Any “learning by doing” interpersonal skills courses on the Internet?

[xirekm]

Probably the best way of learning is active learning or learning by doing: you read or listen to about some topic and then do some excercises, which are then graded by a teacher, peer student or a computer. There are thousands of such courses on the Internet for subjects like computer programming, maths, physics, languages, or problem solving, you do exercises and then you get feedback immediately, or within few days, which gives you an idea what you're doing ok and what wrong.
However with the personal development there's a problem:

• psychotherapy or coaching - not available to everyone, too expensive, too slow, depends a lot how much the therapist and client "match" each other, how good this one therapist is, and it's more about emotional skills than personal development skills. I personally lost lots of money on therapists and never learned anything useful
• Meditation, Cognitive Bias Modification Therapy games for phones, physical exercise, hobbies - it's more about improving good mood than intpersonal skills
• chat on the Internet (Facebook, Badoo, ...) - often the only feedback you get is that given person doesn't like you and simply rejects you by not talking to you anymore
• chat in bars, pubs, clubs - same as above, plus people who are more shy can get get addicted to alcohol or other substances quickly in order to increase their self-confidence in the bar
• zillions of self-help books on Amazon, talks on YouTube or TED, or self-help courses on Udemy - you learn only the theory, even if they provide some exercises, you need to grade them yourself, and you can do them painfully wrong even not knowing it
• self-help courses on Coursera - they give you some simple computer-graded multiple choice tests or some peer-graded assignments, but it's too few, often too impractical (like what psychologist Carl Jung says about ...)

Or maybe I am wrong and there are some Internet personal skills learning resources that I'm not aware of, which provide more feedback to the learners than the ways I mentioned?

 

[Kuu]

It is pretty much contradictory. Only you can help yourself in personal development. Stop seeking external crutches and ready-made solutions.

 

[Black Rose]

I try to get out of the house every day and interact with people. Try to sleep on time and eat enough. Anxiety has decreased 80 percent and my brain is re-selforganizing. Getting over most of my existential crisis from 2007-2018. See signs of machine intelligence emerging on the web. That is my goal. I need to enhance my brains self-regulation. I remember walking in the mall in the morning at 9 am thinking about the singularity in 2007. I remember the internet the way it was(1999-2012) before it went mainstream in 2012-1014. The first website I visited was about lightsabers from star wars in 1999. I had a Youtube channel in 2006. I still read magazines. Things were quiet now action is everywhere it is hard to keep up. I still cannot believe the number of the game at best buy or the short demos on the screens. Makes me think of the internet soon to be where you can VR travel to any physics simulation VR world. Ready Player One but the best buy version of the internet, not the Congo in African version.

A.I. will help you explore and create worlds. A private place where you can share with certain people. Or go on the public grid. meet random people. But it will be nice to have a quiet space. Raves and music will be spectacular.

Brainwave detection can be used to enhance mental faculties.

 

[Cognisant]

I get bored with structured learning, I like having a goal and pursuing that goal, for example if I want to learn a new coding language I'll first decide what I want to use it for then learn what I need in order to do the thing I want to.

Consequently I'm a dabbler.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

I think it's a good idea to expose oneself to range of resources on this stuff, but in the end there is only one real interpersonal-skills course: real-life interaction. All the other stuff should only serve as supplements, and very few of them should be taken seriously.

There's only one item on your list relating to real-life interaction, which is going out to bars etc, and which happens to be the thing I have a lot of experience with. The biggest downside of that is definitely not the danger of getting addicted to alcohol (lol). It's rather the fact that if the goal is to lean interpersonal skills, going out is like learning to play chess but doing so while you're skydiving. It's a very extreme type of social interaction. Before you'll even have any decent interaction with someone, you have to learn things like:
1) how to approach people (without weirding them out) – and typically doing so in very high-energy, noisy environments
2) how to start an interesting interaction with complete strangers (and once again, doing so in very chaotic environments)
3) sustain an interesting interaction in the said chaotic environment, while trying to read cues from the other person about their emotions, intentions etc.

Now, the good thing about it is that you get completely raw responses. Like, if someone doesn't like you they'll probably try to end the interaction quickly – i.e. reject you. So you get very clear feedback on how you're doing. Also, people have typically had some alcohol which will make the responses even more raw and unfiltered. Which is all very good as long as you can handle the negative responses. In just about any other environment, people will usually try to be nice and polite and confuse you about what they actually feel.

 

[Cognisant]

A loud bar is about the only public place you say "fuck me you got great tits" and get away with being heard, in a nightclub you can say anything at all because nobody can hear you.

 

[sushi]

search social skills on google.

 

[onesteptwostep]

Where I am I like to talk to taxi drivers. About their family, religion, the economy and politics. Pretty nice to have those conversations.

 

[Gyppo]

I used to think I was socially inept, but then I realised I was just telling myself that. A few people have told me how much they think they lack social skills but they seem okay, really. I guess it's just a question of habit. If you somewhat try to talk to people when you're around them, you'll be fine (well not necessarily, but if you're badly anxious it's due to that, not lacking "interpersonal skills"). Don't do a course or "try to get out there" ffs, just chillax, dude. Personal growth is horseshit.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

@Gyppo I'd be careful with conclusions like that. I fuckin cringe at the way I behaved when I was about your age (you're about 17 if I recall correctly?). Didn't seem too bad to me at the time, obviously. But now, I can only be thankful to all the people who were forgiving of my total and utter lack of social intelligence. Hell, I even cringe at some of the behaviors I did even a couple of years back.

You have a good mind. Keep thinking about things, keep gaining experiences, stay humble, don't make gratuitous conclusions just to make yourself comfortable, and you'll see the progress. Eventually you'll see how people you thought were socially apt are doing stupid things all over the place that are counterproductive to their lives and their relationships with people around them.

 

[Gyppo]

@Gyppo I'd be careful with conclusions like that. I fuckin cringe at the way I behaved when I was about your age (you're about 17 if I recall correctly?). Didn't seem too bad to me at the time, obviously. But now, I can only be thankful to all the people who were forgiving of my total and utter lack of social intelligence. Hell, I even cringe at some of the behaviors I did even a couple of years back.

You have a good mind. Keep thinking about things, keep gaining experiences, stay humble, don't make gratuitous conclusions just to make yourself comfortable, and you'll see the progress. Eventually you'll see how people you thought were socially apt are doing stupid things all over the place that are counterproductive to their lives and their relationships with people around them.

I may have misinterpreted your first paragraph but nevertheless, whenever I find a relic of my childhood such as a story or a photo, I'm pleasantly surprised at how uncringeworthy it is, in the same way I may recall a recent event in a certain way only to be proven that my musings were misplaced. Maybe they were forgiving because you weren't really that bad?

Thanks for the compliment and advice but personal growth, progress, and the "development" of skills like teamwork and problem solving have always pissed me off. Never have I thought people who are at ease socially weren't immune to idiocy.

My angle was that you don't learn to socialise. It's all just about who you're talking to in what context and generally feeling at ease. Methinks OP worked himself up into a frenzy over that, too much reflection exacerbating the issue. I reckon I'd be able to address the issue if we were given an overview of the op's perceived problem.

It's about thinking less.