Talk to Food, Like Lovers Do

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“He thinks we should talk to our food, to develop a relationship with it that he thinks will ease and aide digestion,” we say. “On the face of it, that seems crazy, but let’s break it down.”

“Who sits there and thinks about how they feel about their food that much?” she says. “I mean, you either eat it or you don’t.”

“You might know how you feel about your food,” we say, “but how does your food feel about you?”

As ridiculous as that joke sounds, neuro-gastroenterologists are now suggesting that our relationship with food is in dire need of an upgrade. How do we enhance our relationship with food? It could be said that we’ve been eating for so long that we forget to appreciate it for what it is. We eat most of the food on auto-pilot. We might appreciate eating a hot, juicy ribeye, our reward for eating fairly well for weeks, but do we appreciate the ham in a ham sandwich? Generally, no, because the only reason we eat a ham sandwich is to quell hunger. Anti-meat eaters have a point, in this sense, when they suggest that we don’t appreciate that an animal had to die for our self-serving desire to nourish ourselves. Some anti-meat eaters say not only do we fail to appreciate the fact that an animal died, we choose to disassociate the slab of meat we eat from the animal. We call a piece of cow beef, a piece of pig is pork, and a domestic bird is poultry. Poultry might be the exception in common parlance, for we rarely ask for poultry from a butcher or a restaurant. We usually say chicken, duck, etc. The point of this disassociation, say anti-meat eaters, is to relieve ourselves of the guilt of eating animals. It might sound foolish since most people over six-years-old know what they’re eating, and we here at Rilaly.com are not suggesting that anyone end or cut back eating meat, but more knowledge about the food we’re eating might serve to aid in digestion.

One of the biggest problems for those who develop such an unhealthy relationship with food to the point that it can lead to an addiction is we need food. We need food to sustain life, we enjoy it so much that we look forward to it, and it’s part of our routines and patterns in life. As such, food provides comfort, and it can ease suffering, but food can also cause suffering. If we eat the wrong things too often, or we eat too much of a good thing, we can experience everything from IBS to constipation, diarrhea, bloating, pain and upset stomach after a night out at the Greazy Dog.

We also link food to relationships in subconscious ways. What did we eat growing up? Did our parents provide us a wide variety of meals on a regular basis, or were they primarily meat and potatoes people? How much do you love that first bite of a quality burger? Is it all about the immediate satisfaction of taste, or are there a big mess of associations going on inside your head? I always wondered why I had an almost romantic relationship with Kentucky Fried Chicken. I’m not going to join the throng who trash on fast food, now that they’ve aged out of it. KFC is not horrible chicken, but I’ve had better. I can’t eat it now without paying dearly for it later, but when I see those iconic red stripes on a bucket, they lead me to feelings of nostalgia. I couldn’t pinpoint it for decades, until one of my relatives informed me that my step-dad used to purchase a big bucket of chicken for my mom and I to woo us. We would go to the park, and I would play after those picnics. I was so young that I don’t remember it, but it was obviously the source of my romantic association with chicken from KFC. I obviously associated that food with a great moment in my life where a man came along to assure us that everything would be ok after my father passed.

***

Researchers at John Hopkins suggest that we have a more conscious relationship with food dictated by our two brains communicating in a biological language on the best ways to use or discard the food.

Our second brain, their research suggests, controls our digestive system. “[It] involves two layers of more than 100 million nerve cells that line our gastrointestinal tract, from our esophagus to our rectum.” They label this second brain the enteric nervous system (ENS).

“The enteric nervous system doesn’t seem capable of thought as we know it, but it communicates back and forth with our big brain—with profound results.”

“[Our two brains form two separate] paths to govern two separate areas of the body. This is where the material changes to form our brain, the central nervous system, and the stomach, the enteric nervous system.

“The interesting aspect of this split revolves around the Vagus Nerve. The Vagus nerve connects the two nervous systems for life. Because of this connection, both the brain and the gut share neurotransmitters and hormones.”

The profound results, they suggest, could lead to anxiety or depression.

“For decades, researchers and doctors thought anxiety and depression contributed to [gastrointestinal] problems. But our studies and others show that it may also be the other way around,” director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Neurogastroenterology Jay Pasricha says. “Researchers are finding evidence that irritation in the gastrointestinal system may send signals to the central nervous system (CNS) that trigger mood changes.

“These new findings may explain why a higher-than-normal percentage of people with IBS and functional bowel problems develop depression and anxiety,” Pasricha adds. “That’s important, because up to 30 to 40 percent of the population has functional bowel problems at some point.”

Some suggest we have a heart brain too, and other specialists suggest the complexities in the system they specialize in might have another brain. Regardless, some scientific research suggests the terms “go with your gut on this one,” “gut-instinct”, and the ever popular “Spidey sense” might have real biological origins.

“The ENS (Enteric nervous system) is [also] the reason why you can sense danger. The stomach naturally sends these signals to the brain.”

The first association we made, when learning about our second brain, a third, or numerous brains working in complex orchestral harmony to control and regular basic functions was the octopus. The octopus has a central brain, and each arm is loaded with nerve cells that form a brain of their own, so the octopus technically has nine brains. The latest research suggests that these nine brains have no autonomy. They act in conjunction with the Central Nervous System (CNS) brain, and they are subservient to its cause, but research scientists leave the door open to possible future research findings dictating otherwise. If future findings dictate otherwise, will we find that it’s possible for an octopuses’ seventh arm to refuse the CNS brain’s prime directive in the course of a hunt? “I’m not going into that hole after that crab. Six did that, last Thursday, and he’s experiencing the complex functions in the eel digestive system now. Find another arm to do it.” The nerve cells in our ENS appear subjected to CNS authority in our system, but how would our relationship to food change if we found out that everything from IBS to constipation, diarrhea, bloating, pain and an upset stomach are the ENS brain’s autonomous attempts to rebel against the CNS brain? “We know you love the taste of Indian food, but we’re going to make you pay long-term for your short-term thinking.”

Current research suggests that that does not happen, but disruptions in the gastrointestinal system can affect mood in many ways and vice versa. One such disruption can be caused by the ribeye steak. The instantaneous rewards of taste from the glorious hot and juicy cut of cow are one of the primary reasons some of us enjoy life so much, but it is also a luxury we dare not indulge too often. Why do we limit our ribeye intake? The digestion process can make us miserable.

After we eat a big, huge ribeye, we don’t want to do anything but sit on our coach and watch TV, and we don’t know why. Dieticians suggest that our two brains might not know what to do with it, immediately. “I can feel it,” we say, in the midst of our gastrointestinal misery, “sitting like a rock in my gut.” Gastroenterologists and neuro-gastroenterologists suggest this might not be a bad description for what’s happening, and its connection to our overall misery might be more direct than we ever considered before.

With all these relationships between us and food, and between our two brains trying to complete complex functions, how do we upgrade our relationships? The first thing they suggest we try is slowing down. No matter how beautiful that sizzling slab of meat on our plate appears, we need to slow down when we eat it. Cut off one small bite, and chew it thoroughly while doing something else. We might want to take one small bite and finish cutting the rest of the meat, or we might want to eat something else for a little bit, before indulging. Every suggestion we’ve found is that we don’t have to wait long. Our two brains know the sights, sounds, and the smell of the ribeye has us slobbering out the corners of our mouth, but they’re suggestion is that we slow down just a little. We need to give our brains enough time to develop an attack plan of easier digestion.

Do the brain(s?) need enough time identify the food, process the information, and develop a proper plan for digestion, or could this be an exaggerated, overly detailed description they use to try to convince us to slow down while eating.

The process, regardless how we choose to interpret it, falls under the intuitive eating umbrella. Everyone knows we need food to sustain life, and that certain foods can provide greater health than others. Those of us who have been eating for a while now have noticed that the better food tastes the worse it is for you and vice versa. There are no direct correlations that we can graph, of course, but it feels like a pretty substantial, and general, rule of thumb.

While the incredibly tasty ribeye steak has healthy benefits, including protein, fat, vitamins and minerals, it’s taxing effects on the digestive system can be extreme. Ask anyone who has accidentally eaten a hot, juicy ribeye too quick, because they were so excited, and they’ll tell you how miserable their next couple hours were. Ask anyone who attempted to play a sport after eating a ribeye, and they’ll tell us it’s almost impossible to achieve a peak performance.

That’s due in part to the digestive system having such a tough time digesting it. The process can prove so difficult, at times, it saps our energy, and it can even prove painful. Perhaps this is why Lions on the Serengeti sleep for about 12 hours after devouring a wildebeest.

A little bit of mindfulness can aid in the process of digestion. What are we eating, are we employing a disciplined measure of moderation, and how slow are we eating it? To this point, the information these sites provide is relatively rational and thought-provoking, but as with every discussion of this nature, some take it to extremes.

Talk to our food? The idea of talking to it for any reason, seems so silly that this has to be a comedy. Unless, the question they’re trying answer for us involves building a better relationship with what we put into our body?

“Who sits there and thinks about how they feel about their food that much?” my friend asked. “I mean, you either eat it or you don’t.” I might’ve said the same thing as a knee-jerk reaction to people speaking to food, learning more about it, and the various relationships we’re discussing here. Yet, our greatest attempt at nonpartisanship on this particular question asks if we can better inform our ENS and CNS brains on proper digestion. Do we say the same things to the muffin and the asparagus? We assume they speak English, but is that assumption akin to some form of jingoism?

There are probably people who actually speak to food, but what are they saying? Are they talking to the food to find out about it? Are they trying to make better food choices? Or, are they discussing the benefits of slowing down? Regardless, I do think there are benefits to learning more about food, slowing down, and thinking about the various relationships between the ENS and CNS brains, even if this involves, for most of us anyway, a one-way conversation.

Elon Musk and Billionaires v Politicians

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“Who do you trust less? Billionaires or Politicians,” Elon Musk asked in a tweet.

No one cares what I think. No one cares what you think. No one cares what Elon Musk thinks. Elon Musk doesn’t care what Elon Musk thinks, in this particular poll anyway. He wants to know what we think, but he doesn’t really care what we think either. If he asked, “Who do you trust more?” that might hint at some narcissism on Musk’s part, but “Who do you trust less” is intended to reveal to virtue signalers, in the political offices of both parties, that they’re not as popular as their fellow ivory tower dwellers tell them they are. I still believe Musk missed the mark however. He should’ve asked who can do you more harm?

“The billionaire, Elon Musk, conducted this poll on his Twitter page, so he received the results he expected. As MSN.com reported, As of Friday afternoon, the poll had amassed over 3 million votes, and 75.7% of participants selected “Politicians” as who they trust less, while 24.3% selected “Billionaires.””

Again, this was Elon Musk’s poll, conducted on his Twitter page with his followers, so the results are skewed. If a politician was bold enough to conduct a similar poll on their Twitter page, they would probably receive the results they expect. If we dug deep into these polls and analyzed the results, we would find that it doesn’t matter. Trust is often based on personal preference, and it doesn’t really matter who we trust less, if neither party can do us harm.

Without going into the details of the two parties concerned, because it feels unnecessary, the politician is obviously in charge of more levers of power that can do us harm. On the flipside, an individual who favors politicians could ask, “Which party can help us more the billionaire or the politician?”

To which we would reply, “All conditions being perfect, the politician.” That’s the bullet point, but the subpoints say, “As long as that politician is honest, and their prime directive is helping people in a purely altruistic manner. If that were the case, the politician would focus their efforts at problem solving. They would seek the best solution, regardless the politics, but how many politicians in  federal government do that?”

Some suggest the primary goal of every politician in Washington D.C., is to get reelected. If that’s the case, how many politicians help us solve our problems in a way that doesn’t serve their favorite special interest groups’ cause? When we see those three words, special interest groups, we naturally think of the other political party’s special interest groups, but special interest groups come in all stripes, and they influence politicians of all stripes. Just about every politician claims they don’t accept special interest money, but just about every politician does, Having said that, the relationship between the two might involve a genuine hand holding mission, but how often do politicians pick winners and losers in an industry, because one corporation aligns with their views better than the other? (Note: We can usually tell when a politician is picking winners and losers, if their primary defense is “We’re not picking winners and losers here.”)

Between the two, I think we could make the general point that politicians care more than the billionaire does. A billionaire, if they’re any good at what they do, is focused almost entirely on what’s best for their corporation. Their corporation provides a good or service that helps their fellow man, but their mission is not altruistic. They’re interested in whatever generates the most profit for their company. If their corporation happens to help their fellow man, that’s gravy, but it’s not their prime directive.

The very idea of entering public service suggests that the politician is more concerned with their fellow man, but how many of them know anything about private industry? If they’re going to solve problems, regardless the politics involved, they should be able serve public and private concerns, so some experience in private industry could prove helpful. Yet, some politicians consider working in private industry the equivalent of working behind enemy lines.

Most politicians, from both sides, appear to have the best intentions, but how often do they break what doesn’t need fixed? They might write, or vote for, legislation with the best intentions in mind, but they often campaign, in the next election, on the idea that they need to fix what they just broke.

It doesn’t matter if we trust or distrust a billionaire, because their ability to directly help or hurt our lives is minimal by comparison. Who’s the most powerful billionaire in the United States? What’s the most powerful move he could make? If they fulfill our worst fears, what recourse do we have? We can go to their competition.

Bashing billionaires and politicians is so easy. As much as we hate to admit it, both parties have accomplished more in their lives than most of us ever will, and that leads to jealousy, hatred, and a desire to boycott, protest, and demonize everything they do.

“Billionaires spend their own money, whereas politicians spend our money.” Stephen Crowder responded to Elon Musk’s tweet. “I think it’s obvious who we should be more concerned about.” Those who trust billionaires less could argue that they spend our money, because we give them our money for their products or services, but if those products or services are inferior, or too expensive, they won’t receive our money, and the marketplace will eventually crush them. If government officials provide inferior services, and we decide not to give them our money, based on their performance, we could face stiff penalties and possible jail time. As Crowder alludes, why would we be concerned if a billionaire is dishonest, greedy, or a criminal? How much can their actions affect our lives? Why should we be concerned about dishonest, greedy, or criminal politicians, because they can have a much more direct effect on our lives.

What happens if a billionaire goes on an irresponsible spending spree with their money? They can help the economy, create jobs, and they can spread the wealth around to those who create products and services around the world.

What happens if a politician goes on an irresponsible spending spree with other people’s money? They’ll need more of our money to spend, so they’ll take more. If they cannot find a way to do that, they’ll print money, or borrow it, which will create inflation, increase deficits and debts, and damage the long-term economy for their short-term goals. Even if some of their money reaches its intended source, how much of it will be siphoned off by various bureaucracies? How much of it will be wasted through various redundancies, fraud, and abuse? We’ve witnessed such examples through various stimulus packages that were ravaged by waste, fraud and abuse. In the meantime, money equals power and greater freedom, and the net result for the citizen they represent is less power and freedom.

It’s not the politician’s fault that we take advantage of their best intentions, right? We could analyze this from a number of perspectives, but the final answer should end with a big fat “no one cares what they intended”. The numbers show results. The numbers show the politician failed. We should hold them to account for their failings, so that future politicians might insert whatever oversight they can to prevent fraud, waste and abuse. They don’t, and we reelect the politician based on their intentions. The billionaire’s best intentions are often held in check by numbers and meritorious results.

Who can do you more harm? Circa 2014, the federal government raised corporate taxes in the United States to some of the highest in the world. American corporations began moving their operations to other, more competitive countries to escape those taxes. Some politicians proposed that the best way to combat these moves was to make them illegal. If a governor, or a mayor lost a business to another state, and they threatened to make it illegal for a business to move to another state, they would be laughed out of their reelection campaign.

When politicians pass legislation that affects lower-level operations that most of us will never see, this affects the cost of doing business, and that cost is then passed onto the consumer through higher prices of their products and services. Some politicians propose fixed pricing to solve the problem of higher prices. Their intent is to prevent the consumer from getting hit by the corporation raising prices, but the primary reason the corporation raised prices was to pay for the politicians’ rules, regulations, and taxes. When the government imposes costs on corporations, and those corporations pass the costs onto the consumer, economists call this an incidence tax.

The rising costs rarely affect the politician, because the natural inclination of most consumers is that when prices rise, it is due to a CEO’s whim of wanting more profit. Increase the price, increase the profit, right? This line of thinking neglects the market. If corporation A raises prices because they want more profit, it opens the door for corporations B through F to sell more of their products at market prices. Their volume of sales will increase, until such point that the CEO of A realizes they don’t control the market as much as they thought. If one billionaire CEO were to raise prices, we would go to the competition. When an entire industry raises prices, however, it is often due to politicians’ whims.

If a politician raises taxes to force us to help pay for their spending, where are you going to go? If the politician is local, we can move to another locale, city or state. If they’re federal politicians, we can go to another country. We have options either way, of course, but I don’t think we’d get much push back when we say the politician can do more harm in this regard.

What’s the worst thing a billionaire can do to harm your life? They can raise prices, they can avoid paying taxes, and they can create a monopoly that harms the marketplace. They can also contribute money, time, and endorsements to a politician, but in the competition between who has access to the more levers of power over the individual, it’s not much of a contest.

Does a politician employ people? We hear politicians talk about creating jobs all the time, but what jobs do they create? New York Times Economist Paul Krugman once talked about how he thought politicians should create temporary jobs to help the economy over the hump. He suggested politicians create ditch digging jobs, where one set of workers digs a hole and another set of workers fills it up. I should thank Krugman, because this is the first time I’ve heard of someone state that politicians can actually create jobs. The jobs Krugman proposes would be pointless, of course, but at least it would put people to work, temporarily. That needless work would also be funded by taxpayers who worked hard earned for that money. How about the politicians in the federal government temporarily lift some needless regulations or temporarily lower corporate taxes, so private industries can temporarily hire more workers to get us over the hump? Krugman’s proposal keeps the levers of power in the hands of the politicians, who don’t create products, services, wealth, or jobs.

If the billionaires appease local politicians, and vice versa, the billionaire can almost single-handedly revive a community, a city, and in some cases an entire state by deciding where to locate a plant. The local politician’s job is to placate the billionaire, in this instance, with tax breaks and real estate, and to be present for the ribbon cutting ceremony. Other than that, the ability of a politician to create jobs obviously pales in comparison to the billionaire’s.

In the current era, the billionaire also has to be in an industry that will help the politician get reelected. The modern politician has more bullet points than they’ve had in the past, so creating jobs is no longer the prime directive of most politicians, unless the politician favors the corporation or industry. The politician can then run to their phones to contact their broker to buy shares in that company with their insider information.

How much oversight does an enterprising billionaire have on his daily activities, as it pertains to his business? The billionaire has to answer to the consumer, the media, shareholders, the corporate board, the security and exchange commission, the IRS, local and state governments, and other federal bureaucracies, and all their rules and laws. The politician has to answer to much of the same, but whose oversight is more intense?

Everybody hates the billionaire. We don’t trust them. We think they attained their wealth through ill-gotten gains, and we don’t trust them to use their place on the stage responsibly. We won’t buy their products or services to prove our point, and … and it just doesn’t matter. The billionaire will go on to sell their products to those who will buy them. If no one does, they’ll go out of business, and no one will talk about them anymore a month later. It doesn’t matter if we trust billionaires to be responsible, honest, or quality managers of their company. If they’re incompetent, dishonest, or even criminal, their company will eventually fold up. Whatever consumers, shareholders, workers they have left will be deeply affected, and the city, state, and locale their corporation called home will also be affected, but that pales in comparison to the damage a politician can do before being turned out of office. As we’ve witnessed in bygone years and modern times, it is often very difficult to expose them and get them out of office if they’re popular enough. In the meantime, a corrupt politician can do grave damage to those that they’re elected to represent.

Conquering Casual Conversation

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“Talk,” is one of the many pieces of advice I would give my younger self if I could go back in time, “and not every conversation has to involve deep, impactful, and important subjects. Some of the times, you just talk for the pure enjoyment of talking to people. Listeners don’t have to be cool or beautiful either. They can be old, young, smart, dumb, boring and fascinating. Talk about matters consequential and inconsequential. If we talk long enough, we might find, we just might find, that the boring are far more interesting than the interesting.”

The musicians told me to avoid the “chitter-chatter, chitter,-chatter, chitter-chatter ‘bout schmatta, schmatta, schmatta”. The movies told me to be the quiet, mysterious type everyone looks to for reaction. They told me if I wanted elusive charisma, I should be silent.

“Don’t listen to them,” The Ghost of Present Rilaly would whisper into my ear. “Silence doesn’t make you look cool. Silence makes you look silent.” Silence lands you in the corner of the room not knowing what to do with your hands. No one remembers you when you are silent.

There’s a reason former athletes and the beautiful are silent. They don’t have a lot to offer.

“How do you know so much about such stupid stuff?” the beautiful might ask. If we’re bold enough to answer, they’ll say, “Huh, well I was much too busy getting busy in high school to learn about such nonsense.” If we’re then bold enough to remind them that high school was a long time ago, we’ll realize that that persona we tried so hard to attain didn’t accomplish half of what we thought it would. “You think everyone is looking at the guy shaking his head in the corner? Nobody remembers that. It might seem so pointless in the beginning, but developing the skills necessary to talk about absolute nonsense actually adds something to life.”

1) Learn how to be superficial. My best friend enjoyed talking to people. I found that so confusing that I was embarrassed to be around him at times. When he talked to a fella, I had no problem with it. When he started up a conversation with a young woman, I kind of envied it, but this guy would talk with old people about old people stuff. Their conversations were absolute nonsense. He didn’t care, and he was having one hell of a good time doing it. I thought he was a fraud, and when I called him out on it, do you want to know what he said? He had the audacity to say, “I was enjoying myself.”

“Where’s your integrity my man?” I asked him.

“I don’t know anything about that,” he said. “I just want to have a good time.”

“It goes against code,” I said, in whatever terminology I used at the time. He didn’t care. He didn’t tell me he didn’t care. He wanted to be cool, like Matt Dillon, and all that, but some part of him enjoyed the art of conversation so much that he couldn’t control himself. When some old man got angry about the cost of a Hershey’s chocolate bar, my friend turned to him and encouraged the rant. What? Why? When an old person starts in you’re supposed to walk away. When he first started doing it, I thought it was a bit. I thought he was trying to pull a thread on the old man to get him going. After numerous interactions of this sort, I realized my best friend was respectful and deferential. He just enjoyed talking to people of all stripes. He wasn’t smarter than me, and he wasn’t one of those types who knows a little bit of something about everything. He just knew how to talk to people. He learned how to put the important, artistic personae aside and tap into the superficial side to just talk to whomever happened to be near him in the moment.

It took me a long time to see that my friend might be onto something. It took a job where my employer forced me to engage with customers that I realized I could and should tap into my superficial side. I got all tied up in the shoe-gazing, grunge virtue that suggested you were all a bunch of fakes, and I was living real. As usual, when you accuse someone else of being fake too often, it’s usually because you are. I was a nice Midwestern kid trying to pretend like I was a Northwestern rock star. At that point in my life, I still believed that the artistic persona was an important one to maintain, but I learned to maintain that persona while tapping into a superficial side. I did that to remain an employee with high scores, but I learned to tap into that persona in my off work hours too, and I found that I had a lot more fun in life doing so.

2) Be confident. I know this is easier said than done. Most of us are insecure, and we all have moments when we’re not sure of ourselves. If most of us are unsure of ourselves, then most of us are unsure of ourselves. Unless our listener was an athlete or a beautiful woman in high school, chances are they’re as uncomfortable in their skin as we are. The trick is spotting it. I was on a date with an incredibly beautiful woman. I was as nervous and unsure of myself as ever. I pulled out of the parking lot and circled back. I wanted to back out. When I finally stood before her, she blushed. My confidence soared as I realized she was as nervous as I was. It taught me the simple and emboldening fact that most people are as nervous about meeting new people as we are. If we watch them long enough, we’ll spot it. It might be a blush, a stutter, or an uncomfortable look away, but everyone has a tic of some sort. If we’re observant, we’ll see something that informs us that most people are just as inferior as we are. They’re just normal people living normal lives, and they enjoy engaging in casual conversation.

3) Pretend to be interested in what they have to say. How often are we so interested in being interesting that we forget to be interested? Conversations are a two-way street, and if we’re able to convince them that we’re interested in what they have to say, we’ll receive a return on our investment. One of our favorite conversation topics is us, and when we show them we’re interested in them, they are going to be more interested in us. One of the keys to this is to avoid testing it out too early. If we begin speaking too early, their smile fades, they become distracted by anything and everything around them, and the minute we finish speaking, they start in again. Displaying an acute focus in what another person has to say is one key to making friends, but some might find our interest so intoxicating that they’ll want to compound it without a return on our investment. We can deal with that element later, if the two of us develop a sustained friendship, but if our goal is to make more friends, the key is to overwhelm them with interest.

One thing we covet more than being interesting is being funny. Some people aren’t funny, but if we want to be friends with them laughter is the best medicine. No matter how common or dumb their joke is, laugh. Laugh about how dumb their joke is if that’s what it takes. Laugh if they messed the joke up. They won’t know why we’re laughing if we do it right. If we do it right, we’ll find them coming up to us with their jokes over and over again. If we do it right often enough, we could become their go-to person with their jokes.

If you’re anything like me, when you meet someone new for the first time, you’re so insecure and nervous that the go-to is to try to be so over-the-top interesting and funny that you forget to be interested in what they have to say.  I write pretend we’re interested, because if we pretend well enough and long enough we might accidentally convince ourselves that we are interested.

4) Tell self-deprecating humor, but don’t overdo it. If something works, and self-deprecating humor almost always does, we have a tendency to do until it doesn’t. There is a tipping point, however, where we might accidentally affect their impression of us. Everyone loves the “But what do I know, I’m a dummy” conclusion to a provocative thought. If we do that too often, though, they might walk away thinking we’re dumb. Why wouldn’t they, it was the impression we gave them one too many times.

5) Find a Through Line. One of the many reasons the show Seinfeld was so popular is that nonsense is funny and fun. Some of the best friendships I have in life were based on nonsense. Example, Michael had a habit of making a drink face before he even reached for his can of soda. He reached out for the soda with an ‘O’ already on his face. He grabbed the bottle and inserted its contents into the ‘O’. I never knew we had a drink face, until I met Michael. I never thought about the proper timing of a drink face, until I met him.

“Michael, you need to wait until the drink is almost on your face before you make a drink ‘O’,” I said. “You make your drink faces way too early.”

“Women don’t like a man who makes a drink face too early,” Cole added. “It freaks them out.” A lifelong friendship between Cole and I was born that day.

Another friend and I loved the comedic stylings of Don Knotts, and we both hated caramel apples, because we hated the feeling of caramel on our nose. On that note, another bonding agent can be hating the same things. You both might hate beets, accidentally stepping in puddles, or people who make old man sounds when they sit. Whatever the case, there’s always some nonsense you can bond over. It’s your job to find it.

6a) Be a Great Listener. Some suggest that listening is a lost art. I’d argue that it never was. I’d argue that people in Aristotle’s era, Shakespeare’s, and every just about every dot in human history had the same complaint about human nature. “Nobody listens to anybody anymore.” Are you listening to people when you say that? I’ve been called a great listener in enough venues that I’m starting to think it’s true. I am fascinated by the people around me, and why they think what they do, and I have to tell you that it’s a great way to make friends. The one problem with being a great listener is when you’re known as a great listener, people don’t want you to talk. They much prefer that you listen to them, be fascinated with them, and find them funny. As I’ve written throughout this piece, those of us seeking to make friends will have to work through this in their own way, but if we lay the foundation of being a great listener people will be drawn to us.

6b) Ask Active Listening Questions. Asking active listening questions not only prompts the speaker to launch or continue, it makes them feel interesting. There are few things people enjoy more than an active listening question about the story they’re telling. The questions we ask are relative to their conversation, but some of the times, a simple “Why did you do that again?” can do wonders to show we’re not just following along and that we’re interested, but that we want to hear more. Some listening prompts might feel so obvious to be almost stupid, but soon after we drop them, the speaker picks the ball up and eagerly runs with it. As I wrote earlier, people love it when we make them feel interesting, and they might love being funny more, but the final leg of my version of making friends and influencing people might endear the speaker to you more than any other. If we phrase our question just so, it makes them feel like your resident expert on the subject in question. Active listening prompts not only shows that you’re listening it suggests that you trust that they know the truth of the matter.

These little tidbits seem so simple that they couldn’t possibly work, and they may not. As someone who has, at times, suffered from situational stage fright, because I wanted to be more entertaining, funnier than everyone else in the room, and so over-the-top everything else, I realized that I had a tendency to lock myself up by over-complicating the situation before me. Some of the times, these situations are complicated and tough to read, but some of the times they’re relatively simple. Getting a read on conversations can be similar to making reads in sports. Some of the times, depending on the level of competition, we can win a game all by ourselves, but most of the time, we damage our team’s chance of victory by trying to do too much. When we experience the latter, we learn to let the game come to us. It’s all confusing and situational, and the best advice, for anyone who asks the five questions regarding how to implement them, comes from the immortal lyrics from You’re the One that I Want by John Farrar, for the movie Grease: “Feel your way.”