> Part of Cialdini’s large book-buying audience came because, like me, it wanted to learn how to become less often tricked by salesmen and circumstances. However, as an outcome not sought by Cialdini, who is a profoundly ethical man, a huge number of his books were bought by salesmen who wanted to learn how to become more effective in misleading customers.

(Poor Charlie's Almanack, Charlie Munger)

Yes, the problem is that every scammer and salesman uses these techniques also, and if you've run into a few of them, having a complete stranger approach you with the standard Dale Carnegie playbook immediately sets off alarm bells.

Yes this is obvious if you think about movies where people become friends or romantic partners- they are usually cold or unfriendly to each other in the first meeting which makes their later connection seem more authentic. I cannot imagine a movie post 1950s in which a man uses these tactics and gets the girl or the sale without difficulty. Of course movies are not real life but they do rely on some verasimilitude.

That's because a movie like that would be boring (at least if it took up more than a minimal amount of screen-time). Interesting stories require some form of conflict, and for movies that focus on romance, the conflict will be interpersonal.

Yeah, that's it exactly. Films aren't reality, although they can be a reflection of what we might think how reality should go. Af the end of the day, films are made to capture an audience, not to paint a perfect portrait of the real world.

Also, there are counterexamples to that person's claim, such as the film Before Sunrise, which is an excellent romance film that doesn't involve an arc where the characters are indifferent or dislike each other at first. The films Sideways and even Office Space defy that trope as well.

Selective memory. Plenty of movies do not require conflict before romance. La La Land, Being Again, Silver Linings Playbook, About Time, ... plenty of others.

Conflict is required, just not necessarily before the romance, or even involving the romance. There's definitely a sub-genre of a low-conflict meet-cute followed by conflict later on.

FWIW I've seen none of the movies you list.

The inverse is true as well. I read it and thought it was great, but it also put me more on the defense as well. It is kind of sad how I can see relationships going from near symmetric to any kind of assymetry and it shocks me how many times they fall apart because I set limits (and not at all unreasonable limits). Too many many tread water, so i get it but... yeesh.

Carnegie might not have seen it that way, but Charles Manson did. He admitted that he'd used the book as a manual.

I start asking (annoying) legal and technical questions if they start with that first name basis crap, usually enough to make them back off.