The 2 behaviors that make you socially magnetic
A few months ago, I was queuing for free tacos at my coworking space in London. And because nothing unites people like free food, half the building had shown up. This gave me the opportunity to shamelessly eavesdrop on the group of guys in front of me. Three of them stood out. The first talked about himself a lot, jumping in on other people’s stories to tell his own slightly better version of whatever had just been said. His colleagues let him, but their faces had gone politely blank, the look people wear when they’re waiting for something to end. The second was his opposite: warm and pleasant whenever someone spoke to him, but only when someone spoke to him. He gave brief answers, handed the floor straight back, and initiated nothing. It was the third who intrigued me the most, because he was the one the whole group kept reorienting toward. What stood out was the way he moved attention around the group, asking questions and handing the floor to different people, while being …
