Finding friends

The opportunities to find friends have never been greater than now. Every day there seems to be a new social networking website to explore. But there is a world of difference between a 'internet friend' and a 'real world' friend. I am not saying there is no substance to an internet friendship, its just that they are not tested over the internet. There are several problems with internet friendships:
1. The counterparty can control the perception you have of them
2. You dont see the annoying habits of the counterparty
3. The confidence of the counterparty might be bouyed by their online popularity, but does it translate into real world friendships.

I dont wish to portay the internet as a 'superficial' medium for finding friends, but I suggest its utility depends on you and your counterparty. If you talk 'fluff' you are likely to attract 'fluff'. If you talk about inspirational, goal-orientated topics, you might meet that type of person. But you still need to consider - Are they travelling at the same speed as you, are they as capable as you, and thus can you ultimately respect them.

There are certain things that I ultimately want to do when I am trying to make friends:
1. I want to describe myself with the greatest possible detail, so they 'get me'. I will be candid to ensure I carry credibility. You can get ideas about the type of things you should say by looking at other people's profiles.
2. I want to connect with people on the basis of shared experience or interests
3. I want to connect with goal-orientated people. It not good enough that people want to describe themselves. What is the point if they have no interest in connecting. Alas, a great many people are not so aspirational. Its not just about having friends. Anyone can have friends, you just have to lower your standards. Its about tossing old friends when you acquire new ones. This is not a betrayal of old friends. It was never supposed to be a prison sentence. You are dropping them because you found more meaningful, more rewarding relationships. This usually occurs because one friend is growing at a faster rate than another. One person is challenging themselves to a greater extent than another.

If you want to get the best possible friends I think you need to master the art of self-promotion. This is not about putting on airs of superiority, of pretending that your life is perfect. Its about being authentic, so people appreciate you for whom you are. They dont need to think you are perfect, they need to be able to relate to you because of shared experiences or values. The extent to which you are the same or complement each others goals is the extent to which you will find value in each others being.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Developing trust

Trust is a confidence in your capacity to judge your vulnerability in certain circumstances or in certain relationships. The argument is that people and circumstances can hurt us, so we should avoid them. I might be considered a child, but I have never really accepted that people can hurt me emotionally. I was always positive about myself, always trusted my judgement, always had a high regard for myself. So if there was any question of anyone being hurt, it was not going to be me. I was just so damn strong.
As it turns out though, being strong is not exactly the best source of defence. I have a very strong judgement. I could nail most people in a debate, and even more impressive is that, when I am wrong, I will willingly concede the point. This is a rare quality. Its so rare, and so important, that I think it was the fundamental reason for selecting my current girlfriend. The implication is that there is a respect for the facts of reality...that there is no value in faking your circumstances. Perceptions dont matter as much as respect for facts, and I'm not going to make myself vulnerable by engaging in delusions that are untrustworthy.

But I note that people do place their trust in others perceptions because they are supported by other people. Reality is secondary to other people's perceptions of them. For this reason, they think perceptions are king. And there is a certain practicality to this thinking, because the majority of people are distorted. Even people who see the distortion prefer to hang around with 'fakes' because they want to be practical. Its a dilemma for impractical people.

The practicality of faking reality is evident from:
1. Making and breaking friends
2. Buying and selling investments

For a great many years, people have been warning that the stock market is going to collapse. They were not wrong, its just that it took a few years before the distortion of people's reality did not hold water. The myth that inflation was beat, that growth could be sustained indefinitely by the Fed pulling a few levers was exposed as a fraud.

The same distortions can be evident in relationships if they are not founded on something that is real. Its only if its real can you trust it. Even if someone is real, but give way to temptations to be practical, I can still witness a change in values unfold, that I can see the slide in values, and if I am vigilent in my judgement, I can know when to refuse to make myself vulnerable. Thats the control we have. Though there is a tendency to loose perspective in a relationship, and accommodate the person. To see virtue in sacrifice, patience, tolerance. This is not helping your friend, its enabling them by giving them your tacit approval. The best way to deal with these issues is to remain engaged in the relationship, but to give it some space, so you are less vulnerable, and have improved perspective.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Negative stereotypes

Everyone has the capacity to engage in negative stereotyping. The idea that we can filter out assertions or relationships, or diminish the standing of a whole group, race or religion by virtue of their appearance, ethnicity, religion, or in fact any attribute we deem to be negative.

The reality is however is that the problem is not stereotyping, the problem is a lack of thinking. Stereoyping is in fact the interim step towards the creation of new knowledge. When we stereotype, we are actually trying to form new laws or principles to explain how the world is. This is a positive thing.

Unfortunately most of us receive no explicit instruction in how to think from our parents. Instead we develop wisdom passively. We accept 'recieved wisdom' because it comes from some authority, whether its the thinking of our president, or the popular wisdom of our social group. The most courageous thing a person can do is to express a personal opinion. More courageous is expressing one that alienates you form your social network. Fortunately with the internet we don't have to be so remote from people whom will accept us for whom we are - if we know how to promote yourself.

Its unfortunate that the negative impact of stereotyping has caused people to withdrawal from self expression, particularly critical thinking, as it is self-criticism that actually prevents people from acting settling with negative stereoptypes. By that I mean, a negative stereotype is one which is not open to revision, that exists as a dogma. The problem is not that a person thinks 'All black people are thieves', the problem is why he needs to believe that. Such a person accepts this premise because they place perceptions above reality, because they derive a false sense of pride by accepting a relativist notion that they are superior to black people because they have isolated a certain 'subjective' opinion (taken as fact) to support their view, whilst evading any facts or opinions which might contradict their view.
So the problem is not sterotyping, its that people think so little of reality, that they would evade or discount new knowledge that would alter their view. They do this because they lack self esteem. They lack self esteem because they dont trust their capacity to think. They dont trust their capacity to think because it was never a valued skill whilst they were developing their mind. In fact in the playground, the smart kids were beat up. People just wanted to get along.

When you understand that, you will understand that legislation to stop discrimination will not help, it will merely drive it underground, only to surface as a different set of rationalisations. Thats not to say that the public perception of blacks has diminished - it has. It has not because of the legislation, which might otherwise have been perceived as charity. Blacks have been standing in the US community because of the education - moral, scientific and statistical info that went with it.
Consider that the political process - which is fundamentally based on popular perceptions - can so little to help the plight of blacks or other minorities. Recent examples include Australia's previous Howard government, which subtly used 'immigrants overboard' as a 'vote catcher', creating fears of an immigration invasion. These fears were created with respect to the Mexicans as well. The idea that our borders are so porous, that these people present such a grave threat.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

A shy guy's guide to relationships

I was a very shy kid growing up. I would not say I lacked self esteem. On the contrary, I had a strong sense of personal worth, but I lacked any external support. My parents were less than supportive, employers lacked any interest, and I had trouble making friends. The problem being a kid is that you dont know 'why' people dont apppreciate you. So as an adult you end up dealing with a lot of baggage. The issues that I came to realise:
1. My parents didn't know how to provide support because they didn't have a clue how to be parents because of the poor role models that their parents were.
2. I think I was not much fun as a prospective child friend because I didn't express myself. I really needed to take some risks.
3. I think I was very self righteous, externalising responsibility for my plight, I put up walls, I had an idea of the type of friends who would suit me (the popular ones), as opposed to the ones that shared my interests. I wasted a lot of time trying to be one of the cool kids, condemning myself to being a 'wannabe'.
4. I never really developed any strategy for finding friends, in fact I was doing everything wrong if I hoped to make friends. eg. I would focus on work at work (saying to myself it was unethical to socialise at work), I would not talk to people (telling myself I didn't like small talk, when in fact I preferred goal-orientated action). Years later I would become increasingly frustrated with employers, that I resolved to become independent. I became a trader, which meant that 96% of the population could not relate with me, 99% couldn't meet me. If you look at my range of sporting pursuits, they too are pretty anti-social.

Notwithstanding that, I was courageous enough to talk to a Japanese girl in Sydney, and enter into a relationship with her. I found this relationship incredibly interesting. Apart from being the first one, the nature was very different from experiences with Australian girls. I resolved to focus on meeting Asian girls, and Japanese girls in particular. Needing validation, I of course focused on sexual conquest like a great many other men, though thats not without trying to develop an intellectual relationship. The implication was that - I got my validation - but eventually I would outgrow these women. Why? I realised that most Japanese girls are nesters, all too willing to please, but not willing to grow. That of course is a result of their penchant for collectivism.

The biggest change to the quality of my relationships occurred when I realised exactly the type of women I wanted, and found her. But more important than that was firstly recognising my own nature, understanding myself. Growing up I had focused on understanding others, that I had over-invested in others. Now it was about me....but in a way that was empathetic. I resolved to not disengage from relationships, and not downgrade a relationship without giving the person the opportunity to grow. In the process I was building my own capacity to relate, as I had previously learnt a great deal about quitting. Starting over again could be exciting but it was always AGAIN, planning but never quite implementing. It seemed to be the boring stage, but really I just wasn't making a challenge out of what needed to be addressed.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Social Networking forums

Now more than ever we are being offered opportunities for social networking. There are all types of web-based social networking databases you can consider. Some of them are global in reach, whilst others might be local. Regardless consider the following:
1. Fitness Singles – see www.FitnessSingles.com – this is a new one, which allows you to describe yourself and search for people interested in the same activities as you.
2. GetALife – see www.getalife.com.au – this one is targeted at Australians. It has about 35,000 members.
3. TokyoTraders – This is a social group that involves traders in Tokyo. They have a good party in Roppongi several times a year. See www.tokyotraders.com.
4. YouTube – This is a good website for posting your video imagery. If you had never thought to produce video imagery, you might look at the new range of digital cameras. Many of them are equipped with a video recording option. They have much better pixel density and sound now, and some have umlimited recording capability, unlike my original Sony P1 digital camera. See www.youtube.com
5. MySpace – This is another popular social networking site, though I think its not as good as Facebook or YouTube in the social networking stakes. See www.myspace.com.
6. Facebook – This I think is currently the leader in the social networking area, though I’m sure it will be outdone in the years to come. See www.facebook.com.
7. RSVP - There are other sites which you have to pay for like www.rsvp.com, though I guess these will start to look market share, or otherwise they will be forced to offer revenue models based on advertising, or activities (like GetALife).
8. Friendster – This is a popular site as well suited for social networking. See www.friendster.com.

Building family networks

Recently someone sent me an invitation to the following website that lets you display your family tree online family tree - see www.tribaljunction.com/login.php. The applet was a little difficult to use, and the concept is a little rough around the edges. But the idea of connecting with family will appeal to many, though I cant help thinking the idea of connecting with family is becoming a little dated when we now have the opportunity to connect with people who share our interests as opposed to people who share our gene pool. Though much will depend on how nurturing your family network has been, or has the potential to be.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

What should you expect from friendships

One of the things I have learned about friends and in fact all relationships that you nurture - is that relationships play a large part in determining how successful you are going to be. For that reason I say to you, if you are not getting the following elements in your interaction with friends, then you are not optimising your life. If this is the case I wou;d suggest you can do the following:
1. Enlist your friends in a life challenge - They might not be as courageous as you so try to restrict yourself to one task or aspect of reality at a time.
2. Sacrifice your less meaningful relationships and focus your attention on those relationships that give you the most challenge
3. Drop all friendships if you have a habit of being a door-mat, a pleaser or shy in the company of existing friends. I think a great many people stay in relationships which are less than satisfactory because they don't think they can find any better. I was shy when I was 20yo, and had never had any great friendships, that is with people I could relate to. I often stayed in them despite being the object of mocking. It wasn't until I made a conscious decision to leave those friends and forge my own friendships that I developed successively better ones. With each step I raised the realm of possibilities. In the last 7 years I can say that I have contributed to the betterment of my partners as well, and that is reflected in the sustained relationship I had with them. In the previous relationships I just didnt know myself as well.

Before you can embrace challenge as a relationship goal, you must ensure that you are already enlisted, otherwise you will appear as a hypocrite. That is not a bad thing per se - its a growth opportunity. When someone calls you a hypocrite for reproaching them, you can concede or argue the point. Hopefully reason will prevail - if it doesnt then both parties will diminish their relationship. There will be an opportunity cost. Conflict is only a threat to those that dont respect the facts of reality, those that are unwilling to acknowledge what is.

So what can you expect in a legitimate relationship:
1. Respect based on a broad appreciation of your value - this breeds trust
2. Safety based on shared experiences, which is a basis for shared vulnerability and honesty
3. Consideration of the other parties interests, on the basis that the relationship is of greater value than other value derived from it
4. Empathy based on a sound understanding of the the counterparty, requiring a willingness to listen and to understand their context. It does not mean blind aceptance or approval, but understanding.
5. Support to the extent that people share goals or embracr each others interests. I have recognised that some people are very closed in terms of defining their shared interests, whilst others mesh all facets of their lives. Women tend to be the later, men generally more restrictive. I think this to some extent accounts for the greater dynamic in women's conversations.

You might expect character values in your relationships but I want to discuss these aspects separately since I believe they form the basis for relationships based on constructive & destructive relationships, whether manipulative, deceptive or abusive.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com