Good Morning DeGens!
This is the sixth episode of my series “How to Stop Being Weird”.
A COMPLETLY FREE series aiming at helping those who lack the basic social skills to make it in a world that gets more social by the day and punishes harder the ones who don’t get it.
I highly recommend reading the introduction to the substack to know where I came from and where we’re going. (LINK)
What was banter for me?
A silly joke? A prank? That stuff that the people I hate do to me?
It doesn’t matter. The answer was always the same. A temper tantrum, shouts, and cries. It makes sense right? I was tired of being attacked every time, every single day. Sometimes, I would just explode. It was weird because the people I was just meeting did the same as the others. How did they know I was XYZ? Anyways, I hate them too now.
Last week, some kids were talking about some serious stuff but they were laughing. They told me to take part in the conversation and I gladly accepted. Maybe they finally want to hear my opinion. It makes sense, I’m smarter than them. I took every question literally and answered as such. I even started a debate with a moron that was saying a lot of things that were wrong and he was laughing while doing it. What the fuck? They ended up getting mad at me because “I ruined the fun for them”. Sure.
-15-year-old Leviathan
Today, banter is second nature to me. Half the time I’m with my friends we are throwing insults left and right at each other. Always trying to amplify and laugh like madmen in the end. But it wasn’t always like this.
Banter is one of the aspects that goes into any healthy relationship with anybody. Being able to make and take a joke, and for the other person to do the same builds trust and gives a good time for everyone. People want to have fun. But sometimes banter is not for everyone.
We are going to talk about why.
In my case, you are well aware of the defense mechanism I had for dealing with my circumstances as a kid. I lived in a bubble of me vs them. Everyone wanted to attack me and make fun of me. They were enemies. Therefore I took everything they said as a personal attack. Even when they were friendly I always assumed hidden aggression. Even when I met someone new, sooner or later a joke would come by. And instead of engaging in banter, I would lash out at them. So the cycle repeated ad infinitum.
Thus it was impossible to have any kind of relationship with me.
There were 2 reasons that influenced that behavior:
-A worldview based on trauma
-A complete lack of empathy
If you pay attention. When someone has a victim mentality like that, everything that happens is about them, at least in their head. For me to believe that everyone was an enemy that only wanted to do harm, I had to convince myself that I was the center of the world. That everyone was thinking about me and planning how to make my life miserable.
If you remember what I talked about in Episode 3, you know that people tend to not give a fuck about you. In this case, people banter or bully because they want to have a good time and/or compensate for any insecurity they may have. Even when there’s explicit aggression. When I joke with my friends I’m not thinking “hey I’m going to tell Joe this and that and I’m gonna make feel bad”. I’m probably not thinking at all. I just want to have some laughs and a good time.
Therefore, when people react negatively to banter and take everything personally is because their perspective is incorrect. Not everything is about you. Most don’t give a shit.
Having that realization is the first step to building healthy and fun relationships and being able to banter.
But ok, how do people banter?
(@BowTiedOx and @BowTiedCrow are really good friends)
See how there’s no aggression? People are just having fun. They are not going overboard. If someone picked a baseball bat and smashed it in my head, then yeah, that’s not banter. But none of that happens in the video.
This means that what you can and cannot say/do when engaging in banter depends on context. You are not looking to offend, just to joke.
For example, I’m joking with a friend and he tells me
“yeah you talk a lot about sex but the hand doesn’t count dude”
I respond
“your mom doesn’t count either lol”
We both laugh.
Next example, I meet a new person and I tell him
“Your ugly fat mom looks like shit”
He responds
“Go fuck yourself”
And tries to punch me in the face.
(Autist note: non of these examples actually happened.)
The difference between aggression and banter should become obvious.
How do you become aware of what are you dealing with? With experience in socializing and empathy. In the first example, I use empathy to understand that he means no harm, I use my experience to understand the context of the conversation, then I use my “banter skills” to keep going. In the second example, I’m just an asshole.
But what if the people I talk to can’t take a joke? Then now you know why (try to use empathy to gain more context). My suggestion is to not associate yourself with those people. Get friends that are pleasant to be around (more on this on another episode).
Reading the room follows the same concept. You have to think about the context and tonality being used. This, again, requires empathy to notice.
You read the room by understanding not only a specific person. But the circumstances of everyone around you at that point in time.
-What is the emotional charge of the room? Are they happy, neutral, angry, sad?
-Is it appropriate to say X, Y, or Z right now?
There’s a saying that goes like this: “never talk about the rope in the hanged man’s house”.
In my story, the problem was that I didn’t notice that those guys were not serious. Most likely they were expecting that I would joke with them as well. Not everything is a debate. Not everything is a serious conversation. Not every question looks for a serious answer. You do not have to talk like an academic about every topic. You can do that, but only if the situation allows for it. Most of the time, people just want to have fun.
By reading the room you will know things like
-If someone likes you or not
-If a girl is attracted to you
-What intentions do people have with you
-What is the most appropriate thing to say in a particular scenario
-What NOT to say
When things like this are explained, some may argue that I want people to not be genuine or to self-censor to not offend/gain the trust of others.
This can be true, and this is when Self-awareness comes again into play here.
You have to ask yourself
-What I’m self-censoring actually?
-Why do I have a certain urge to say specific things in every context possible?
-Is there an emotional bias or insecurity that is driving this?
-What do I want to accomplish by being like that?
People can read the room and be genuine, they can have empathy and be genuine, they can not be assholes and be genuine. If you have that big of an urge to talk about the rope on the hanged man’s house, to start a debate over everything, or to never smile nod and agree…
Then you have some things to care about before continuing.
A happy and socially successful person usually (the exception is when deliberate attempts at manipulation are in play) doesn’t have to self-censor. Why? Because they don’t need or even think about saying things that should be avoided.
As with empathy, the more you socialize, the more different scenarios you experience, the better you will be at this. It’s only a matter of practice.
For now, you should keep getting better at small talk. Add more complexity to them if you feel confident about it. I should be posting some scripts you can use on my Twitter on the following days so stay tuned for that.
This is all for today. I wish you a nice day and a lot of success.
This will be a weekly series. However, I recommend not jumping to the next episode until you think you’re ready. If you skip steps you are NGMI. You cannot be a dating expert if you are scared of asking a random for the time.
I wish you the best of luck on this journey and I’ll see you again next week!
Thank you for putting this out there. In my 30s now but this is the blog I needed at 15.