how to tell how others perceive you?

[lao che]

maybe i'm having an identity crisis but i have a really hard time knowing (or imagining, anyway. perhaps we never really 'know') how other people see me - what they think of me. i know how i see myself, at least a lot of the time. but the women aren't climbing all over me like i think they should be! or maybe they are, and i'm too dumb to pick up on the signals. or maybe they're sniggering about me behind my back. or maybe they're all talking about how they'd like to get with me but i seem too unavailable. i really don't know. maybe it doesn't even matter ... i have this problem with guys, too. i don't have a lot of guy friends; i'm more of the lone wolf - as chase put it - although it's only fairly recently i've started to think of it like that, rather than think of myself as an outsider.

anyway ... how to tell what other people think about you?

note, this isn't coming from a mindset of wanting to be liked, or wanting to change to fit in. more of the mindset of wanting to learn, adjust and grow.


thanks

 

[PrettyDecent]

I've been facing this problem too, so I can only give thoughts of what I think the problem is; a value problem.

Did you read that article called "How to make friends? The master key to new friendships"? You might recall the three types of value: Conversational, implicit, and explicit. Assuming you've really honed your abilities as a conversationalist, the problems must be stemming from the other two. For example, your fundamentals are lacking in one or two key areas, and your implicit value is killed. Or (for guys especially) explicit value; you aren't giving some sort of resource that would be valuable. That could be invitations to fun trips, giving car rides, giving contact information of people that could help them, etc. for men, and sex for women.

Its difficult to pinpoint exactly what the problem is, especially if you don't have people explicitly telling you. That's why my solution is to keep working on fundamentals and give more explicit value.

 

[Chase]

Best trick I know of for gauging how others think of / see you: watch other people interacting with other people. How do you see the person you're keeping an eye on, and how do the other people he interacts with apparently see him, based on their responses? Now go interact with the same or similar people. How do their responses to you vary from their responses to him?

From this, you can usually start developing a baseline: people are more excited around you, or less excited; they open up more quickly, or are more reticent; they're more expressive with you, or less expressive. You can then start tweaking yourself to generate different reactions. For instance, if a certain kind of person is very closed off around you, it may be that she feels like you aren't attractive enough for her or high status enough for her; OR it may be that she feels like you're coming across too snobbish or aloof for her tastes.

Watch others. Watch how people respond to them. Then examine the differences in how people respond to them, and how people respond to you. Use this to calibrate and orient yourself, and know where you're already doing pretty well, and where you need some work.

Chase