Bit of a shower thought: Outside of limited circumstances, like interviews or therapy, nobody is really expected to give you honest feedback on how you come across.
This sucks. I’ve been told I come across as unfriendly once, but I have no idea if I was just nervous and tired at the time. I still cherish that one moment almost 10 years ago when someone told me I was funny in some corporate team building bs.
Now, I could ask friends and family, but I believe they would probably not tell me the full, honest truth. After all, they (hopefully) like me and I would probably avoid being too harsh to everyone but very close people in private.
At the same time, I know plenty of people who really should get some feedback, who probably believe they are funny while everyone is bored and annoyed and hopes they talk a little less and the like.
So, are there socially accepted ways to get feedback on how you come across?
I realize that people are strange, relationships are hard, P!=NP and anime is not real. Still, it would be nice to have.
Not sure if this applies to you but maybe you have heard a phrase about you that doesn’t make sense fully. In my case, it was “you’re intimidating” and that took me a long long time to understand because as a woman who has a lot of insecurities and can’t physically fight this is absolutely ridiculous. Then one day I was watching some relationship guru video clip and the guy said “if you’re told you’re intimidating and can’t make sense of it, it means you are hard to impress”. That clicked. At least, within dating contexts. I don’t know. I think most of the honest feedback I’ve gotten from potential dates, from boyfriends, from family members (though that required always a difficult argument beforehand and getting feedback was never the goal) and also from teachers who get fed up with your bullshit occasionally. It’s never going to come to you from a comfortable source, but you shouldn’t be asking your enemies either, because they’ll lie too.
I’m a guy. Do I have to start taking social manipulation lessons from the “easily impressed” girls?
“Wow! You do laundry all by yourself every…month? Oh, man. I’m so helpless; I have to ask a cleaning service to do it for me. Can you teach me? Pretty please?”
Honestly the best example I can think of is to secretly record a conversation between you and someone else, and listen to it later. Voice is good, video is better. You’ll notice all kinds of things you don’t in the moment. Tone, timing, stutters, body language, etc. Then really meditate on who you are and how you want to present to others.
Remember that you can’t always change everything… Sometimes you have to accept certain aspects of yourself and work with what you can actually change. Personally I never tried to change anything like that, I’d rather just be authentic, but understand what that actually means and that not everybody will like me.