We’ve all experienced it: the first time you go out to the bars or the clubs, or that first kiss, or the first time you meet someone new at work. We all experience it, and I’m sorry to say it’s not a pretty sight to see.
This is an extremely common experience, and it can be really annoying too. If you’ve ever had someone you care about take a liking to you and then suddenly it turns into something that’s so much more serious than it should have been, you’ll know what I mean. It’s a bit like how you don’t like the way you feel about someone, you just don’t want to get your hopes up.
There are many reasons why someone might take a liking to another person. They might be interested in your personality, they may be interested in your talents, or simply just like the smell of your hair. However, there’s also a more subtle reason why people like other people. Its called the social method. Social method is when we like someone because we are part of the community that they belong to.
Well, that or you have a great sense of humor. Either way, you obviously like someone, which makes them like you, and that makes you more likely to like them.
Social method is one of those concepts that’s often glossed over. Usually it’s something we’re told in the context of one of the big social studies classes we take. “That’s the way people are and…” However, I believe that the truth is that we like people because they like us. We like people because they are who we used to be, not who they used to be.
You know what else doesn’t make a person like someone? Being a jerk. The easiest way to tell someone you don’t like them is to act like a jerk. We can’t help ourselves, we always want to be treated with respect and we want our friends to like us. If you don’t like someone, your friends can’t like you because you are an asshole. The same is true of people in general.
We like our friends for the same reason that we like movies and music. They are who we used to be, and we want to be treated with respect. But we also like movies/music/TV shows because they are who we used to be, not who they are anymore. Being treated with respect is an important part of any social interaction. The problem comes when we treat people with disrespect, or with disrespect that we have an agenda for our friends to see.
The problem with treating people with disrespect is that it makes the situation worse. If you treat someone with disrespect, you don’t get to treat them like they’re important. Instead you make them feel less important. That’s why we like our friends for the same reasons we like movies and music. We want them to have the respect that they deserve, and the respect we have for them. We want them to treat us with the respect that they deserve.
Social media has given us an opportunity to express our grievances with each other and to discuss how we feel about the world. It has also given an opportunity to show how we feel about our friends. So in some ways it’s kind of like an open forum for us to express ourselves. However, the downside is that some people use this forum as a way to gossip, or make snarky comments, or spread rumors.
The problem with social media is that it’s all about being liked. People want to be liked, and if they’re not liked, they can spread their venom further. However, that’s not the same thing as being hated. If enough people are being mean to each other, someone is going to be hurt. So it might seem that social media has an upside, but in reality it can be pretty bad for the people who use it.
