Am I Being Helpful Enough?

[hrj]

I had a pondering a couple weeks ago. There's this thing I do in my personal life, where I think that if only I can be useful enough, if I can provide enough value, if I can create enough content, then maybe people will like me and want to be my friend. [Look: this is the script that runs in my head. You can't scold it into silence.] And it just doesn't work that way. Nobody actually cares how useful or knowledgeable or creative I am. They'll be my friend or not, but there's nothing much I can do to affect the process.

But you know what? In my day-job, when I go out of my way to be helpful, and available, and useful, and knowledgeable for the benefit of other people...they appreciate it. And they express that appreciation both to me and in my presence to other people. And that feels really good. Really good. (Sometimes they even pay me extra money for being helpful and knowledgeable and useful, but honestly I get a bigger kick out of the thanks.)

Somehow it just seems upside down that I get more direct positive feedback for my interactions with people from my paid job than from my social life. Yes, this is me wondering once more why the hell I'm doing the LHMP anyway. And don't bother contradicting me because it doesn't count if I have to beg for it.

Comments

[hudebnik]

Yeah, I've been trying to figure this out for about fifty years.

I'm no good at parties, because I don't know what to do at a party: how long should you talk with one person before moving on, what should you talk about that won't ruin the mood, what ratio of talking to listening, etc. I've always suspected there's a hidden structure, with rules governing this stuff, and I just didn't know the rules; in contexts where the structure and rules are clearer, such as a classroom setting with a specified teacher and a specified topic, or a committee meeting with an agenda and a goal, it's a lot easier.

When I joined the SCA in college, one of the most valuable things it gave me was structured excuses to flirt. I had no idea how to talk with people in whom I had a potential romantic interest, so I tended to shut down in such situations; in the SCA, I had a protective persona that could kiss hands and give compliments and ask for dances and exchange cloved fruits and back-rubs, and it was part of the act, it was what one does at an event. (Even with this help, it was another nine years before I "had a girlfriend".)

shalmestere sometimes complains that I "won't talk to her", but am willing to talk the ears off anybody else. Naturally, that's not the way I perceive the situation. There are lots of stories that I haven't told Sandy Stranger, but relatively few that I haven't told shalmestere; lots of facts and ideas that Sandy Stranger might not have encountered yet, but I know for a fact that shalmestere has. And if I'm talking with Sandy Stranger at all, there's probably a specific reason, a specific topic, that brought us together, so that's what I'm likely to talk about.

(I especially have trouble talking to shalmestere at bedtime, under the additional constraint of not talking about anything information-dense, controversial, or thought-provoking that might disturb one's sleep. I talk mostly to either transfer information, argue a controversial thesis, or provoke thought, so what's left?)

Could that be what's going on here? Your job provides specific ways and opportunities to be helpful, available, and useful, with content, so there's no awkward what-do-i-say-now.

And of course, LHMP is your baby; almost tautologically, it's more interesting to you than to almost anybody else (including most LGBTQetc people). When I read through an LHMP post, I find the personal stories of historical people (and the source-sleuthing to uncover those stories) fascinating, but I don't have much to add to them so I don't.

[kareina]

No contradiction, but a different perspective. There is no way I would ever had looked at the LHMP if I weren't your friend. It is research that I don't need, since I am not a writer, and I wouldn't have guessed would be interesting. However, because I like and admire you, I started reading it, and, you know what? It often turns out to be far more interesting than I had suspected it would be. So, thank you for taking the time to expand my background knowledge on topics I didn't know would be fun to learn.

[threadwalker]

Maybe people like regardless of how useful you are. I like you as you are and because we have so many shared interests, not because you are 'of use' to me or solve my problems. I want to sit in your garden and hang out and listen to you talk about the plants and I scheme an art project related to them.

Then I saw you are actually referring to LHMP, not friendship.

So would you want people to like you because you are useful to them or would that make you feel used? I'm curious.