new people show up, and continue the old one later...

[HairlessBluetick]

I do have things to say, but it seems like groups of people operate at the lowest IQ present. Nothing good ever comes out of a crowd.

This is true. "Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man." - John Steinbeck, East of Eden

I like the concept of "group IQ." Or Collective IQ. As in, "The Collective IQ of the US goes down 1 point every time Paris Hilton says 'That's Hot.' " On a related note another interesting idea is "group personality." My friends and I do that on occasion, we'll figure out the "personality" of the group by counting how many Is, Es, etc. Kind of amusing.