How to Be Unattractive
No one likes conversational incontinence
From a recent dialogue on SocialGalactic:
You know what’s really annoying is someone constantly interrupting you mid-sentence like they can’t wait to say something. What SSH type is that most applicable to?
Smart boi gamma?
I think so, or a lower status delta. Someone though that isn’t aware of correct social behavior.
Really annoying when you’re trying to present an idea, but like a syllogism, you can’t even finish the major premise.
Both Deltas and Gammas do this. It has nothing to do with being socially retarded, it’s merely a lack of self-control combined with narcissism or a lack of empathy.
Now, it is always tempting for more intelligent people to break in and point out that they know where the person speaking is heading, especially when the speaker is a disjointed thinker jumping all over the place or prone to long, meandering tangents that make it difficult to even pay attention to them. But it’s still a temptation that is best resisted, unless the speaker’s conversational style is actually interfering with the task at hand.
If you really do know where the other person is going, then you don’t have to actively listen or even pay attention if you’re not inclined to do so. Just let your eyes glaze over, let them talk themselves out, and mentally rejoin the conversation once they reach the anticipated end.
The reason it’s easy to know this behavior is less about the tedium and more about the indiscipline of the low-status male is because they’ll do it when they quite clearly don’t understand what the speaker is saying and will interrupt to finish what the other person is not actually saying. It took me years to train one Delta out of trying to show what a Smart Boi he was by finishing my sentences for me; he insisted on trying to do so despite being reliably wrong pretty much every single time.
Note to Deltas: you will very seldom anticipate where a Sigma is going with anything. Don’t even bother trying. You’ll be doing better than most if you actually get it when he’s finished.
I finally had to resort to the cruel, but effective technique of pointing out that he was wrong every single time and forcing him to admit that he a) was wrong, b) did not anticipate where I was going, and c) had uselessly wasted our time by jumping in and going off on an incorrect tangent. It took about 18 months, but he did finally master the art of keeping his mouth shut until I finished with whatever instructions I was giving.
The thing that is so stupid about this predilection for interrupting and talking over other people is that there are no prizes even when you can successfully anticipate where someone is going. Remember, other people like to talk just as much as you do, so if you think about how much you enjoy it when someone else jumps in and tells the rest of a story that you began, then you should be able to figure out how much other people appreciate it when you do the same thing.
The lesson, as always, is this: shut the fuck up!
If someone else is talking, then keep your mouth shut. Interrupting, jumping in, and correcting others in mid-conversation is low-status behavior for men, with the exception being when you’re the situational Alpha, you’re responsible for someone else’s actions, and you can see that they’re in the process of screwing something up. If you can’t remember what you want to say long enough to wait for the other person to finish, then obviously it isn’t important enough to say anyhow.
Women constantly talk over each other and frequently refuse to permit each other to actually finish a sentence. That’s fine, that’s part of the female conversational style, which Hollywood echoes with its portrayal of “snappy banter” as imagined by the Gammas who write movie dialogues. But for a man to utilize a feminine conversational style is as off-putting to men and women alike as an arch lisp.
The correct male behavior is to simply wait. Laconicism is an attractive, high-status conversational style; few things denote high status more than when everyone stops chattering and looks at the man in the room to provide them with his final judgment on the matter.
I find the most effective way to get a chatterbox of either sex to slow their roll long enough to let me get a word in, if I feel there is any need for one, is to simply stare at them while they’re talking and refrain from making any noise at all. No “mm hmm”, no “yeah okay”, none of those little conversational encouragements that provide more fuel for the extended and repetitive replay. Even the most loquacious chatterbox seems to find a complete lack of response to be disconcerting enough to make them realize what they’re doing.
So control your tongue. Not only because it’s annoying, unattractive, and low-status, but because people can only keep three things at a time in their minds anyhow. Which, of course, is why it is absolutely pointless to say anything that involves more than three total concepts at a time.
I think that damaged or overstressed types all devolve to the behaviors that characterize the types down the line as defense mechanisms. Alphas under stress start micromanaging (doing the bravo's role), bravos get hyperfocused on their personal tasks like a delta, deltas start doing smart boi stuff like gammas, gammas sulk and hide like omegas. I think omegas and lambdas are always damaged and overstressed. I don't have enough observations to predict what a sigma does.
Silence is always the answer to social problems for a man.
Here's a benefit to staying silent: around high status people, if you let them talk, they more often than not will tell you what they want, and even if you already knew it, now you have their buy-in. Do this enough and they may start to see you as some kind of inspiration. With those beneath you in the hierarchy, if you let people talk, they will also tell you things. Get them to complain about their work a little and you can figure out where to focus improvement efforts. And, if the ideas come from them, you'll get less pushback when you give them that work to do.
All of this is the result of increased trust. By letting others speak, you show yourself to be strong, confident, and worthy of trust. Having all the answers, despite what Hollywood tells you, does not build trust or show strength at all. Quite the opposite. Even if you do have answers, that isn't what social primates want, not at first.
There is also a little bit of a fear factor. By being someone who is slow to speak, others will view you differently, and this raises your status somewhat. It's a free status boost, take advantage of it.