Hello confused readers and spambots. Now take a second to imagine yourself in a dreaded outside, surrounded by only the worst creatures imaginable: Other People. Befriending your fellow homo sapiens may be the toughest challenge ever, but doing so could very well save you from situations involving loss of blood, limbs, and death. So, I, an unknown disembodied voice that knows everything that has happened and everything is going to happen, have provided a helpful guide just for you. Now, lets go on to the basics of human interaction.
- Before going out and tackling real people, why don’t you start practicing with other living creatures to hone your ability for social interactions? In fact, a few examples for possible training dummies of sorts can involve birds, mice, dogs, cats, or potted plants. Like I said, anything that can be called living can be a target for possible interaction, right? Next, now that you have your target, make sure to engage in a meaningful conversation with them. Use small talk like, “Nice weather today,” “how are you doing?” and “would you like to ponder life’s secrets and knowledge with me?” These simple run on sentences can get you immersed in meaningful conversations with your fellow living beings.
- Of course, some do try the method of starting a conversation by slowly leaning in within uncomfortable proximity with another person. But this in turn is more likely to get reactions from your fellow humans such as, “Who are you?” “Get away from me,” no response or they may slowly back away from you. If you do get any of these responses or responses similar to them, you may not have gotten the social interaction that you desired. Make sure you are a bit careful with who you practice on. If you do fail, do not persist. Because you may end up being prohibited from talking to that person ever by these things called laws and restraining orders.
- Now that you have the proper practice and information you need, it is time to go out into the harsh world and start talking to people. The first rule you need to know when looking for a friend, in most places, not all people are willing to interact with you. You will often find people who are too wrapped up with their own petty problems. This can be easily remedied by either asking them about their problems. Or solving their problems for them.
- But if adapting to a person’s personality and the stuff they have going on is not your thing, you can simply go to a social gathering designed for interaction. Therefore, all kinds of people may be available to talk to you. These gatherings can include parties of all sorts, meet up groups for people with common interest and/or opinions. Once you successfully get into one of those, it will be much easier to talk to people, as you already know what their interest may or may not be. Now that you have engaged in a conversation with them, you may want to come to these gatherings more often. Every time you show up, you will be able to further progress your friendships with your fellow humans. After you do this more and more, you will have become a pro at making friends within your own interest group.
- Now that you have created a strong social circle with people who you trust, you are ready for the next steps. Now it is time you figure out that the world isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. With every friend you make, you may also make enemies. As there are people with differing opinions and interests, you may end up not clicking well with some of them. And there is a small chance that the dissonance between you two can become so big that your negative feelings towards said person can grow. The solution most of your friends use may involve purposely avoiding them and possibly not even making eye contact with them if they are forced into a place with said person. If this becomes too much for you, ways to avoid this person can include taking a bi-plane and skydiving into the ocean to never return or hitchhike your way across the country and find new landscapes to explore, completely unfettered by the need to interact with your fellow men.
- Honestly, after a while, you may find yourself tiring of social interactions. At some point, to preserve what sanity you have, you will have to go with one of these methods. Say, duct taping yourself to the top of the train so you don’t have to pay for it. You can use the same method for the bus, but I think there is a higher chance of being noticed. And although doing the same on the plane may seem viable, there is at least a 99% chance of dying a pretty terrible death. But no man has ever tried duct taping to the top of the plane, so how you can you know it doesn’t work? If these methods seem too drastic for you, that would mean you are still relatively sane and surviving fine with whatever social circles you are in. And whenever you get to your destination, dead or alive, you will have ended up in some other part of the world, but it is inevitable, because in the end, the monster that is social interaction is inescapable.
- Hopefully you will have survived past having to talk to some inanimate objects or getting restraining orders due to and I quote, “invading people’s personal space.” Even with the strange and questionably unsafe transportation methods, you may be ready to do it all over again. So to recap, talk to inanimate objects and animals, invade on people’s privacy, and clearly demonstrate that you are unfit to be anywhere but a mental hospital, wash, rinse, and repeat. Eventually, you will end up just like me, with only two types of people. People who are my mortal enemies and people who are my mortal enemies and just don’t know it yet!
Happy Thanksgiving? Enjoy your social interactions?
The world is a strange place 