article reading recs: human social interaction edition

December 16, 2019 5:15 AM

I'm interested in learning more about human social interaction: how to build real connections, how to make people comfortable, what people are telling you with their actions and body language if not necessarily with their words, how to read people better. Does anyone have any blog/article/other free resource recommendations for me?

As a kid I read How to make friends and influence people, and I don't know what the prevailing opinion of this text is now, but it was quite influential (hehe) on me as a young person trying to figure out how to connect with people. I more recently read The Charisma Myth, which I also found interesting.

I have no real reason for this ask, I just find reading about this sort of thing to be quite interesting. But I also think it might be good to read more about this from a fiction writer's point of view to help me build personalities and behaviour more convincingly.

I am not looking for books but for free internet resources that I can read on my lunch break. Much of what I've read about this on the internet feels 1) fairly facile and 2) like it's geared towards dating ("If his toes point towards yours it means he wants to have sex with you!"). I'm interested in a broader and ideally more academically based perspective.

posted by unicorn chaser to Human Relations (1 answer total)

It isn’t free and it is a book (but an easy to flip through one) but maybe you could find this book at the library: Belong.

I found this book really useful for reflecting on friendships/connections I already had and for building new ones.
posted by jilloftrades at 5:42 AM on December 17, 2019 [1 favorite]