That don't impress me much!

Hi there, I have heard a story from a couple who didn't quite know what to do when their teenage son came to them with a problem and I suspect they was too afraid to be blunt. I'm not writing this as a 'model answer' for her to use with their son, but more to discuss the issue of making friends in general. So this is what happened: the son came home from school one day looking miserable and the mother asked him what was wrong, after some coaxing, he finally admitted that he felt very frustrated by the fact that he doesn't have a 'best friend' at school. Quite a few of his classmates clearly have a best friend or even more than one 'best friend' but after a few years at secondary school he has failed to get close enough to anyone to really consider them a 'best friend'. Then there are girls he likes in the school, but never mind trying to kindle some kind of romantic interest, he simply cannot even get close to anyone as a friend. "I have tried everything to impress them but nothing works, I just can't get them to like me and I don't know what I am doing wrong." My friend didn't want to be too critical to her son at a time when he was already feeling down, so she dodged the issue and tried to cheer him up by telling him not to worry too much about it - so she said something like, "you just can't force people to like you, life isn't a popularity contest. It is not your fault. Give it some time, you just have to meet the right people one day."

Do you need to impress someone to get them to like you?

I know this boy: he is a bit of an introvert, he is quite quiet and usually retreats to his phone instead of talking to people. I just thought, well he's not the sociable sort, so be it but I didn't realize that not having a close friend bothered him that much. And from what I could observe, he doesn't realize how one makes friends because his idea of trying to get people to like him is to list his achievements. I can see exactly where that comes from: he is an only child and thus is quite used to gaining approval from his parents and grandparents by doing well at school, so when he goes to an adult in his family and tells them that he's done something like score very well for a maths test, the adult reacts very positively and heaps him with praise. What he doesn't realize however, is that if he tries to do the same thing with a classmate for example, the classmate is at best going to shrug it off as, "whatever as if I care how you scored on this maths test" and in a worst case scenario, the classmate is going to think that this boy is showing off and get quite annoyed. Either way, it is nearly impossible to win people over by 'impressing' them. No, that is just not the way you win friends and influence people. 

However, at this stage in this boy's life, we have a rather destructive pattern that has set in already: because this boy is trying to impress his friends all the time at school, they react negatively to him and he retreats into his phone whilst at school. Once he gets home, all the adults in his give him approval and praise when he starts rattling off all the good things he has achieved in school and because he has respect for the adults in his life, he doesn't question if there's anything wrong with sharing that kind of information. So with the recent memory of his parents telling him what a good boy he is for doing so well in school, he returns to school the next day and tries the same approach with his classmates - they alienate him and give him the middle figure for boasting and he retreats to his phone, not understanding what they find his behaviour so obnoxious. And this has been going on for many years already and because he has plenty of fun apps and games on his phone, there's always a 'safe space' for him to retreat to when he has no one to talk to at school but it is clear that the situation has finally gotten to a point where he wants to fix it as he really does want to have friends.

I did tell his parents that they were part of the problem in offering praise and encouragement like that - his father got defensive immediately, "it is totally normal for parents to react positively when their child has done something good - to withhold praise or approval in such circumstances would be unhealthy, you send the right message to the child, so that they would keep on doing the right thing." I said, "okay, let me ask you then - when was the last time your son praised you for doing something well?" He looked me as if I was speaking Greek and then struggled to find the right words. "That's not normal - parents' don't go to their children for approval... We are the ones in charge, we need to establish a sense of hierarchy, of authority. Besides, my work is so complex, I don't even expect people who are not from my industry to understand what I do for a living, never mind a teenager boy, so how can he possibly begin to understand what I do at work well enough to offer any kind of praise? No, it just... no. He can't and I don't expect him to." His mother then looked at me and said, "Okay I know what you're getting at. You want us to teach him how to praise others rather than try to impress them, is that it? After all, it is nice to receive praise, we all like people to say something nice to us."

Well, it is not as simple as that, I had to explain: it goes way beyond flattery. Praise without sincerity is flattery and that usually comes across as quite fake. Praise is just one way to show another person that you are taking an active interest in them: there are so many things you can do to demonstrate that you care about someone. Have we ever thought about the simple greeting, "how are you?" Most of us just automatically answer, "I'm fine thank you" without thinking if we are actually fine or if that is the response we are just conditioned to give. The easiest and most straight forward way to let someone know you want to be their friend is simply by showing interest in them. Thus very simple gestures like remembering information that they have passed onto to you a few days ago and using it to start a conversation is simple but so effective. So for example, if your friend mentioned that he was going to watch a movie last weekend, when you next see him, you could ask him what he thought about that movie. It can also be used to establish common grounds if say, you discover that you both like the same kinds of movies. Actually, this may not sound like rocket science, but it a simple gesture like that ticks so many boxes: you have shown that you are paying attention to what they say and that you are interested in their opinions. It could lead to a conversation about what kinds of movie your friend likes and which kinds they don't: maybe you will have something in common, maybe you won't, but well, there's only one way to find out.

I can see why this boy is struggling to understand this aspect of social interaction since we mostly interact with people online via social media these days. I have an hour long journey to work and when I am not napping, I usually turn to Instagram to amuse me when I am bored. My regular readers will know that I am a gymnast and diver, so naturally I watch loads of gymnastics and diving clips on Instagram and most of the time, that involves a diver or gymnast posting a clip of them doing something impressive with the sole purpose of impressing their Instagram followers. There are two other types of content I consume: there's men's fashion as well as food porn. So the theme is either, "look at me, I'm such an amazing gymnast/diver" or "look at me, I'm wearing all these beautiful, stylish, fashionable clothes" or even, "look at me eating/I have cooked all this amazing, delicious food". Nobody would post something mundane or boring on Instagram - nobody will want to look at that, we often make an effort to impress and when I am impressed, I'd like the post and possibly follow that person on Instagram. Such is the nature of Instagram! Thus for a boy who grew up with social media, it is clear why he thinks it is necessary to impress someone if he wants to befriend them - but then again, the kind of interaction that happens on Instagram isn't the same as how we relate to people around us in real life.

Indeed, the moment I get to know someone in real life, say I make a new friend at the gym, I would then add them on social media primarily as a means to keep in touch, but I inevitably start looking at the stuff they put out on social media to get to know more about them. This is quite a far cry from the pre-social media days when we actually form most of our impressions of our friends based on our actual social interactions with them, face to face, without the internet. How did we become so self-obsessed and narcissistic as a society - how did social media turn us into a bunch of shallow, vanity driven egoists obsessed with choosing the right filter for our selfies? Thus it is perhaps little wonder that this boy is confused that the only way to make friends is to impress them the same way one would with great selfies on Instagram? I suppose I am caught between the two generations: I do enjoy Instagram and if you follow me on Instagram you will know that I post selfies and videos everyday and like yeah, the fashion themed selfies are meant to tell you I have an awesome, expensive, stylish designer wardrobe as a corporate finance expert and my gymnastics videos and selfies are meant to make people wish they could do what I do - in short, I'm equally guilty about trying to impress my followers on social media (and sure I can be extremely shallow and narcissistic too) but I also know how to relate to people in real life.

I have mixed feelings about impressing people.

Try this: go to Instagram on your phone now and see what kind of content your friends are feeding you. I have friends showing off their sporting prowess: one of them is showing off his basketball trick shots, another is showing off her new gymnastics skills. Oh and there's a buddy of mine (who also reads my blog - that's you Kev) who is a body builder and is always posting pictures of himself flexing his muscles whilst wearing very little (to be fair he gets a lot of love from his followers). Oh then there's Leslie who is currently touring Nepal and she is showing us pictures of some of the most amazing Nepalese scenery, generating comments like, "I am so jealous, you must be having an amazing time there." Then there's another friend who is currently in Paris and showing us all the amazing food she is eating there - again, designed to generate comments of jealousy and envy from her friends and followers. This is a platform designed for people to put their egos on the internet and we're all trying to get as many likes and followers as possible on Instagram. I remember how stared in amazement at this woman in a restaurant trying to get the perfect photo of her meal for Instagram - she must have been trying for over 15 minutes and her food must have gotten cold by the time she got a photo that she was satisfied with. She was far more concerned about showing all her followers what she was eating.

To make matters worse in the case of this boy, he doesn't really have any close friends so he turns to social media to look for people he likes and naturally, he has found certain celebrities that he has become fascinated with. Thus naturally, the kinds of celebrities he likes has been the ones who have impressed him for one reason or another and therefore he in turn, is trying to get people to like him by impressing them. The key difference is that when a superstar like Cristiano Ronaldo or Taylor Swift posts something on Instagram, it generates a whole barrage of responses from their fans (and haters as well) but it is just way too much for Ronaldo or Swift to actually respond to each individual comment, so the interaction is pretty much one way. So even if you were to respond to one of Selena Gomez's latest posts on Instagram, you are doing so without expecting a response from her - it is highly unlikely that she will pick up on your comment out of the thousands of other comments, but fans are quite happy to leave comments nonetheless in this very one-way relationship on social media with their favourite superstars. So this boy is spending a lot of time on this kind of one-way relationships on social media, but apart from his immediate family, has trouble trying to generate any kind of meaningful two-way relationship with anyone whereby the other party actually takes an active, genuine interest in what he does.

At the risk of sounding cruel, I have to state the obvious. Someone like Beyonce, David Beckham or Zac Efron have already done plenty to propel them into international stardom, thus their popularity on social media platforms such as Instagram. It isn't hard for say a gymnastics superstar like Simone Biles or Kenzo Shirai to post some training clips on Instagram and instantly gymnastics fans around the world would be so impressed. If you want to impress someone, you need to have something impressive to impress them with and the teenage boy in question probably has nothing for that purpose apart from his excellent grades at school. In fact, if you try to impress someone and fail, it probably makes the situation a lot worse because it shows a certain lack of soft skills when it comes to social interactions.  Before even attempting to impress someone, you should take a moment to try to work out what the impact you want to make on the other person, how you would achieve it and calculate if what you have is going to achieve that impact. If you have any doubts at all in your mind about whether or not it will work, then it is probably best not to go for it. Most people get too excited and rush into impressing someone because they fail to take into account the other person's point of view and they make the assumption that, "oh if I am impressed with myself, so of course they are going to be impressed with me."

Let me give you a simple example: I was out at Changi village with my sister's family when my brother-in-law got my nephew an oBike. My nephew loves cycling so he was thrilled, he then started cycling quite fast and shouted, "mummy look at me!" Clearly, he was impressed with the speed that he had generated on that bike but I could clearly see things from my sister's point of view as well. Firstly, she was concerned for his safety for he was cycling around an unfamiliar area at high speed at night, it wasn't a dedicated cycle path but he was on the pavement. It had just rained so there were puddles everywhere. If he wasn't careful, he could have a fall or hit a pedestrian as there were others using the pavement too in the area. Secondly, she didn't want to have to chase after him: at that speed, he could quite easily disappear around the corner and we didn't want to have to spend time searching for him when we were on a fairly tight schedule. So I can clearly see why she was concerned, so she just shouted something like, "aiyoh you slow down lah!" She wasn't impressed at all, she was rather upset! If he didn't slow down, I knew he would get a scolding as well from his parents. So clearly, that is a simple example of a young person failing to see things from the point of view of the person he was trying to impress and instead of being impressed. he only managed to get his mother worried and frustrated.

To be fair, I think that there is an element of making a good impression with someone you've just met: to a certain degree you have to combine impressing them and showing interest in them. I have a new member on my team at work this week. She's from Norway so I should great interest in her by asking loads of questions about her but in order to impress her, I would randomly start speaking Norwegian. I do speak some Swedish and it mostly comes out a bit mixed between the two, but as she understands Swedish too, she laughs when I try to say something in Norwegian and corrects me if I make a mistake. "That's so random because I've yet to meet anyone outside Norway who speaks any Norwegian at all! It is not like a language that anyone learns as a foreign language." By trying to speak her language, I am showing that I am taking a keen interest in her culture and heritage, yeah but there's an element of me trying to demonstrate to her that I am brilliant with languages - thus, I am trying to impress her. She has started writing me work emails in Norwegian and then I would have to translate it without resorting to Google translate - usually I can get about 70 - 80% of the content.

Why is that different from the usual way people try to impress others on social media like Instagram? The big difference is that I am trying to do something my Norwegian colleague does naturally: I am trying to speak her mother tongue. If I tried to impress her by telling her how rich I am or how many properties I own in London, that can come across as really arrogant and more to the point, it would only alienate her because that's one thing we don't have in common. She is fresh out of university and spending a lot of her salary on rent in London, whilst I have already climbed very high up the property ladder. However, when I am picking a task that I know for sure that she can do better than me, then there is no risk of me intimidating or alienating her with something I can do better than her. You see, that puts her in a position of power as I am humbling myself before her by trying to speak her language and making mistakes. When she takes the role of the teacher and I take the role of the student, it clearly puts her in charge of that aspect of the social interaction. Thus the moral of the story is that if you're trying to find a way to impress someone, you may actually want to put them in a position of power if you want them to realize you are willing to humble yourself before them, as a potential good friend.

Is what I am stating obvious? I think it should be but it is not often the case! The desire to seek approval is actually a most natural instinct but we must be careful not to try too had to impress the other person when we're making friends. A lot of people stumble into this trap without even realizing it. Just yesterday, one of my partner's business associates wanted to give him something (my regular readers will know my partner is currently working in Australia) and I offered to pick up the item from his office since I was having a lunch meeting with a client in town. So let's call this guy Mr Four, since I met him at 4 pm. I have met him a few times before, so he wasn't a complete stranger. Thus when I picked up the item at his office, Mr Four started making polite small talk like, "so Alex, what are you doing these days?" Okay, that's a good start: Mr Four is showing interest in my career but this is when it all went very wrong. You see, Mr Four works in finance too (albeit in a different area of the industry) so the moment I started explaining what I did for a living, he kept interrupting me. It was so bad that I couldn't even finish a sentence, let me try to recreate the conversation for you below:

Mr Four: So Alex, what are you doing these days?

Me: I'm working for a corporate finance specialist dealing in asset backed securities. I am dealing.,.. (interrupted)

Mr Four: So these are like structured products, yes?

Me: No, there are similarities but they are not really 'structured products'. There are more like... (interrupted)

Mr Four: Corporate bonds, is that it?

Me: Yes, but there are different kinds of corporate bonds out there - we are specialists in the...(interrupted)

Mr Four: So you are doing the structuring? Origination?

Me: No, I am working on the distribution side although I am also... (interrupted)

Mr Four: You're doing the sales?

Me: Yes but I do more than just sales, I am also working with my product development team to... (interrupted))

Mr Four: What kind of asset classes do you deal with?

Me: We are dealing with hotels, luxury residential, but also mining and renewable energy... (interrupted)

Mr Four: So primarily real estate then?

Me: Not exactly, that's not what I said, we deal with some real estate but... (interrupted, etc)

You get the idea. At first I thought Mr Four was interested in what I did, but it turned out he wanted to play a game called, "give me a clue and let me guess what you do for a living because I want to show off just how much I know about your industry." I felt very frustrated by that conversation, because it was clear he was keen to impress me with just how much he knew about my industry rather than allow me to actually finish a complete sentence. Was Mr Four trying to upset, frustrate or offend me? Hardly. My gut instinct is that he's one of those quite intelligent people who are completely autistic, he's probably very good at his job but totally hopeless when it comes to reading people thus he was oblivious to my frustration as he kept interrupting me. I have to put up with this kind of behaviour with my autistic parents all the time, this complete lack of empathy. In the end, I ended the conversation by asking him if I could use the toilet in his office. When I came out of the toilet, I thanked him for his help and lied that I had to rush to my next meeting. Mr Four's attempt to 'impress' me just left me with the impression that he was totally autistic and lacking in social skills. He would have done so much better if he had actually just allowed me to talk, listened to me instead of trying so hard to impress me.

The fact is, even adults can get this horribly wrong as Mr Four has demonstrated. The problem is that I am just too polite to tell him where he is going wrong: it is far easier for me to dismiss as an autistic creep (and avoid him thus) than to try to fix his total lack of social skills. That is why I am glad my friends have come to me for advice at this stage because there is at least some time for them to try to deal with their son's situation and teach him some basic principles about how to make new friends. If they wait a few years, he would be an adult and I fear that may be too late then. At least as a teenager, he still has an open mind and is willing to accept help - all too often, adults are too proud to ask for help or even accept it when given. So, that's it from me on this issue. What do you think about the situation? Is it simply a natural instinct to want to impress the people in our life? What steps can we do to make sure it doesn't have a detrimental effect on our social relationships? Or have we become such a narcissistic, selfie-taking generation as epitomized by that brilliant song '#Selfie' by the Chainsmokers that what this boy is going through is completely normal? Oh I love that epic song so much because it just totally summarizes just how the whole situation with this generation. Let me leave you with that song, listen to it whilst you let me know what you think by leaving a comment below. Many thanks for reading guys!