Showing posts with label Get off your ass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Get off your ass. Show all posts

Friday, September 16, 2011

When technically sound advice is nevertheless useless

This is a response somebody wrote to the quote in my last post:
I would avoid online dating for obvious reasons. Just go out you'll meet people quickly and then there is a multiplier effect as you meet their friends and then the friends of the friends. Before you realize it you know more people than you can allot time for.
This is bad advice, not on its own merits, but because it would be useful only to the kind of person who would never ask that question in the first place. The writer (who apparently is wealthy and has no traditional job) goes on to describe how he went to a club, got friendly with the staff and from there made friends with everyone that matters, all in a few days. Which is definitely the thing to do if you have high social skills. But then you wouldn't be asking questions like "how do I meet people?" It's like someone asking for help learning how to swim, and you start describing proper breaststroke form to them. The first thing they need to be able to do is just tread water.

The right answer for someone asking "how do I meet people?" is play sports, join a gym or join an organization. (Protip: animal rescue-type organizations feature an unusually high number of young women.) Do that, and go out in your free time, don't just sit on your ass at home. When are people going to realize their TV does absolutely nothing for them?

Get off your ass!

Today's topic: Where can I meet girls and how do I not come across as totally awkward to them?
Alright guys. I just moved to a new city in the US and know absolutely no one here. I miss college where it was so easy to meet people and get with girls. I'm a year out of college, 23. I make good money and am successful in my career, but my social skills need some work. How should I approach this? Should I just go to bars or do online dating? Any tips? I feel completely inept at this facet of life. Please help.
Glad you asked! The answer is: Your life is boring. Get the hell off the computer and start doing interesting things. Join a gym, join a sports team or a soup kitchen or some damn thing, anything is better than sitting around on the computer and watching TV and playing video games.

If you want to have a social life, BE SOCIAL. Do social things. If that's not immediately an option, do something new or stimulating. Run, bike, hike, head out by yourself or with a male friend or two to a new restaurant you haven't sampled. Anything but sit around at home. Guys who aren't used to being social ask the kind of questions in the quote above all the time, and I guess they don't understand being social at a conceptual level. GET OFF YOUR ASS.

The fact this guy is even pondering online dating as an option shows he spends way too much time on his ass.