Social Dynamics pt. 1

 

This isn't ground breaking stuff. In fact, I think its pretty obvious, but if there's one thing I've learned in my 30 odd years on this earth, its that what I consider obvious is in fact not obvious. I can't tell you how many times I've said something and people are like, "Wow, I never thought of that," so if you find this obvious, cool, it probably isn't for you anyway. Anyway...

Social Adaptability is something I learned growing up, refined during my time in the military, and solidified during my five years doing a certain job in the Air Force. 

Like every high school, there were the jocks, nerds, musicians, frat boys, gangsters. I fit in with all of them. I fit in with the jocks because I was a successful boxer. I fit in with the nerds because my boxing coach forced all of us to be good at chess (I also liked anime). I fit in with the musicians because I was part of a rap group and the gangsters because the gangsters were usually jocks and musicians (rappers). I'd always get invited to the parties so the frat guys liked me too. Not everyone liked me obviously, I got into plenty of fights growing up, suspended at least 10 times and at one point I was hovering on the verge of expulsion.

This isn't a guide to be liked by everyone, and really, you don't want to be liked by everyone. This is how to find friends.

The basic premise is as follows: To become accepted by a social group, you must do at least 85% of their activities.

When I joined the military the gangsters, musicians, and jocks were practically nonexistent, but there was an abundance of nerds and frat boys, thus I became a nerd and a frat boy, although I didn't do a lot of binge drinking because outside of the military I was still training to fight. Even though I didn't do a lot of binge drinking, the frat boys still liked me because I went along with 85% of what they were doing.

The key to social adaptability is if you do 85% of the activities the group likes to do, you can get away with not doing the other 15%. Frat boys like to do three things. Drink, get girls, and do memorable/extreme activities. I didn't like to drink, so as long as I was talking to girls and doing memorable/extreme activities, I was cool with only drinking some of the time. Every once in a while you have to go hard and get super drunk, but that was once every other month. 

Identify a group you want to be apart of.

Find out what they like to do.

Do 85% of those activities.

At some point in the future I'll go over where to find groups and what to do if you have crippling social anxiety.