A lil context.
I am an introverted aspie with an extroverted charmer of a friend. He does things in social settings that never ceases to amaze me.
So i ask him about it often, but he always answers with, “You just gotta learn the social game.” I’m confused.
Is such a thing actually real?
In: Other
No. The vast VAST majority of people go about their day interacting with others while having no conscious strategy. People who gamify relationships, whether platonic or romantic, are weird
It’s a “game” in that people learn to read and react to social cues – tone of voice, body language. I’ve seen many people who excel at this and it seems to be something they’ve honed over a lifetime. They’re just naturally inclined with social skills.
Yes and no.
The ‘social game’ is a metaphor for a set of interpersonal codes of conduct, norms, behaviours, expectations. It’s not an explicit ‘game’ like one scheduled on TV with an explicit roster of players and discrete rules, but arises on a continuum of intensity when two people interact. The rules are present, but are contextual and may change. You always ‘play’ it, though you can ignore your own participation.
In the context of his usage, he’s probably talking about how he interacts with women and/or men in his peer group. At that age and in that setting, social interactions feel more like a ‘game’ than they otherwise might.
Well, what counts as a ‘ real game ‘ I’m an aspie who needed to learn social situations, and a game is a great way to put it. Much like in a game there are seemingly arbitrary rules you need to follow, strategies you can apply and style of play people who’ve gotten good at the game prefer and fall into.
I don’t actually think being on the spectrum makes the game any harder, instead we just need to ensure the strategy we pick matches our strengths while we work on our weaknesses and unlock other strategies.
Does everyone think of it as a game? No, and it’s probably not a good idea to talk to people who lack context about ” the game of interacting with people” as they could misinterpret it as “I view interacting with people as a game and don’t care about their feelings”. That said viewing it as a game can be very helpful, much like any game it requires practice to get good at, a lot of people feel like their social ability is predetermined and they’re destined to forever be socially awkward. But that isn’t true. Just like any game, learn the rules ( even if they seem dumb and unessersary), pick a strategy and practice.
It’s worth noting that you don’t have to play the game all the time. Extraverted people tend to find the game relaxing, more introverted people tend to get tired when they play it for too long. This doesn’t mean they don’t like the game it’s just they need to take breaks and it can be nice to have people around who don’t care if you’re bad at the game from time to time.
It is perhaps a phrase that identifies there are unwritten “rules” of etiquette and engagement when social interactions occur. These rules do not imply any actual game exists, but knowing them and how to bend them to get the reactions you want is an important part of “being social”. To extroverts, this may come more naturally because they rely on that interaction to feel happy.
As someone else with autism spectrum disorder, it’s like Calvinball—the rules are ever-changing. There are tips and tricks I can recommend (ask about other people, try not to talk more than two paragraphs without making sure your audience cares, you don’t have to make eye contact), but you’ll never “win.” You’ll just make yourself and others happy.
So in short, no. He’s just using a useless figure of speech.
People who interpret every social interaction as a game with winners and losers are pretty easy to spot and they a very small minority. I don’t like being around people like that and I’m fairly certain most other people don’t either. That’s not what socializing is all about.
It’s not literally a game. However there are a lot of unspoken rules to social scenarios that often aren’t explicitly taught and many people don’t always realize exist, they’ve just picked them up naturally as kids and teenagers because that’s what neurotypical brains are really good at doing: learning how to properly socialize with other neurotypical brains and what is appropriate when and how to respond to specific situations.
However “game” isn’t the worst analogy in the world because much like games the rules often are arbitrary, depend entirely on the culture that developed them trough years of existing as a society, and often have no express obvious purpose other than to facilitate social communication, avoid friction, and mutually establish context that give the actual conversation meaning beyond what the words themselves have. It’s not literally a game, but knowing them makes your odds of successfully navigating any social scenario much smoother. If you don’t naturally pick up on these rules as you grow up (like is not uncommon if you’re an aspie) then they can get extremely confusing and tiring to keep track of and decipher manually.
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I think it’s way to say that you gotta learn how to interact with people and learn the social codes.