How Your Social Intelligence (Or Lack Thereof) Will Shape Your Future

Stop being fooled by others, see through peoples’ motive, learn to discern friend from foe. Take charge of your environment, or your environment will take charge of you.

Allow me to let you in on a little secret, a secret that will allow you to run laps around your competitors, see through people’s facade, and entrap people will a spell that compels them to do as you please. The secret of social intelligence.

Before you embark on our journey to explore this mystical realm, I want to break the taboo that surrounds this subject. To be an effective apprentice, we must learn to adapt, to charm, to evaluate people’s psychology, and present ourselves according. Yet this is often seen as machiavellian or manipulative. Not only is this evaluation hopelessly parochial, but on the contrary, it takes social intelligence to be strong, kind, humble, and confident.

Much of this negative sentiment arises from our belief that to be socially intelligent, we must be fake and un-genuine, to be deceitful and calculative. This could not be further from the truth. True social intelligence requires empathy, that we understand other people. As humans we yearn for that understanding, we crave for acceptance. When we put others before ourselves, peoples’ natural defenses come down, their gates open and inside the palace of their soul, we can build meaningful connections with them. Masters of this subject understand that manipulating, faking it, is nothing more than a weak substitute for genuine compassion and empathy, a spell that will break once the illusion wears off.

Social intelligence is a superpower that should be yielded for good. Understanding this subject will allow you both offensive and defensive maneuvres. It will make you more likable, and give you the ability to get along with the right people. It will allow you to spot envious, vengeful and psychotic people before they do too much harm. In order to get good at this subject, we must first examine the psychological traits of people.

We Yearn for Understanding

As adolescents we crave the attention of our parents, their attention reminds us that we are real, that we are beings of value, to be valued. As we grow older, our need for attention does not disappear but transforms. As we begin to build our identity, we seek validation from others as it affirms us that we are going in the right direction, our environment is our North Star. Yet when we mature into adults, this need to be valued, to be understood, remains. When we feel that our identity, our beliefs, our principles have been understood, we get an instant sense of connection to the other person — ‘I feel like I can relate to him’, ‘She understands me sooo well’, ‘I feel valued when I’m around him’.

As apprentices of social intelligence, we have to utilize this very important principle when forming connections with others. And no, it’s not manipulative, because whether or not you realize it, you do this all the time, and so does everyone. If we attempt to do the opposite — not try to understand each other at all — it will be like two people trying to assert their opinions on one another, never being able to agree on a common topic to talk about. The key is to be more aware of what the other party values, for some it’s their appearance, for others it might be their intelligence, affirm that aspect of them and watch their demeanor completely change. A great way to figure out what someone holds dear is by the way they talk about the related subject and how much attention they pay to it. For example, someone who greatly values their looks might have gone the extra mile to look dashing even for a simple meetup. They may hold good looking celebrities in high regard, showering them with praise. Watch their eyes light up as you compliment their appearance, their eyes don’t lie even if they try to be nonchalant about it.

The Narcissist and the Envious

There is no doubt that human beings have negative traits; aggression, petulance, greediness, etc. Yet none of these are as toxic and vicious as narcissism and envy. The moment you realize someone: a close friend, a colleague, a boss, or even a family member is a deep narcissist or a loathing envious type, get away from them. As quickly as you can. As far away as you can.

The Narcissist

Everyone has a degree of narcissism, healthy narcissism keeps our insecurities and flaws from overwhelming and consuming us in our entirety. Part of the horrors of consciousness is that we are aware of our own flaws and weaknesses. When we realize our own fragility, and our inevitable moral transgressions, we can begin to feel hopeless, confused, and resentful. As we mature, we develop a sense of self, an understanding of our own identity that confronts and keeps this dark force at bay. Deep narcissists do not have this inner sense of identity; they do not have self-esteem. As such, they seek validity from their environment and from others. This breeds a constant need for attention and recognition. The deep narcissist either becomes extremely good at creating attention around him/her. Such types often become very popular at a young age. They are masters of spectacle, which only increases the harm they inflict on others. Others may retreat inwards, living out an imaginative fantasy and harboring resentment towards anyone who dares brandish a mirror to their inadequacies.

You can detect a narcissist when they confront criticism, albeit good for them, they will shun away from it, react vehemently, and reject it. Beware of these types of people, their nature is deeply embedded into their psychology. It is hopeless to try and change them, it will only pull us deeper into their control. If you find yourself a neighbor of such types, best run away before it’s too late.

The Envious

Envy is a nasty emotion; it is a feeling that no one wants to admit to experiencing, not even to ourselves. We may try to hide from the public our anger, fear, and shame, but deep down we are keenly aware of these emotions. Envy, on the other hand, is an emotion so proscribed, that we would rather convince ourselves we are feeling anger or disgust than envy. All of us feel envy, it is a primordial human emotion deeply ingrained in our ape psychology. In adolescence, when one brother gets more ice ccream than the other, he justifies his envy as an injustice. Although strangely, this sense of justice seems to disappear when the odds shift in his favor. When we see someone more successful than ourselves, we justify our envy by saying “He probably manipulated others to get there,” or “She is so greedy and power-hungry, all she cares about is her job, outside of that she is a loser.”

This is all normal and understandable, but the loathing envious type takes this one step further: by acting on it. The attack path of envious types is quite predictable, though difficult to detect nonetheless. They get close to you, yearning to be your friend. Once they are in your circle, they work to throw away your progress. They tell you not to take that promotion, disguising their rationale as being worried about the stress you may face with the increased responsibility. They will tell you to cut out your good friend. Clearly, she is just your friend to use you she says! Of course, in reality, they are just jealous of your genuine, happy friendship.

See Through The Mask

It is easy enough to see through a narcissist; their constant need for validation, and attention and to live out a grandiose fantasy without taking any actionable steps. Envious types are a little trickier to spot. Partly because they act in a passive-aggressive way. It is tough to discern whether or not they are giving genuine advice or trying to detract you from your goals. Now withstanding that, there are a few signs that generally hint at someone being the loathing envious type.

1 Microexpressions of disdain. Microexpressions are short expressions that reflect our true emotions before we have time to cover them up. Try this the next time you suspect someone may be harboring envy towards you: when they least expect it, tell them of a recent accomplishment/achievement and notice their immediate reaction. Be extremely observant of the initial expression they portray; is it one of disgust, do you notice their eyes boring into your soul? If so, there is a good chance they are secretly envious of you, even if they don’t fully know it themselves.

2 Backhanded compliments. Envious people try to cover their envy by acting happy for you. They contrive compliments, yet their true emotions are often so strong they leak out in subtle ways. If somebody compliments you, but instead of making you feel good, it makes you feel ambivalent; that is a good sign of envy. They may give compliments at awkward timing, they may go overboard and exaggerate your achievements to make you feel small in comparison. It will make you feel conflicted like you do not know what to make of it. You have likely encountered this, but simply brushed it off. Next time, do not be so quick to throw these signs away. They may save you a lot of unnecessary heartache.

Beware of the Shadow

Our shadow, in the metaphysical sense, are all our repressed qualities. As a child, we had a wide range of emotions and traits. We were full, vibrant, and complete. However, some of these very human traits were repressed as we grew up. We learn to be integrated into social norms; to be nice, compassionate, tolerant, etc. Yet this contradicts our human nature, for we are not saints nor angels. We all have within us, negative traits such as aggression, selfishness, greediness, vengefulness, etc. We repress them, for they are socially unacceptable, we wouldn’t want others realizing that we are secretly vengeful, do we? They are left stirring within us, waiting to come out. All of these repressed qualities form what admired psychologist Carl Jung calls the ‘shadow’.

The shadow can be thought of as an alternate you, a dark you. You encountered this version of yourself when you screamed at your friend, letting out the devilish roars of anger. Jeez… you didn’t even know you had that in you. “Something came over me,” you think to yourself. “That wasn’t me.” Yet it is you, it is the most real you. It is your shadow speaking, for it has been hidden for too long.

We encounter the shadow in others when they act in ways that contradict their ‘identity’. We see it when someone — who parades their moral virtue — suddenly loses his/her cool and does something nasty. Not very virtuous is it? Or when the ‘nice guy’ enters into a fit of rage. You see, the more we try to hide our shadow, the more it will unconsciously affect us, and the more it will burst out of us in times of stress.

The key is to integrate your shadow. Instead of hiding it away, we want to confront it; and face the reality that we have both positive and negative traits. Understanding our capacity for malevolence does not mean we lash out, manipulate, or voluntarily hurt others. On the contrary, it allows us to channel that energy into something productive. We do not let people step over our boundaries, we draw the line. Aware of our intrinsic evilness, our actions — in the name of good — become all the more virtuous. It takes far more strength to act in good faith once we become aware of our malevolent nature. Ignorance is bliss. Yet ignorance is not the solution, if we keep repressing our shadow it will lash out more vehemently than we can imagine. It will sabotage us in ways in unconscious ways. Integration is the only way.