Stop trying to impress people: social skills 101

Hi guys, since my last post was a self-help piece about how to lose weight, I thought I'd follow up on the same theme and give a little bit of advice on another area - social skills. I had talked a lot about the importance of social skills in my previous posts, but I have never ever tried to 'teach' it on my blog given how it is such a vast topic. Nonetheless, I will give little bit size pieces of advice in the following posts - after all, even a thousand mile journey starts with a single step. So, allow me to tell you about something my mother does on a regular basis - now if I may explain, my mother is severely autistic, like she is one of the most autistic people you would ever meet and it is not like she is completely stupid, she just has absolutely no social skills to speak of. So as mentioned in a previous post, I am going to Morocco on holiday in November and when I mentioned this to my sister and mother on Skype, my mother then went into "word association" mode: she heard the word Morocco and started listing all the things she knew about Morocco. "Morocco is in Africa but it is near Spain too. They are Muslims in Morocco. It is a hot country, there is the Sahara desert." And that's when I roll my eyes as that's the kind of response I would expect of a 7 year old autistic child who has yet to master any social skills but given how old my mother is, we usually just give up rather than try to teach her social skills at that age.

So how should you respond to the situation if someone you're talking to mentions that they are going to Morocco? Well, doing what my mother did is definitely the wrong thing to do for a number of reasons: firstly, she doesn't know much about Morocco, so she is stating facts that I already know. Not only do I have a degree in geography, I have also been to Morocco before and have traveled widely throughout North Africa, so it is pretty obvious that I know a lot more about Morocco than she ever will. She wasn't providing any new information that was useful nor was she going to impress me with the few facts she knew about Morocco. Secondly, instead of engaging with me about my forthcoming trip to Morocco, she was making it about herself - she was trying to make a point that she knew something about Morocco - no, you can't do that. Sadly, this reminded me of something that happened when I was in primary school. I was about 7 years old then and it was at the end of term, my teacher asked some of the students if we had any plans for the holidays. She then shared with us that she was going to Hong Kong for a short holiday with her family - the kids (remember, we were only about 7 years old) then shouted out any random fact that we knew about Hong Kong at her. "They speak Cantonese in Hong Kong! They eat delicious dim sum in Hong Kong! There are trams in Hong Kong! I have been to Hong Kong last year!" Basically, none of the kids had the social skills to try to engage with the teacher about her holiday to Hong Kong, thus they did exactly what my mother did - thus it is shocking that my mother has the social skills of a 7 year old kid.

The reason why 7 year old kids do that with a teacher in the context of the classroom is obvious: we are always trying to cram our young students with as many facts as possible in the name of education and children are often rewarded when they are able to give the correct answers during tests and exams. I remember having to memorize so much information for my exams as a student and that kind of rote learning was a major part of my education - thus there's obviously a certain joy or a sense of reward when you know the answer to a difficult question like, "which is the highest mountain in South America?" If you came across that question in a geography test and you knew the answer (and you could spell "Aconcagua" correctly), then of course you're going to feel pretty good about yourself for remembering the answer. Thus under those circumstances, children are rewarded for knowing the right answer but furthermore, I think children need to be taught that this response isn't appropriate for all social situations especially when it is clear that they are not taking a test. However, people like my mother have such poor social skills that she only knows how to treat every conversation like a test. Thus when I said, "I am going to Morocco in November." She heard, "list everything you can think of about Morocco." That's exactly what she did and she looked somewhat confused and puzzled when I looked annoyed rather the impressed that she actually knew a few basic facts about Morocco. To be honest, I was surprised she knew anything at all about Morocco, so that was somewhat unexpected - but then again, her total lack of social skills in handling that situation left me feeling so frustrated. After all she is my mother, so why do I feel like I am talking to a 7 year old child?

Why do we do it then? Well, the short answer is that we want to be liked - so if there's something we can do to impress the other party during a conversation, such as by trying to boast or demonstrating that we know what they are talking about, then we are hoping that this would illicit a positive response. We would only do this with people we care about because we want them to have a favourable impression of us - that's why my mother was making an effort during that conversation with me because she didn't want me to think that she was so ignorant that she doesn't know where Morocco is. However, there is the right way to illicit a positive response out of the people we are talking to and the wrong way - this of course boils down to having good social skills and thus in this context, having the right social skills is far more important than having a good knowledge of Morocco. My mother had worked all her life as a primary school teacher before retiring some time ago, so she must have been quite used to young children trying to impress her by shouting out random facts they have learnt; furthermore, my mother doesn't have many friends, so she is probably unfamiliar with how adults interact with each other so she can only revert to what is normally done in the context of a primary school classroom. However in the real world, it is not your intention that matters, only the consequences of your actions - I wasn't prepared to acknowledge my mother's attempt to impress me because that would seem utterly condescending, but no, I didn't know how to react either given how I wished I had a mother who had basic social skills.

So imagine if I was having a conversation with my friends and one of them said, "I'm going to Morocco in November for a holiday." How would I respond then? Now firstly, I would resist the urge to try to make it all about me - so I would not even mention that I have been to Morocco. I would start by showing interest in the other party's plans and ask the following questions: how long are you visiting Morocco for? Are you going to stay in one place or are you going to move around the country? Are you going with an organized tour or are you traveling independently? Is this your first time visiting Morocco/North Africa? What kind of activities are you hoping to do when you get there? Do you have a long list of things you are going to visit when you get there? Do you like the food in Morocco? What kind of place are you staying at - is it a hotel or might you be doing the AirBNB thing to get a taste of what it is like to stay with the locals? You get it - I could go on and on and ask loads of questions even if I didn't know anything about Morocco at all, but I am not trying to impress the other person with my knowledge of Morocco. Instead, I'm trying to give them the impression that I am taking great interest in them and what they do, After all, you cannot treat all social interactions as if they are tests and exams at school - after all, a teacher or a parent might be pleased that you have memorized the facts for an exam, but your friends really don't give a shit and it really isn't going to impress them if you are going to try to show off to them just how much you know about a topic. This is something that you have to calculate a lot more carefully by asking the right questions.

So sticking with the topic of traveling to Morocco - I would try to ascertain one important piece of information through my questioning to decide how I am going to engage this person on the topic. Does this person know more than me, less than me or about the same as me on the topic in question? Because if this person knows more than me (say if they have already been to Morocco many, many times in the past) then I would simply ask more questions and let them educate me about the topic. And if I knew more about the topic than them, then I would then be confident enough to start giving them some useful travel advice based on my experiences in traveling around North Africa. And if I thought that our knowledge levels are about the same, then it would be an exchange of equals, trading stories and sharing our experiences in a friendly manner without trying to give advice or impress. What my mother did thus was a huge mistake because it was pretty obvious that I knew far more about Morocco and North Africa than she did. She hasn't traveled much, has never ever set foot in Africa and she isn't as highly educated as I am - she didn't possess more knowledge than me and hence was definitely not in any kind of position to give me any kind of advice when it came to traveling in Morocco. Yet she tried to impress me by stating some basic facts that she knew about Morocco which of course, backfired as it didn't impress me at all - it just reminded me of just how badly she handled that conversation because of her total lack of social skills.

In any case, it wasn't even like my mother was trying to give me advice like, "don't drink the tap water there, you must always buy bottled water." She was merely stating whatever she knew about Morocco much the same way those 7 year old kids in my class were stating the things they knew about Hong Kong when they heard that our teacher was going there. Now I remember something truly awful that my father said to me when I first went to Morocco - he said, "小心黑人!" And that means "beware of black people" and if you're wondering if that's downright racist, yes it is well and truly racist  - oh my father is one of the most racist people you would ever meet, he is unapologetically racist. At least in that context, my father was trying to give me some kind of travel advice that pertained to my trip: I was going to Africa, I might meet black people in Morocco, hence his horrifically racist piece of advice. Now this is the other mistake that people always make - they say what they feel without considering how the other party might react. So when my father made that terribly racist remark, I was thoroughly ashamed that my father could come up with something so awful and I was struggling trying to explain to him why he cannot say shit like that without having anyone civilized think that he was a complete asshole. Thus in such circumstances, it would have made sense to have said nothing at all, if saying the first thing that crossed your mind was not only going to offend everyone present and give everyone such a terrible impression of you.

n my line of work, I go to a lot of events for networking and I have to go up to complete strangers at these events to strike up a conversation. It is not easy but after having done this for years, I have mastered a few basic tricks of the trade and they aren't rocket science. The most important lesson you have to learn is this: you should NEVER try to impress people - that's usually a recipe for disaster. I remember meeting this young man in his 20s at an event: I introduced myself and asked him, "so, what do you do?" Good grief, this young man reacted in the wrong way, treating it as if it was a job interview: he tried to tell me everything from what he studied at university to what his future goals. Clearly, he was trying to impress me and that was never going to work because I wasn't impressed at all - not with his 'achievements' (which weren't that impressive anyway) nor with his very poor social skills. What he should have done was to keep his reply short and sweet. "My name is Joe, I am a (insert job title) at (insert name of company). What about you?" I can't stress that second part enough - say as little about yourself as possible, using as few words as possible and then get right back to showing interest in the other party. The key thing is to be modest even if you do have something to brag about, but hold back on the information - perhaps just drop a few subtle hints that you are indeed an interesting person, then let the other party pick up on those hints and inquire further. I remember at this event when I met someone who name dropped that he once worked for Trump back in the 1990s - I did a double take and had to say, "wait a minute, rewind please, you worked for Trump? As in Donald Trump? The current president of the USA? What was he like then?" He didn't brag about it at all - he mentioned it in passing so quickly that if you weren't paying attention, then you would have totally missed it.

So is there ever a time to try to impress someone during a conversation? Are there any circumstances when this is acceptable rather than a social faux pas? Well I recently did a piece about whether or not we should swear and the same rule applies here: don't try to impress people often but if you do decide to do it, pick the right moment for the right effect. So in my last piece, I did use the word 'fucking' only once in the entire piece even though I could have probably inserted the word into every single paragraph but no, I reserved it for this disgustingly sweet sauce I was served with my Chinese food in a restaurant in Santiago and it was so vile that I thought it warranted the use of a swear word just to convey the extent of my revulsion towards it. If I had used loads of swear words throughout the blog post, then it would lose its potency and not achieve the intended effect by the time I got round to describing that really vile sauce. Hence in this case, you shouldn't be bragging or boasting to try to impress people as a rule - it is usually interpreted as being arrogant and in most cases would backfire. We like people who are humble: a few days ago, 19 year old Carlos Yulo of the Philippines won a gold medal on the floor exercise at the 2019 World Gymnastics Championships and when he was interviewed afterwards, he paid tribute to his coach and thanked god for the blessings. That was when so many people on social media totally fell in love with him because it is not everyday that a teenager becomes a world champion in any sport - yet he remained so very humble when many other teenagers would allow that success to go to their heads. So I can't stress this enough: you're so much better off trying to be humble because that will often make people like you more.

But if you want to impress someone, well this has to be executed with due care. So firstly, you need to check if your audience is even interested at all in what you're about to share with them - let me give you an example. One of the things that I like doing is traveling and I have this former colleague who shared my passion, so he has been to some pretty bizarre places before on holiday and of course, I was so impressed when he told me about this story about how he went to Togo in West Africa because that's the kind of thing I would love to do. However, when he told me that story, we had another colleague (let's call her Julia - not her real name) who clearly wasn't impressed - she was polite enough to show interest and she asked questions like, "isn't it rather unsafe for a white tourist to travel in West Africa like that? Surely there must be a reason why millions of tourists visit South Africa but hardly anyone is going to Togo on their holidays - like did you even encounter other Western tourists when you were there?" Well, it turns out that Julia hasn't traveled much in her life and it simply wasn't her thing: she would rather spend her money on buying designer clothing, shoes and handbags than save up to fly to that exotic country halfway around the world. When I challenged her on that, she just shrugged her shoulders and said, "No offence guys, I'm sure you'll get some interesting photos and videos from your travels for your Instagram but that's all you have now, memories - whereas my expensive designer clothes are there for me to enjoy for a long time to come. It makes me happy and somehow your kind of holidays don't really appeal to me."

Hence my former colleague certainly managed to impress me but not Julia with the stories about his travels in Togo. This reason was simple: I love traveling, Julia doesn't. So here's the thing that many autistic people struggle with: they struggle to see things from another person's point of view so they assume that other people will agree with them on the matter. That is why they often misjudge the situation and brag about something which they think would impress the other party, but it misfires because they failed to take into account the fact that the other person's perspective. It's not that Julia disapproves of people who choose to take exotic holidays to places like Togo, it is just that she isn't that impressed by the fact that my former colleague visited such an exotic country. Let's look at another situation I encountered recently: I was at the gym when Gabby (not her real name) excitedly told everyone that she found a new job, so naturally we said, "oh well done Gabby, what are you going to be doing? Where will you be working? When are you starting this new job?" It was obvious that she was very happy and looking forward to this new job, then she did something that badly misfired. She said, "it is so well paid!" Then she told her how much she was going to be paid for this job and well, let's just say that most Londoners earn a lot more than that and I wouldn't consider what she was offered as 'well paid' at all (even if it may seem like a lot of money to Gabby). She then realized that she didn't quite get the reaction she wanted from the rest of us and of course, it was obvious: we all earn (a lot) more than her and thus didn't know how to react to her claim that her new job was 'so well paid'. Gabby had tried to impress us but she failed to evaluate how that claim would have gone down with her audience, that's why it went down like a lead balloon as Gabby simply didn't consider our perspectives.

So you've done your homework and research - you are with a group of people whom you know you can impress because of enough shared interest. How do you try to impress them then? Remember nobody likes someone who brags, we all like people who are humble - so let me give you a simple example of how you can impress someone whilst approaching them very humbly. My friend Fiona approached me and asked me if I could help her daughter with her French oral exam - she knew I was fluent and said that her daughter just needed the confidence to speak to someone like me before the exam. So I said sure, I'm happy to help, but when I met Fiona's daughter, I was blown away by just how good her French was. Now in this example, let's analyze what happened: firstly, Fiona had flattered me to assure me that I am playing a role in this because I was seen as the French expert - she made sure I knew why I was involved, it was not all about her daughter's exam but it was about me as well, it made me feel good to have that recognition. Secondly, Fiona had set my expectations very low given how humble she was about her daughter's standard of French, I was expecting someone with a hideously strong English accent, but she had actually invested a lot of time watching French videos of Youtube and hence had a pretty decent accent. A combination of those two factors led to me genuinely being impressed because I then wanted to find out more about how she had learnt her French, "how long have you studied French at school and for how many hours a week?" Her high standard of French was a result of her hard work rather having been in a French speaking environment for years, so that's the third step: she managed to get my attention and successfully engaged me.

You see, there are no absolute standards when it comes to being impressed - a lot of it depends on the context. I was treated to some incredible gymnastics at the 2019 World Gymnastics Championships last week and in the men's high bar final, Sam Mikulak had qualified for the final in second place with a good chance of a gold medal. However, in the finals when it mattered the most, he struggled through a somewhat messy routine, chalking up quite a lot of deductions only to eventually finish fifth, out of the medals. So, did Mikulak do a difficult routine? Absolutely, he had put together a routine that could have won him a medal but were we impressed? Actually, no - I think disappointed was more the reaction to his performance because our expectations were so high for Mikulak winning a medal that finishing 5th was a disappointment. Then we turn to the story of Singaporean gymnast Tan Sze En at the same competition who finished 94th in the qualification but made the cut for the Tokyo Olympics, making her the second Singaporean gymnast to qualify for the Olympics after Lim Heem Wei in 2012. Of course, the Singaporean gymnastics community was delighted because this was somewhat unexpected - we were all hoping that Olympic qualification was possible for Tan, but it was far from guaranteed given how so much depended on how she performed on the day and since Tan didn't have the difficulty to get the really high scores, she was hoping for really clean execution to get her through that competition. Our expectations were low, we didn't dare assume that she would qualify but when she did, the celebrations began and we were all so delighted. Can't quite say the same about the American gymnastics community who were sorely disappointed at Mikulak leaving the competition without even a medal, he had such very high expectations going into that competition.

Hence so much of whether or not we are impressed depends on the context: a 5th for Mikulak is a big disappointment but a 94th place finish for Tan is a cause for celebration. The important lesson we learn from this is that we must be very aware of how others will judge us - they will look at the context, the circumstances surrounding our achievements and decide if it is worthy of their praise or derision. Thus if you want to be sure that someone will be impressed with you - you have to exceed their expectations of you and that means you have to gauge what kind of expectations they have of you. That's the problem I have with modern parenting these days: I feel that parents, teachers and coaches go out of their way with positive encouragement regardless of how crap their children perform and that leads to children a totally unrealistic sense of how the rest of the world would judge them. I have this memory of when my nephew was very young, my mother served him a bowl of fruit and when he had finished eating the fruit, she took the bowl from him and she then praised him for eating the fruit. And I was like, fuck no, hell no - that's not how you bring up children for crying out aloud. You're going to make the kid think that adults are going to be impressed with him for doing something like eating and that's clearly not the case in the real world. I would have made my nephew take the dish to the kitchen and wash it himself, but with my parents, they simply don't have the skills to prepare my nephew for the harsh, competitive adult world that he will be a part of very soon. That's why I am always nervous that my family will hate me for being too harsh on my nephew because he has been brought up by adults who lavish praise on him for every thing he does whether it is praise worthy or not. It is bloody hard to genuinely impress someone in the real world and I'm not sure he realizes that.

Is there ever a time where we need to impress people - such as during a job interview when failing to impress will mean being not getting the job? Well, again, this isn't that straight forward. Allow me to speak as a gatekeeper - if you're invited to a job interviewer, then in all probability the person interviewing you would have already read your CV and you're there for a reason, so relax. Don't feel the need to remind the interviewer about what is already in your CV and if you feel the need to discuss an area of your CV, then raise it as a question rather than a statement. So for example, if you did an internship in Germany and you feel that this is one of your strong points, having had this experience. If you said to me point blank as a statement, "I did an internship in Hamburg, Germany." My only response would be, "yes, I know - I read your CV." And that conversation goes nowhere, that's a pretty bad outcome. But if you asked me a question like, "do you think it is important for your ideal candidate to have had some international working experience?" Then that's an open ended question that requires a complex answer, it would lead to a discussion about what you have learnt during your internship in Germany. Remember that you could be facing a rather tough and mean gatekeeper like me in the interview: so be prepared that whatever you are going to bring up isn't going to impress me, so I would always advise people to avoid any kind of bragging or boasting in an interview just in case it goes very badly wrong. If you do have something that I am impressed with in your CV, rest assured I would have noticed it already and let me bring it up (then you can act coy and be all modest and super humble about it). I swear I hate it when the candidates try to brag during a job interview!

Ironically, whilst we bemoan how the younger generation has poor social skills because they are on their mobile devices all day instead of speaking to each other, social media has provided a brilliant solution to the issue of impressing people: the hashtag. Thus when we log onto Instagram for example, we are only fed content that is of interest to us and we can follow only the hashtags relevant to us and the programmes are smart enough to filter out the wrong content that we're not interested in. So no matter how niche your area of interest is (ooh how about #crochet for something very niche), you can always find someone in the world who may be into the same thing and that's a pretty awesome feature of social media. For example, I'm able to connect with a lot of the hardcore fans of the reality TV programme The Amazing Race so I've found me a group of people who will indulge me in every minor detail of the programme. That makes it a lot easier for me to impress people who share my niche interests because I have found the perfect audience, thanks to social media. Hence if you're totally obsessed about crocheting, then you can easily chat to others on crochet on social media and they will share your passion for it - that's going to give you a far better experience than trying to engage your friends who don't even know the difference between crocheting and knitting. But of course, even if you do find your community online, don't take it for granted that you'll always get a warm welcome. If your crocheting skills isn't impressive enough, then you're still not going to get much love from the online crochet enthusiast community. Social media helps us find like-minded people - you still have to be amazing at what you do if you do want to impress people in that niche community.

So in summary: most people with good social skills will refrain from trying to impress others, it is a huge social faux pas but ironically, you can get people to like you a lot more if you are humble about your accomplishments. Unless someone specifically asks you for information, never do what my mother did - this yelling out of random facts that you happen to know about a topic will make you come across as an autistic 7 year old child desperate to impress the teacher. Instead, be a good listener and show interest in the topic by asking questions, always resisting the urge to show off the fact that you know something about the topic. If you still wish to impress someone, then you need to do some homework about whether or not you can impress them - are they interested in the topic you're about to boast about? Are you able to exceed their expectations of you in that area? If the answer to both of those questions is yes, then you have some chance of impressing them; but if the answer to either of those questions is no, then don't even try for you will only embarrass yourself. Ultimately, this desire to impress others comes from a basic desire to be liked by others - thankfully, there are far easier ways to get others to like us without having to impress them, such as by being humble or showing great interest in what they are doing. That's it from me on this topic - what do you think? Why are so many people keen to impress others and why do they commit this social faux pas? Leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.