#135: Anti Anti Social Social Club
Make socializing cool again
A little-known fact about the essay I published on January 1st about trying to have a kid is that I broke my living room window while writing it. I was lying laterally on my couch, a single outstretched foot resting on the window right above it, when I applied light pressure, and then a little more, and then there was a shocking snap and the window was in pieces. I cleaned up the glass in a guilty hurry, refusing to consider whether this was a metaphor, then called a guy to come fix it. His name was Bernie. He arrived around 7 the next morning in a bright yellow van with his name on it. I awoke to the sound of him and Avi laughing, and came out to find them sitting at the dining table, deep in conversation about web design, and wedding photography, and almost nothing about windows, but a little bit about glass (he once installed mirrors in a dance studio).
Bernie was born and raised in New York. He carried on with us the entire time he was at our apartment, which was at least five times longer than required to remove our broken window, which took him about five minutes. Bernie believes the art of conversation is dead. That no one knows how to talk anymore. He bemoaned his “millennium” children who didn’t want to take over the family glass business. He bossed us around like we were fools. We could tell he didn’t really want to leave. Upon closing the door behind him, Avi and I grinned at each other in the sudden silence. When he returned later that afternoon, he installed the new window then sat down at the table to show me photos of smiley faces he’d taken over recent months—his girlfriend liked them. I let him take a photo of the neon smiley above my bookshelf before he left.
The truth is that Bernie was a little bit annoying. He stayed just a shade too long, complained about vegans, and at one point told us the salary of every person in his office, grumbling at their lack of gratitude. But he loved what he did, and he loved talking to people. He had ideas and wanted to see them bounce off other people’s faces. Upon his exit, we swore we’d never use another glass guy, should the need arise. A few weeks later, Avi spotted his bright yellow van double-parked in another Brooklyn neighborhood and texted me a photo, no caption. Bernie's been elevated in our minds to something precious and rare: a New York guy about town with an old-school sensibility (not online). The kind of person who gives this city its reputation, versus merely leeching off of it.
It goes without saying that the modern US landscape is pretty hostile to Bernie’s way of doing business—charming, local, and imperfect. Some of his behavior was a little antisocial, sure, but his overall effect was prosocial to an exhilarating degree. It’s not that I don’t see the benefits of apps and automation and super-fast delivery (especially where they allow people of different abilities to regain or retain some agency), but the negative externalities are becoming harder to ignore, and I think a general decline in social skills is one of them. I’m not just talking about the average customer not wanting to interact with real workers anymore, as every “innovation” now seems eager to solve for, but all kinds of asocial gripes that now feel utterly common: hating phones calls, dreading small talk, avoiding neighbors (or human interaction in general), never asking friends to help you move, loving canceled plans, agreeing to not acknowledge coworkers on the subway, even going trad as an act of avoidance. People blame the pandemic, but we’ve been trending this way for a while. And it makes sense: In what world would rampant techno-individualism improve how we commune?
I’ve noticed a burgeoning tension online between those who treat antisociality as an edgy or funny position and those who argue that, actually, antisociality is pretty mainstream now, and it’s a problem that dovetails predictably with other aspects of societal decline. I used to belong to the first group, which is probably why I align so firmly with the second these days. My own jokiness came from a place of self-deprecation: I’m nervous making easy phone calls, haha! But I think we miss something when we assume that antisocial tendencies are somehow intrinsic to who we are rather than severely culturally enabled —or worse, assume that antisociality is somehow more evolved. This Twitter thread about how no adult should ever ask their friends to help them move is a good example. I understand where the OP is coming from; I’ve felt similarly in the past. But we need to dispense with the idea that rugged independence is the more “mature” aim. Asking for help actually takes a much stronger constitution. At least, it does when you’re out of practice, which we increasingly are.
I used to screen phone calls and lament small talk and wait to leave my apartment until my neighbors cleared out of the hallways. I wrote plenty of listicles at my old job that referenced my wariness of strangers, a sentiment I only started giving up around the time I left. But for years now I’ve been trying to more actively resist the pull of social avoidance, and have found that, counter to my previously held anxieties, being more social actually solves a lot of the problems I assumed less socializing would (nerves, alienation, neuroticism, loneliness, self-consciousness). This is what concerns me about accepting our antisocial tendencies as innate, or rushing to give them labels. I used to think of myself as an “outgoing introvert,” whatever that means, and now find the label irrelevant. I need alone time and I need time around other people. I think most of us do. I’m sure the introversion scale exists, but there are risks with over-identifying with it—and missing opportunities for growth. I’ve found, for example, that as I’ve grown more secure in myself and my relationships, socializing is a lot less draining for me. Introversion wasn’t the problem.
The less we do something, the worse we get at it, and the worse we get at it, the less likely we are to do it. Today it’s fairly easy, especially if you’re of a certain class, to avoid face-to-face interaction with anyone you don’t already know. Remote work, email, self-checkout, online delivery, social media. These tools atrophy our social skills, which in turn makes us more neurotic and self-focused. Luckily, it’s possible to push back against the tide. When I moved into a new building in 2021, I promised to actually get to know my neighbors—no more waiting until they were gone so I could sneak out like a criminal. It was a little nerve-wracking at first, but in the end it was no big deal at all. Easy, even! A surprise to no one: It’s actually very sweet to be on friendly terms with your neighbors. It’s not difficult to summon interest in people you know nothing about…there are unlimited things to discuss. I’m glad I didn’t accept myself as “not the stop-and-chat type.” It would have been wrong, and also a cop-out.
Small talk has been maligned by the antisocial camp as simply not going deep enough, but I’m not sure that’s actually the problem with it. In this essay about the art of good conversation, the writer Adam Mastroianni argues that the typical qualities we ascribe to bad conversationalists, like someone who doesn’t ask questions or gives short answers, aren’t actually the culprits of bad conversation. Instead, he suggests it’s a lack of genuine engagement. He describes two types of conversationalists: givers (who think conversation moves forward by asking lots of questions) and takers (who think conversation moves forward by making lots of statements). He says we tend to villainize takers—“he didn’t ask me a single question!”—when in truth it’s possible to be a generous conversation partner as a giver or a taker. The key is asking questions or making statements that invite compelling replies. I’d argue this condition turns on neuroticism: sticky questions are borne of real curiosity (versus simply “playing the part”), and sticky statements come from a real desire to connect (versus simply performing yourself). Good conversation, then, has less to do with what you’re talking about and more to do with how you’re talking about it, or why. Getting out of your own head and into the world is critical. If you hate small talk, you might just be doing it wrong.
Prosociality has abundant positive externalities on the level of community and the individual, but it takes practice. Especially now, when modern life is designed to keep us atomized. I respect that some people don’t have a choice but to work around their social differences, but I think a lot of us have the capacity to rewrite the narratives we’ve told ourselves about what we’re capable of, socially. It used to be kind of edgy or rebellious to claim antisociality (hence the cultural caché of merch in the vein of “anti-social social club”), but it hasn’t been related to a subcultural movement with political aims for decades. We’re not punk kids flipping off squares to make a point. We’re sinking into our comfort zones and padding the walls. Antisociality has gone mainstream, and the jokes are getting stale.
My favorite article I read last week was “The Agoraphobic Fantasy of Tradlife,” a great essay by Zoe Hu for Dissent about how “in an increasingly expensive and antisocial world, tradwives forsake life with others for the lonely, constrictive spaces of bourgeois ownership.” Last week’s 15 things also included the best celebrity doc I’ve ever seen, a photo set that made me cry, an ear trick, and more. The rec of the week was podcasts. I needed to freshen up my subs.
Hope you have a nice Sunday!
Haley