“What’s An Actual Psychological ‘Cheat Code’ You Use In Social Situations That Works Almost Every Time?” (46 Answers)

I pretend everyone I meet is in love with me. I mean, not *literally*. I'm not a complete narcissist. But I'll start conversations with strangers who give me a smile or a knowing look. Assuming they like me makes me feel more likable. I've made friends more easily in my 30s than I did at any other time in my life.

Romanticizing my life is fun, and gets me to act more vivacious and charismatic. It's also just good practice for higher-stakes social interactions where I might lack confidence.

I'm not a native speaker of English, and I live in the UK. I tend to ask native speakers what a 'cheeky Nando's with the lads' means, and ask them to explain why it is cheeky. For some reason this always fixes the situation when conversation is slow.

If you're in a group of 3+ and someone is talking to you and you don't want to participate / respond / lead the conversation, rather than looking at the speaker, look at the other person. The speaker won't be able to keep talking at you whilst you're looking at the third person, they'll have to quickly switch and address their speech to that third person. You're then free to slink away quietly. Works every time.

An effective way to deal with passive-aggressive comments is "stupid and cheerful." Don't read into their comment, rise above it.

Tell the truth all of the time. Go out of your way to correct yourself when you've mispoken. Example: "I was talking to Fred last Tuesday. We were... wait, no, I'm sorry, it was Wednesday."

Along those lines, if you mess up, fess up to it without offering excuses and apoligize. If it's work-related, maybe throw in how you've ensured it won't happen again.

Do these things and people will rarely doubt you and if they do, others will stand up for you.

If there is something going on that is important, mostly at work, and someone asks you "have you heard about (fill in the blank)?" ALWAYS answer no. That person can tell you what they understand of it and it gives you different perspectives on the issue, different points of view, and you might even get new pieces of information that you just saying "yes" to the question might not be told to you because they assume you know everything.

I have done this for years and it is very effective in gathering information.

If you're a manager or just in general when asking people to do something you'll get way more out of them if you say something to the effect of "I know you're busy, but can you do X for me?"

The effect of this is threefold.

First, I've validated you. The work you're doing is being noticed and I know that what I'm about to ask is going to be an inconvenience. You can further emphasize this aspect by saying something like "but I can only trust you to do this"

Second, I've set the expectation that what I'm about to ask for is more important than your current work/tasks. I know you're busy, but I'm going to ask you to do this other task anyway. Therefore this must be more important. You can emphasize this by saying something about how this is needed ASAP or for a specific client or whatever.

Third, by phrasing it as a question, I've given you the option to tell me, "No." I've heavily encouraged you to say, "Yes," because of the two above points, but I have at least given you the option. This is important because it does legitimately give them the chance to confirm with you that their other tasks aren't more important.

Psychologically speaking, by giving them this option it has become their choice. They decided they would do this thing for you. It was not mandated to them. So they have a more vested personal interest in completing it.

Many people do this subconsciously.

Have a hard time with eye to eye contact? don't do it! Talk to their nose, you need to be uncomfortably close for people to realize you aren't looking at them .

In emergencies, there's this old instinct in us to be less likely to act if there's more people around us. It worked wonders when we where hunter gatherers, don't stick out and all that.

So people aren't being mean, it's a really old survival mechanism that stops them from helping out. It's as fundamental to us as any other instinct, so it's difficult to break out of.

What's neat is that there is a super simple solution. Point a single person out and tell them what to do. It will almost always work and people are now not worried about doing the wrong thing. The entire group is now free to act.

I've had to use it once and it really worked.

At a group dinner, after the bill is paid, I say “welp” slap my hands down in both knees and standup. So far everyone then stands up after me and the group heads out the door.

Take note of every single thing that gives you even the slightest bit of joy. My cat purred when I pet her today, it’s great sleeping temperature weather, my clothes are very comfortable, the flower I saw was pretty, I saw a dog, there was a rainbow reflection on the floor, my shower felt great, that joke was funny, things like that! Plus a constant gratitude list, I’m grateful I have access to good tasting food, I’m grateful for birds because look cool when they fly, I’m grateful for the cat tower I got because my cat loves it, I’m grateful for the McDonald’s free apple pie coupon I got because it was really good. It changed my perspective a lot.

When someone is defensive or standoffish, I will ask for their advice on something small - even if I already know the answer.

People relax fast when they feel useful instead of judged. It flips the dynamic from tension to helpful / teamwork almost instantly.

Whenever something bad is happening in my life, I remind myself that one day I'll be gone and it won't matter then what is happening now.

When I can feel tension rising during an argument, I dramatically call out an invisible "distraction". I learned this from watching dog whisper.

When Caesar uses a sudden distraction method to break the dogs concentration and diffuse a potentially aggressive situation. He usually touches the dog quickly which in turn startles the dog and breaks their concentration.

For example: My bf and his brother are both hard headed and can get pretty tense in the simplest of situation. Once they start talking through clenched teeth, I know I need to step in. I usually break their concentration by pretending to fall/ trip over something or by loudly exclaiming something like "Oh s**t what was that?" or groaning loudly saying "oh no" to which my response to their "what's wrong" is me saying "nothing" and looking on the ground like I lost something.

This also works on my bfs infused ADHD issues and talking non-stop to someone who has lost interest.

If you're about to cry in a situation where you really don't want to cry, immediately start doing difficult math problems in your head at a rapidfire pace. As soon as you solve one, jump into a new one and keep going until you notice the physical cues for crying have subsided, then for the love of all that is holy, avoid direct thoughts of whatever made you emotional to begin with lol

The key is the math problems need to be difficult enough that you have to stop and follow the operational steps in your head, but also still solvable for you personally. If they're too easy, your brain will give the answer without switching emotional/cognitive gears. If it's too hard, your brain will disregard the question & keep you in the emotional place.

This has been very effective for me when I needed to hold it together for just a little longer. Just be sure to circle back and feel those feels fully when it's safe to do-so so you can actually work through them. It's detrimental to your mental & physical health to constantly push them away, so...don't do that.

It's tremendously hard to maintain high levels of anxiety / disassociation when eating really sour foods. I keep emergency sour candy on me / my bag / my car.... etc. to pop in when I'm feeling particularly stressed or anxious.

Every time I feel insecure, I think of the dumbest person I can who has done what I'm trying to accomplish and think "well if that idiot can, so can I.".

Remember what they said to you the last time you saw them. If you last saw them a month ago, if you remember they were doing a thing , remember that thing and mention it.

I've seen people swear by "The Solid Snake Method" for conversation. Just repeat something about the other person's statement as a question.


"As a question?"


Yeah it keeps the conversation going.


"Keeps the conversation going?"


Yeah at the very least it shows that you're paying attention.


"Paying attention?"


At this point though you should probably stop. It doesn't work forever, and it doesn't work all the time. Probably shouldn't use it to respond to questions with another question either.

Anytime someone brings up a political thing I don’t want to engage with I simply say “I don’t have enough information to have an opinion on this” it almost always shuts down these conversations.