- What is your name?
- What is your quest?
- What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?
What do you mean? An african or european swallow?
[Queue screaming]
What is your favorite color?
The nice thing about using that Monty Python quote is that if I don’t like the answer, I can then mime throwing myself into a chasm, and thus extricate myself from the situation.
What’s the average rainfall in the Amazon basin?
-
What music do you like?
-
MAGA?
If you like music, and hate MAGAs, we can be good friends.
If you dont like music, and hate MAGAs, we can probably still be friends.
If you LOVE the music I love, but are MAGA, then you can fuck right off. I don’t hang with Nazis, no matter what your musical tastes are.
-
That’s not how you make friends.
Yeah I know not to just come out asking them these three questions. I just had the thought of what kind of questions you could ask to quickly and greatly understand the kind of person in front of you.
Actions speak louder than words. How about three questions to ask yourself?
- Do I feel better when I have been with them?
- Do they respect me?
- Do I respect them?
I recently asked myself similar questions about two friends I knew for about 15 years. I thought I had been close with them, but I quickly answered No to all of them (plus a bunch of follow-ups I asked myself), and realized they were never real friends, or at least hadn’t been for a while, they were just people who were accustomed to seeing me and sometimes making plans together.
I always felt anxious after hanging out with them, never felt like they listened to or cared about anything I said, never remembered my preferences or things about my personal life from visit to visit, never believed me when I said I knew something, etc etc. It’s easy to get used to this kind of thing and to think it’s normal and healthy, but it was so exhausting and frustrating for me that I finally gave up and haven’t talked to them in over a year.
Sometimes these types of questions are super helpful in evaluating longstanding relationships as well as new ones.
But that very impulse is inimical to making friends. You make friends by being open to making friends, and by being interested in other people, regardless of whether they are ‘friend material.’
You shouldn’t even be assuming you know or can predict what makes someone friend material for you. One can be surprised.
Census-based friendship 😂
What’s your favorite video game?
What’s your favorite movie?
What’s your favorite book?
If they say Call of Duty, Atlas Shrugged and Catcher in the Rye: They will never be my friend.
I know a few who would answer skyrim, avengers and ???. They’re kinda nice but also insanely lame and boring.
- Is modern medicine a scam?
- Is the current political world trend good or bad?
- Do you respect transgender people?
Reasoning:
- Are they conspiracy theorists
- Are they pro oppression and racism
- Are they tolerable of people who are seen as extremely outside of the standard norms and recognize that they don’t pose a threat to them personally
My dad, when I was a kid, used to open the door quickly, look down at my visiting friend and say “Who the hell are you?”
Then he’d shut the door abruptly, wait 3-4 seconds, then open it, laugh, and welcome them in.
If you can do that and they don’t get offended, they’re friend material.
My dad, when I was a kid, used to open the door quickly, look down at my visiting friend and say “Who the hell are you?”
Sad story time.
A friend of mine was visiting one of our mutual friends nearby in the big city while I was in the far, far outskirts. He was such a positive influence that I agreed to come visit at the same time and catch up, as he was always a great time. This excellent friend always brought a gallon of stories, his usual infectious manner, and this time he brought a surprise new girlfriend.
I did the “who the hell are you” and she got put off. It went reeeally poorly. They left for home the next day, ahead of schedule, back to America. He shut me out. Over the years he kinda shut everyone else there out, too, as far as I know, as he focused on the birth of two kids in succession and then his wife’s affliction with an aggressive debilitating disease; it may have been ALS. He shut a lot of ancillary things and people out, and I get that of course, but I am disappointed that my last interaction was a bombed joke.
It’s been 18 years. I finally booted him from my social media about 7-8 years ago.
Wide implementation of this technique would certainly explain why anxious/nervous people would have fewer friends.
ASL
17, w, cali
Suddenly feeling old.
40, m, Manchester UK.
Also old, 44/f/usa
How did we get here?
What brings you happiness or joy in life?
What do you do for fun?
What’s one thing you’d 100% recommend to someone brand new to the world?
- hey, my name is _____, what’s yours?
- are you looking for new friends?
- great I do _____ on ______ days, would you like to join?
The one I thought of was actually “What do you think about astrology?”
The answer I am looking for is neither that they believe or don’t believe it, I want to hear something between. Something like
“It’s fun! I love seeing the connections between people born with similar birthdays and stuff, and honestly it does seem accurate sometimes. But also I don’t live by it! What about you?”
This open, honest way of communicating is what’s important. Didn’t knock the idea down or support it 100%, just approached with an open mind.
Having an open mind is great and all, but once you’ve gathered enough information to take a position you’re not obligated to coddle those who remain willfully ignorant. I’ve personally never found astrology “fun,” it’s stupid woo that encourages people to adopt other stupid woo. At a time when anti-intellectualism is being institutionalized into government policy (in the US at least,) I don’t see how anyone in good faith can actively encourage that.
I don’t take astrology that seriously, it’s more of a conversation starter or a tool for introspection. Sometimes I see things about my birthdate that help me notice new things about myself, and sometimes it just seems made up.
Connecting astrology to anti-intellectualism is a pretty big reach in my opinion. I don’t think the ideas of astrology, religion, magic, etc should be applied to policy that impacts anybody else.
But, magical thinking can creep into policy, often with disastrous results.
A more solid footing can be achieved by consulting science educators, for perspective about our place in the universe.
I see your point - but there’s always going to be questions science can’t answer because science is based only on what we can observe and measure.
A big one is “where did everything come from”
So I don’t see a way of avoiding magical or spiritual thinking - it’s likely more important to separate that from fact when making decisions that effect more than just you :)
Sometimes knocking an idea down is justified, especially in the case of astrology.
Why? I don’t see how astrology hurts anybody (unless people take it to extremes, like not dating someone because of their signs or something like that.)
Is this the real life?
My only question is “What are the four essential freedoms of free software?”. If they can list them I know they’re alright
- Free
- Open
- Source
- Software
- Free as a bird, and this bird you cannot change
- Free to do what I want, any old time
- Free ride, take it easy
- Ok I ran out of songs now. Free as in
malloc?
Close enough, you’re cool. Here’s the actual list though (wiki link):
- Freedom 0: The freedom to use the program for any purpose.
- Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish.
- Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute and make copies so you can help your neighbor.
- Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits.
Hehe, I was just poking fun. I love FOSS and don’t disagree intellectually with this stuff, but the way it’s presented is a little off-putting to me. A bit too dogmatic for me.
What’s your favorite rock?
What is the strangest food you’ve ever tried?
What kind of nerd are you?
I’d say Hard Rock or Llanite.
Octopus rolls at a sushi bar. I wasn’t a fan of it. It’s too chewy for me.
I’m a well rounded nerd IMO. I’m into video games of all kinds, movies, TV shows and lore from Warhammer 40k.
How about yourself?
What era would you rather have been born in?
Why is there a watermelon there?
Subs or dubs?
I need to know whether they like animals.
