Lucio's journal
But probably this lady is at a stage of "unconscious" competence and it's just who she is and automatically does now.
I remember watching her as a kid both at my place and at the bar and think "wow, she's so good".
She should join the forum :).
Several years ago, my roommate's girlfriend once walked out of the room naked in the morning by accident to go to the common bathroom.
I saw her for a few seconds.
I could tell that she was very embarrassed and ashamed.
Because it was a few seconds early in the morning and everyone was sleepy, I decided to leave the flat right away and pretend it didn't happen.
The next time I talked to her was when my roommate was video-conferencing her.
I pretended to not know what they were talking about, and it worked.
They thought that I didn't know.
The incident didn't happen.
No awkwardness between me, my roommate and her whenever she came over.
In the above situation, I'm unsure how to normalise and put things into perspective.
I don't think I can say for example during the incident or the later video conferencing:
Everyone who stays over at our flat likes to walk around naked.
Even those in worse shape.
How are you?
I suppose to normalise something, it helps when
- It's only slightly outside social norms
- The person doesn't feel too much about it
If she was a nudist or we lived close to a nude beach, then it would be easier.
On a separate note, I read that our discomfort in exposing ourselves is a learned behaviour.
And some people have managed to unlearn that behaviour like nudists.
Do you think it's safe to leave this post here?
I'm not sure how the risks that she will see this post.
Yeah, if one can easily ignore and pretend it never happened, it's a great solution and often the best possible one.
It's also very high-power (and high quality) to not let random events take you off-course.
As for leaving the post here, nothing is impossible, but in a bar chart from 0 (riskiest) to 10 (safest) it would end up very close to super green ten, with a written result of "very safe".
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Cultures of extreme social exchange: higher social skills, or higher manipulation (or both)?
This website says, at the core, the main human drives are similar, no matter where and in which culture the individual grows up.
However, that is not the same as saying that cultural differences are not important.
Cultural differences are important.
And if you travel, you quickly realize that some cultures play more (or fewer) "games" than others, or different types of games.
That goes both in the positive, and in the negative.
Recently I stopped in Egypt.
And I couldn't help but notice how the social exchange is so much more obvious and "in your face".
It's not all smoke without meat, I've had a lot of honest help and friendliness, and someone obviously going the extra mile.
Often the social grease to make sure credit was collected was also applied with some well-placed "for you", "happy to do it", etc.
For example, in the hotel:
Me: can I leave the tray to the guys on this floor next time, so I don't bother you guys from the reception?
Reception guy: as you prefer. You can leave it here or call us any time and we come, you're on holiday here (as if to say "you're on holiday, and we're here to make sure you have a good time". That was good)
Repeat that service-oriented attitude several times, and I really wanted to leave those guys at the reception a good tip.
You could say that I both wanted, and felt obliged to leave a tip. But I felt obliged in a good way, because they were so giving.
Sometimes there's a feeling of overdoing the tit-for-tat though and that can feel disingenuous.
I had a great evening with a guide/turned into friend. Yes, it was a great evening and we both opened up and talked about personal stuff.
But when in the follow up he mixed friend-talk and exchange it felt tacky.
And the overdone friend-talk started feeling fake:
Even if you truly feel someone is "more than a friend", just to be sure, don't say it when you're mixing in business and money. It's just better to avoid any chances that people might think bad or feel there's something "off"
That's too bad, because before this exchange he had a lot of social capital.
But after this, I couldn't help but have mixed feelings towards the guy.
Social scalping is also more common and fair value marketing is generally dialed up.
The social negotiations are also more obvious and, with the tourists, pushier.
The guy at the tomb who asks for tips to take you inside and take some pictures:
Me: (hands some bills)
Him: (opens up the bills slowly, looks at them, makes a facial expression as if to say "what the fuck is this", then looks at me without saying anything to pile up pressure)
Me: What (look at him back with a puzzled facial expression as if to say "what's the issue man")
Him: Just this?
Me: Oh man, actually the guy said I should give you 10, but I wanted to give you 15 (LOL, don't play power moves with me pal :D)
And everyone's very attentive to social and power dynamics.
For example, here's what my guide told me:
Guide: people will try to sell you things and talk to you. Always say no, don't stop to talk to them. I may invite you or ask you because I know them, but you just say no
See the manipulation?
Basically, he wants to keep the sellers friendly so in their face he seems like he's on their side, but then he instructs his customers to always say no, which also makes his customers feel like he's their side.
I thought that was funny, and I liked him. But it also made me think if he wasn't playing some games and some double agent games on me.
Maximum pressure is around tourist hotspots sites.
Street hustlers abound.
I was as interested in the pyramids as I was in the games (70% of my questions were about history, a good 30% was about the hustlers' games and techniques).
It was incredible what some of these guys were doing with some tourists (and how many tourists would fall for it!).
One guy even almost had me (but it wasn't impossible not to). He was waiting in front of an en entrance and asking for tickets. Turned out, he wasn't working there, he was just another hustler. The only giveaway was that the actual ticket controller was sitting on a stool by the entrance, more than happy to let the hustler annoy the tourists (and make such a bad name for the country).
They didn't bother me too much though, I believe people can easily smell weakness and then pounce even harder.
The Uzbek lady I briefly dated also happened to have been in Egypt and that's what she had to say:
Egyptian Civilization is Built on Shamans' Manipulation
The Egyptian ancient civilization is impressive.
And fascinating.
But look at it with power-aware goggles on, and I couldn't help but think how it was all built on manipulation.
Why did those kings built pyramids?
Because (it seems) they wanted to protect their bodies from decomposition and their statues from decay.
They had to do so to enjoy the afterlife.
It was quite a fragile, inherently futile effort that must have been quite worrisome to live with (finish the pyramid on time, protect your body statue forever, keep your body mummified forever... Or you're doomed forever).
A good question to find the manipulation is:
Who gained from it?
The more the kings needed to perfectly conserve their bodies, the more they came to depend on complex rituals... And the more they depended on the shamans' caste.
Anyway, Egyptian civilization was an awesome experience.
The rest, soso. The coast, at last in Sharm El Sheik, also soso.
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The Egypt experience you had reminds me of India. In India the street hustlers, salespeople, etc are very common.
It's a funny situation in India where both the locals and the sellers are almost always seen bargaining for a better price.
Lot of "I could get a better deal over at another shop though I like your openness to give a fair price and if we make a deal I will continue to be your customer and recommend others" By the locals and the seller saying his own version that he is treating the local customer as a special person goes on.
Ironically it is so common place that both the local and the seller know that it's a trick and all customers get the goods at the same cost with whichever seller they deal with.
Yeah, I think there is quite some overlap.
That's one of the things I like about stores and price tags: when you take the haggling and games away, you save a lot of time.
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"How many joints have you smoked" - Using “shockingly personal” questions to break barriers and get closer
Some weeks ago I picked up my nephew to drive him back from a trip he had taken.
There is quite an age gap between us and we never talked much or done things together. Apparently, we now also have different interests.
So that could have easily gone as a cordial, "good", but distant ride.
For me, it could have been a ride with a kid I have little to share with. And for him, it could have been the ride with a different generation uncle he's got nothing in common with.
Instead, to turn it into something more/better/closer, I used the "shockingly personal question" technique:
Me: So, tell me, how many joints have you guys smoked
That totally changed the mood.
He laughed, and replied.
Suddenly, I wasn't anymore the uncle that you don't openly talk with.
I was the "cool" uncle you share things with.
From there, we bridged to what happened with the girls in the group, with the girl he liked, and with the crazy / funny story of his trip that he wouldn't tell my brother and his mother.
It's funny how sometimes people complain that the age gap (or different interests) could prevent them from bonding.
In truth, the things that truly matter to people are timeless -and in common to most everyone-.
And whether some of that happens on TikTok or on the new tech-thing rather than via letter, the "psychological backend" is truly still the same.
And we had an awesome drive home.
Whenever I saw him again, I could see his eyes ligthen up, happy to see each other.
I love that kid :).
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Got caught off guard today, need new mindset" "it's your right to maintain your queue position, no matter who's in front or behind"
Exiting my plane seat I ended up between two friends.
They were talking to each other and the one in front was inviting the friend to join her in front.
I got that in the background of my head and in the back of my mind I knew that the expectation is to let an individual join their fiend.
So when a little later she asked me if her friend could join her I didn’t like her staring at me with an attitude of expectancy and Karen-like entitlement as if it was an obvious "yes" -and that as if I was expected to take note of their needs-.
I should have defaulted to no.
Or said “let me think about it”.
But on this occasion, I (mistakenly) felt I was in the wrong for not doing the nice thing and letting them be together (I had a bad mindset).
And I defaulted to yes instead.
I partially re-empowered myself by avoiding answering and putting a hand on the girl behind me and guiding her to move ahead.
But it was simple reparation and wasn’t at my best.
Notice that I could have said yes.
And had they been nice people, I'd have been happy to let them be together.
My compliance was wrong in those circumstances, and with the frame of me as "bad" / idiot.
Some good answers would have been:
You want to be together with your friend? Then you can join her (motion her to move beyond me)
Or:
Yes, of course, feel free to join your friend (motion to move beyond me)
Or meta/assertive:
It’s not written anywhere that one has to give up his place to accommodate you. But I’m glad for you two to be together, if you want, you can join your friend behind.
That's the advantage of analyzing things: it only takes one lesson learned to internalize a new, more empowering mindset (and behavior).
Edit:
typos, improvements
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Exiting my plane seat I ended up between two friends.
They were talking to each other and the one in front was inviting the friend to join her in front.
I got that in the background of my head and in the back of my mind I knew that the expectation is to let an individual join their fiend.
I do think the polite thing for the girl would be to let you go ahead so she could join her friend at the back.
I had an escalation on this jumping ahead of the queue to join a friend at a nightclub many years ago.
A woman cut in front of me to join her friend.
She didn't even ask.
Woman: (cuts in)
Me: Don't cut in front of me
Woman: (gets angry, cannot remember the words)
Me: I was here first. If you left the queue, you left.
Woman: (ignores me)
I decided not to escalate further because the bouncer may not have liked that.
Nicely done, saying it is 70% of the mission accomplished.
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High-power reframes: environmentalist, not print-forgetter
I was approaching a desk with the document on my phone.
The question came early:
Do you have the printed paper?
There are two ways to answer it:
- "No I don't", and you look sloppy / forgetful / not doing a proper job
- "I have the electronic format, I'm an environmentalist, and whenever possible I prefer to avoid printing", and you look big-hearted and, in this cultural climate even, "righteous", indirectly framing their request as "bad" for the environment and the world
To power protect, you can also add "is that OK"?
The "no I don't" usually increases the odds that people don't wanna help you or, if they do, they'll be annoyed they'll have to do extra work for you. The pressure is on you to make up -or pay- for the mistake.
By providing a strong and valid reason, the latter puts the pressure on them to either amend their requirements, or to make an exception for you.
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