Socializing with strangers is a prisoner's dilemma

or: Why the globally optimal strategy is to always assume strangers will like you

Thread

There are two kinds of people.

Defectors: Those who are cautious about strangers until they're given a reason not to be

Cooperators: Those who are enthousiastic about strangers until they're given a reason not to be

For most people, it takes some effort to engage with strangers without the certainty of some future reward. What's more: expressing your own personality is vulnerable when you know you might get rejected. Safer to just not try and imagine you'd have been liked if you had.

But nowadays it seems like the vast majority of people are Defectors. So when two Defectors meet, maybe they'd both like to be friends; but instead they're just hanging around, waiting for the other person to prove that they're worth it by playing cooperate just *once*. Useless!

Meanwhile, Cooperators just go for it, and are happier people as a result. Here's their secret: when you cooperate and the other person defects, you can just forget about them and only hang out with the people who cooperated with you. This is known as "making friends."

In the moment, the Cooperators' strategy is vulnerable and risky. Across a lifetime, they're practically guaranteed to find tons of good people.

It's like a single-player videogame: the times you lose, are forgotten; the times you win, remain.

I've met some people in my life who were able to play 'cooperate' with an extraordinary amount of people. Shopkeepers, waitresses, strangers on the street, friends of friends... absolutely anyone. They're a miracle to behold.

There are two ways to become a better Cooperator.

1. Reduce the costs of cooperating (become more comfortable with being vulnerable) and of rejection (have a grounded self-esteem independent of the other person).
2. Make other people cooperate with you more often.

The first of these is pretty straight-forward. The second can be done by improving your looks, your social skills, and so forth.

I once talked to a guy who had few friends, but who felt validated in this because he thought most people he met were boring. I asked him to give me a ballpark estimate: how many people that you meet are boring? He said: "About 80% of them."

I asked him if these people would find him boring. He admitted they probably do, because he's never bothered to show himself to these people.

He was refusing to be interesting for people who weren't already interesting for him.

It didn't take much more for him to see his own mistake: that if *he* could seem boring to others, then perhaps people who seem boring to him might prove interesting once he got to know them.

What was interesting, though, was that he'd never considered this himself. He had always been waiting, keeping an eye out for people who caught his eye, without understanding that the best strategy is to catch people's eyes yourself instead.

He was stuck in a bad strategy.

Fortunately, the solution is clear.

Be generous to people. Show yourself. Be loud. Be vulnerable. Be loving -- even when you don't yet know if the other person deserves it! Be curious; take an interest in people.

In short: https://twitter.com/WeftOfSoul/status/1304723871573176322