Bit of a shower thought: Outside of limited circumstances, like interviews or therapy, nobody is really expected to give you honest feedback on how you come across.
This sucks. I’ve been told I come across as unfriendly once, but I have no idea if I was just nervous and tired at the time. I still cherish that one moment almost 10 years ago when someone told me I was funny in some corporate team building bs.
Now, I could ask friends and family, but I believe they would probably not tell me the full, honest truth. After all, they (hopefully) like me and I would probably avoid being too harsh to everyone but very close people in private.
At the same time, I know plenty of people who really should get some feedback, who probably believe they are funny while everyone is bored and annoyed and hopes they talk a little less and the like.
So, are there socially accepted ways to get feedback on how you come across?
I realize that people are strange, relationships are hard, P!=NP and anime is not real. Still, it would be nice to have.
I knew a guy who begged for honest feedback. Like kept complaining about how people would ghost him, and wasn’t able to get a date or anything. So when he asked me directly, I pointed it all out.
And here’s the thing: he didn’t really do much after learning that. He didn’t try to change anything for the better. He just took it in, got real defensive for a while then agreed and accepted that “this is who I am”.
And maybe that’s okay. But he seems dead set on attracting people who hate it.
Learning to read the room is a skill set.
Yeah, that’s on him.
There is, however, a big difference between (let’s say) “you smell and look at your feet too much” and “you command people around and treat people as inferior”, for example