Observations from people-watching

Humans generally use multiple channels of communication (speech, body language, etc.), not just one, and if someone says they can't read you, that doesn't mean they aren't paying attention to what you say, it means they are paying attention to more than that, and their is a perceived incongruence between the channels of communication.

And if it is someone who has been around you a lot, it means that the usual attunement through experience that adapts this multichannel communication to the quirks of particular individuals is still insufficient to resolve the incongruence.

This can be, among other things, connected to neurodivergence and lack of experience dealing with the particular form of neurodivergence beyond one individual.

> But people do get it wrong, and a girlfriend once confessed to me, somewhat exasperated: "I can't read you". To which I said: "You should try listening to me instead".

> Communication ≫ Reading

Mostly true, except sometimes people have a habit of saying one thing and doing another. Ultimately, actions are all that count in a relationship. Maybe that's what she was responding to?

Your comment is on point, but also, while I feel this article is kind of interesting, I fail to see it is relevant to Hacker News. I feel we are recently, often, going quite far off-topic.

It sort of works like pseudo-science and woo. It sounds impressive and even plausible but at the end of the day, it's asserting something unknowable as though it were truth, but is largely a product of projection.

Nevertheless, I can still read and appreciate it from _that_ perspective because it's always interesting to me to hear how others see the world.

> congratulated us on our upcoming baby boy. I asked her how she knew. She said it was the way we carried ourselves and looked at each other.

Does she have more than a 50% succes rate?

In the wost case (null hypotesys?) that she can't tell, it's similar to the gambler falacy. She remember only the succes cases. People post online only the succes cases. Nobody remember the wrong cases.

In this case it doesn't matter, but there are evil people that use similar tricks for scams.

Often when we make guesses about other people, we reveal more about ourselves than the other person.

"She said the man looked like the type who didn't treat women that well"

Maybe she was right about this man, maybe she was wrong, but in either case that judgement came about because he reminded her of someone.

I'll go a step further. She assumed happy couple => boy, and future father seeming strained => girl...that gives me a guess about a difficulty she faced in childhood.

Of course I'm susceptible too. I jumped immediately to the "opposite sex parent had issues" narrative on reading a small anecdote about this woman. Is that the truth, or am I projecting something? Could be both?

Look at how you analyze others and you'll learn a lot about yourself.

Not only does she have a privileged position, but good artists are skilled at making their art convey emotions and feelings.

Telling a complex story in a static picture requires great attention to detail, and a solid understanding of how humans express emotion.

Before you can create art that captures these emotions, you need to be able to observe them. I am not at all surprised that countless hours painting people has helped her develop this skill!

> Personally I think I am very good at reading people's internal state.

How are you evaluating that?

I reached the same conclusion but in a roundabout way. I think the ultimate goal is to know about one's own self at the most deepest of levels. One way obviously is engaging with the self at a deeper level which is not always possible. Unfortunately, it is extremely hard to master.

However watching others and just collecting more datapoints help in the process of learning. You are learning to read and be more observant regardless of judgements.

I found the article really good.

It’s actually not that surprising that some people are incredibly good at reading others. Your body is constantly broadcasting information through tiny facial expressions, tone of voice, posture, and even micro-movements. Every second, you’re sending out lots of signals, and some people are just especially tuned in to pick them up.

The interpretation isn’t always right, but if you’re good at engaging with people (mostly by listening) you’ll improve that skill pretty quickly.

"Missiology is the academic study of the Christian mission history and methodology". Earlier, Missiology used to be called as "Practical Anthropology". Even today, the best materials for learning phonetics and linguistics practically come from Christians, because of their drive to proselytize everyone on this earth, with various languages, etc. "Summer Institute of Linguistics" is one such.

>I was in awe that a missionary could do such good anthropology, and the inconsistencies in framing made perfect sense.

The author graduated in Cultural Anthropology some 30 years before writing the book.

What’s the name of the book? Can’t just leave that hanging !

Funnily enough, this response gives some insight into your personal affect. What kinds of mental states are capable of producing just such a reaction?

FWIW, hypothesizing attributes about a person is also just what's required to begin empathetically understanding them. Judging this as judgemental seems like an unpleasant kind of state to be in, at least to my eyes.

I certainly don't know you but have just as certainly felt some aspect of you. Hoping you are well, stranger.

I have to agree. There is a clear pattern indicating what she thinks is "the best way to live". Be open and be happy. Be otherwise at your own demise. It also sounds a lot like she is trying to convince herself she is striving for the right way of living. First it seemed she has a point, later in the post I felt she lacks intellectual humility, a "healthy" level (oh the irony) of doubt.

One wonders how much of it is true and how much is fundamental attribution bias.

Interestingly, your comment reads as hostile and condescending to me.

Just because they parse people this way, doesn't mean they're too attached to the results of that parsing (which is what I'd describe as being judgemental).

IMO "judgement" of a person carries a sense of finality and should be separated from one's "expectation" of a person.

I think it's okay to let your observations of someone guide your expectations of them so long as you are open to being wrong and do not use those expectations as justification for mistreating someone.

Ignore the other comments you're right on the money. Self described empaths always make roll my eyes and this post is that on steroids.

Isn’t this simply recognizing that people are not fixed points? The same person who is open and happy at one time could certainly be bored at another.

It does not seem to me that the author claims otherwise.

Lie detectors are also well-understood and taught to cops. K-9 probably cause manufacturer units are well-understood and also taught to cops. In fact, the list of things that are totally bogus and well-understood and taught to cops since the era of Bill Clinton is so long that perhaps it should be well-understood and taught to cops too.

Two sets of people:

A) The overconfident that self-describe as intuitive at reading people

B) people skilled at reading people

You have seen a lot of A and you are arguing that means that B doesn't exist.

I think that both exist.

For the B's it is a bit of a superpower, and I suspect they don't generally show off their superpower unless you have a very close relationship with them.

I am skilled enough to recognize the A's, but the B's are harder to recognize. To recognize the A's you have to be better at reading others than the A's are. To recognize the B's you need to be as skilled as them or better (which I believe is difficult, and uncommon).

When on the receiving end of A's or B's judgements you need to be able to read yourself better than they can plus you need to have zero self-denial: to judge if their reading is correct. Many people are just not that good at self-awareness (we often act according to childish drives).

It helped me to do only try to understand myself in the moment or conversation than the other. It is not easy and most of us do not know ourselves.

It's actually kind of hard to do. You try to pay attention to the words you are saying, the thoughts you are thinking, the emotions, the feelings, the body posture of yourself. But it's got to be easier than trying to understand another.

Doing this eventually lead to a better perception of others. But by then I didn't need to try to do it. I'm still no where near as perceptive as the author of this submission but I've improved. However its a bit like a muscle and needs to be exercised or made into a discipline or habit and I have atrophied over time. I do still have my memories of this though.

One thing I noticed by observing others is that most people do not understand themselves. And I include myself in this group almost all the time too.

I should get back into this, thank you for your comment.

Most people are not drunk from minute 0 at weddings, and the author went to many weddings, so she clearly had the opportunity to see people interacting also when not drunk.

In vino veritas

It would still, like the broken clock, be correct sometimes. Our ability to understand others comes from, and is limited by, the fact that our feelings and behaviors are a mix from a shared palette.

Yes, but this is often true of how we see others. We are not robots, we pour ourselves in others.

Still, the article is insightful and a fun read.

The classic salesman tactic is that the salesman has to love the product. The best conmen have to con themselves first. They are basically method actors.

In our tech sphere we see this in tech hype circles where the early investors have to become believers and make new converts which turns into feedback loops of hype.

Do you think you might've been able to find a sincere, non-manipulative way of doing it?

For example, if you could quickly intuit whether and how much the person naturally would want and be able to donate, and you connect with them on the basis of that, and they might or might not pick up on that themselves, but no mind tricks of either of you?

One appealing thing about this is that it's using some of the strongest potential for manipulation, to try to avoid manipulating.

Observer effect also works for code created by humans.

It reminds me of how psychedelics can sometimes put you in a hyper observant, heightened state of awareness. Maybe some here have experienced this, it can be very mind blowing. People are open books and communicate much much more then we think we are. Motions, gestures, tiny subtle reactions, the way someone walks, it can give you a direct glance into someones soul. Some people are probably naturally very skilled at being observant, the author being a painter only make sense.

I felt the same, genuinely unusual especially in this listicle space.

Another observation? That seems rather the point of placing this article here on this date, yes?

   There was an old boomer named Maude,
   who sold composition by fraud,
   She got her kicks
   from spurious clicks
   but her mores were seriously flawed.

Also noticed this. Maybe we are starting to see well written articles by people in the format of badly written AI Slop for engagement purposes. "Well most articles read by people look like this now, so why dont I?"

Jump to 7m31s : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMm1GWMUoJI?t=7m31s

Sherlock Holmes (1985) Season 2 Episode 2 The Greek Interpreter

In every interaction with anyone they're reading you. How deeply varies by occasion and whom you're interacting with.

For example, a sales person will be reading you with everything they got to find the best angle to sell you stuff.

On a first date, you can bet both people involves are trying to read each other every minute of the date, whether intentionally or unconsciously. They even often talk about how they read you afterwards with their friends.

A long-time partner probably doesn't try to read you every time you talk.

Don't worry. It's not about you. You are just one of humans.

I used to have similar concerns as you — how can anyone truly know what other people are like? Unless we’re doing research with the scientific method, we can only speculate unscientifically, right? Without science, what we say is just our belief, not established fact.

But how do you explain people who intuitively understand things? Mathematicians, for example, intuitively understand math. Psychologists and experienced authors intuitively understand people. We gain intuition through education and experience, which in turn improve our understanding and sensitivity towards the truth. Expert mathematicians, for example, _can_ have a good sense of whether a theorem is true before they prove it. And in general, people who possess scientific knowledge can intuitively know things.

I do agree with your intent, though — we need to possess humility about the accuracy of our beliefs. The author can’t factually know what other people feel and think without asking them.

But we also owe some deference to wisdom. Being wise is like being an expert darts players: you’re better able to throw darts into the bulls-eye than most people. If we develop a wisdom worth trusting, we should trust it.

Where does she say they are scientific observations?

The dictionary definition of "observe" is to notice or perceive (something) and register it as being significant.

By that definition the word observation in the title and text is completely legitimate and used correctly.

Maybe she can throw some percentages into her next article on human interaction to make HN happy

Sure, she's also just peering into a single night/moment of their life. She's watching group dynamics of people who are attending a wedding. As I read through all the bullets, I thought about how many of the weddings I have attended have gone and where she would have pegged me on those nights and I could probably fit half the list depending on which event she was present on.

People attend weddings for a lot of reasons. Sometimes it's full of your most favorite people in the world, sometimes you only know a few people in the room. Sometimes you have a lot of fun, sometimes the entire thing just feels like a massive inconvenience. Sometimes it stokes the flame of your relationship, sometimes it occurs during a time when your relationship is under some stress. Sometimes I'm dancing/partying all night, sometimes I never leave my table and leave before the cake is cut.

Anyways, I'm sure she does see a lot of these patterns and you can try to infer a lot of things about the people, with some reason, but people are fluid and this is too small of a sample of their life to really know anything other than how this group of people interacted on a single night of their lives.

Ironically the article tells me more about the author than the people she observes.

Sure, the words she uses to represent her observations is a reflection of her self; in that she describes it in a more creatively descriptive way than, say, a scientist in a laboratory. It's observation, not research; but it's also not judgment which is where I find projection lives.

Under that I see someone whose job it is to be keenly observant and to notice these things, otherwise she wouldn't be a very good wedding painter. It probably helps that she seems to be passionate about observing people. Why have someone paint your wedding if the painter isn't able to understand and observe the nuances of human interactions going on?

Why does it have to be scientific? Lots of people write their thoughts on the world and the people in it. Why would a blog called “skin contact” need hard facts?

> These are not scientific observations in any sense

I think it's worth poking at why you feel that social interactions should be subjected to the rigours of the scientific method in the first place?

Totally agree.

> It is easy to spot the person in the room who thinks they are better than everyone. [...] This is also painful to see, because they often cannot see their own misery, how unpleasant the world is if no one is good enough to be loved.

Honestly, where does this person get off thinking they can evaluate a whole person's psyche based on how they walk into a room and chat with a few people?

It’s fine to be non-rigorous as long as you’re not a jerk and treat your own conclusions on relatively little data as preliminary. Sometimes it’s good to have some information with relatively large error bars and be willing to update quickly rather than ignore information because the error bars are large. From the article it doesn’t become apparent that the author wouldn’t update her views quickly as new information comes in (eg by talking to someone). So yes the observations in the post are not scientific, but there’s nothing preventing them from being the starting point of rational reasoning and behaviour.

Damn, even the prestigious Journal of Scientific Facts is using LLMs to write its rejections.

"Fiction" doesn't seem to be the right word for open speculation positioned as open speculation, which is how I immediately evaluation observation.

think this is just an observational essay. The confident tone makes for better reading, even if you're questioning the accuracy while you read it. It also allows a more loving tone than a more hedged rhetoric would allow.

If all you have is a hammer, every problem... you know what, never mind.

There are very few hard facts in the entire domain of psychology.

The only way to validate such observations is to check if they have predictive power. I'm sure the author checked that to her satisfaction. You are free to do the same.

> These are not scientific observations in any sense.

This is... IMO, a misguided criticism. It implies every study of anything should be scientific. This is the road to bad science, pseudoscience and whatnot. In fact, it's the road we already have taken.

Psychology is full of dubious scientific pretense... often because art, anthropology, philosophy and such are derided and rejected as unscientific.

Give me great art or philosophy over bad science any day.

If we must do science then why must it be about the validity of her observations?

I'd be more interesting to know which unproven-social-deductions are commonly made by the general population.

Its frankly ridiculous to critique a post not just on its lack of rigor, but on its merit in regards to a hypothesis you've pulled out of thin air.

It seems entirely mean spirited here to expect some rigid scientific insight from a person recounting their observations about the world. Where does science begin if not with a story that wants verifying?

Science isn't the only form of empiricism. In this case, the writer is reporting what she has learned through a long process of observation, a useful form of experience. No doubt in the process she has formed ideas, watched to see if they bear out, changed her mind, examined events in context and their outcomes, come up with generalizations based on observations over time, and so on. You know, how most people learn most things.

Could she be wrong, sure, but as we have learned over the past few years, so can more "scientific" approaches to psychology and sociology. But that doesn't really matter because what she's doing isn't failed science, but taking part in a sort of humanistic shared inquiry. It's a woman reporting her observations and thoughts, not as claimed facts, but as suggestions readers can integrate into their own developing understanding, so they can build on them to make their own observations and inferences.

Somehow I knew that a comment along these lines was coming. HN never disappoints when it comes time to be nauseatingly analytic. No amount of whimsy or attempt at writing anything approaching literature or something long-form go unanswered and uncriticized.

I wish I (and lots of others) had just half of the ability to see people the way that the author does, it would make the world so much more rich and maybe more kind.

She's an artist. It's her job to be slightly irrational. Overall she seems kind.

I think this is really about the actively made decision to spend longer with each sensation than you 'normally' would - relative to your own individual baseline. Basically whether this is a tool in the person's metacognitive toolkit that they typically use or not. Like 'the feeling of the touch of a thought' on the mind itself, as opposed to a linear pre-simulation of a performance to play out loud. Or the difference between making what you say out loud a cheap, low entropy, lossy encoding of all that you're thinking, versus gathering all the aspects quietly and needing to find a way linearize all that incidental complexity.

The author uses several metaphorical dichotomies, and I think this one is the most tenuous and unintuitive. I understand the two groups of people, but tying it to where they "generally exist" doesn't make sense to me. The mind/body dichotomy can imply so many different things that this would need a lot more elaboration to clarify. Or maybe I'm not enough of a natural people watcher.

To me "to exist in the body" Vs "to exist in the head" is a bit about where your point of view is when your mind is processing reality.

I'm not talking about the literal visual point of view but rather the metaphorical center point of the conscious experience.

Are you suggesting that reading other people's minds is as error prone and vain than giving human emotions to animals?

Your comment seems to suggest that having a preference towards certain personality types is inherently wrong.

In this scenario, there's a feedback loop based on whether the subjects of the paintings recommend the painter for weddings.

I understand your concern I think, but still believe you are a bit harsh. In this case the author is not pretending to be always right, and seems to refrain from hard cut judgment based on those perceptions.

Also, it's impossible not to form a model of others based on all those visual and behavioral cues. Better trying to make it consciously than to let it happen unconsciously, no? I believe conscious thoughts that one tries to describe and understand have actually less agency on one's judgment.

I disagree. The difference here is that she is not advocating for acting on her assumptions, like an interviewer does. Maturity is not letting your assumptions cloud your judgement.

Agreed. She's not actually stating anything. That is, it's so vague that you cannot pinpoint it, it could be interpreted in any way. You cannot make a prediction out of her "observations".