Whenever I overhear someone at a party saying "so what do you do?" I feel a twinge of second-hand shame. Surely, as a society, we can just agree to ask each other better questions than that.
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IMO also avoid "what's your story?" and "so how do you know [host]?"
Better options:
- What have you been excited about lately?
- What about you tends to surprise people?
- What do you enjoy/care about?
- What have you been looking for lately?
- What are you looking forward to?
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People have many objections but I still think "what do you do" produces:
- status dynamics of judging each other by jobs
- the same conversational paths
- easy ways to pigeonhole people
Small changes by askers would prevent the burden of avoiding these from falling on answerers.
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ok i wanna defend "what do you do" - i like the status dynamics and fast pigeonholing
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How come? If you think of friendship as a suspension of status dynamics, nudging people away from them creates a friendlier atmosphere.
Ofc it's useful for networking parties, but I'd guess that even the highest-status people there probably want more personal connection.
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I wanna know who to be friends with tho! you can befriend anybody at all if u just spend enough time with them, so all else being equal, I'd prefer spending more time with people who also have practical benefits, assuming we're starting from scratch
I think people want to think of friendshippability as far more complex than just time
(I think they're way underestimating how much it's just time)
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Aella you should read Venkatesh Rao on status -- if people have perfectly legible status there would be no groups ever because nobody wants to join a group where they are above average status. The Alpha and Omega are supposed to be legible but anything in the middle is not
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Sometimes it's fun to enjoy someone's presence for the sake of it without labeling them X. I'm wondering if there is a gender difference in preferences around this question. Maybe you can use your audience for more interesting stats.
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Is "practical benefits" really the top thing you look for in a new friend? And not, like, maybe weirdness or something (which you'd have to ask a different q to get signal on)?