Another essential is to just give up. Can't recommend enough! Similar to the 5% rule article about shitty customers. Just drop the people who do this shit. Also - sometimes you just run into people with a sour taste in their mouth and they need to cleanse their pallet before you interacting with you.

I lived through this scenario the author has with someone a couple nights ago:

> "The last option is positive disagreement.

> “Vegas? Casinos and desert? What made you choose that?”

> Here you’ve pushed back and expressed that you wouldn’t want to live in Vegas, but you’ve also given me a great opportunity to talk about something positive and to try to sway you in a friendly way."

I did what the author suggests, quite literally. I was like, "Oh, you moved to Vegas? I'm really curious - what is it about Vegas that interested you to move there since you work remote?"

> "For fun."

"Ah, what specifically?"

> "Just fun."

"Do you like casinos? Strip clubs?"

> "Actually, I don't like casinos."

It was like pulling teeth to get a fucking word out of this person. It was pretty annoying too because we were at a very social event but this person acted like a nitwit. I gave up on it and didn't bother interacting with this person much after. They never said hello in the hallway or made any effort later to engage again. I gave them multiple chances to sort their shit out but you can only do so much.

Another story (I just spent a week at a hotel socializing with a few hundred people - so I have a lot of these right now): I was socializing with another person and they were giving some slightly curt answers, to the point of killing conversation and/or really creating a rift between us. I don't often think this but I really had a very unfavorable view of this person after our first engagement. I was like, "Wow, what a dick." They really tried to create some animosity and had been a bit presumptuous - which I found very off-putting. I reflected on it with a couple friends and they agreed - dick behavior. The next day, this person passed me in the hallway, said hi and waved. I responded positively even though it seemed fucking insane. I've had some weird 4D chess shit with whackjobs before - so I was worried I was dealing with another one of these. Later that night, I decide to interact with them again and in a few words it became clear that they were drunk. Suddenly, I was now the most interesting man in the world. We ended up having interesting banter and talked for at least an hour. The next day, we got closer and became more social and they were the last person I talked to during that week at the hotel as they walked me to my room and begged me to stay out longer.

So, it's all kinda fucked, IMO. You can do everything right but some people just have their guard up heavily in the beginning and/or you'll never break through within a reasonable timeframe. Only later if you can talk to them with their guard down, get them to relax, and have a good time with you can you really break through to where they'll engage with you like you're a regular human being. But also - some people are just part of that X% you should just not bother with.

I really don't think there's a greater lesson overall with any of what I'm sharing. With enough time - you can find enough cherrypicked data from my own life to counter any claim I'm making. Interacting with other people is often a fucking disaster and I find there's often nothing you could've done except to have just not interacted.