Re:Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
by pharke on Tuesday December 29, 2020 @01:50PM
(#25573302)
If the goal of attending gatherings of new people is to expand your social circle then you'll inevitably run into a lot of people that you don't like. A product that enables people to host and attend these events would have to account for such faux pas and gaucherie, maybe having a way to pass anonymous feedback to others at the event (moderated by the hosts first of course) so you could politely inform people that their staring is making people uncomfortable. My thoughts on the initial concept were along the lines of a way of automating not just introductions but also learning how to interact well with others, providing structure to those interactions that people usually fumble through and hopefully avoiding or lessening situations like the one you mentioned.
I think in-person power dynamics are often not immediately obvious, and "inclusive" groups sometimes make it worse.
For example, cases where the inclusion of someone who's socially awkward lead to the self-exclusion of some other people.
Someone's social awkwardness could lead them to constantly stare at people they find attractive; the leaders or organisers of the group might be too nice to exclude said person, since they didn't do anything criminal like harass people, just awkwardly stare at them; and other people might choose to self-exclude themselves because of this.