Acting like a clown to get attention

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What do you think of Acting like a clown to get attention, as a method of making friends? I would say from empirical evidence it does work, and you can get crowds of people hanging on you. Although its harder to turn being laughed at, into "real" friends. I think a lot of it depends on your ability to calibrate your attention seeking antics. If its too over the top, you annoy or scare people. But if its 2 tame, its useless. I would say the important thing is that once you are the center of attention the key is to not be afraid to be over-aggressive, desperate, clingy, in pursuing meeting with individuals from your crowd at a future time location. If you force your way into multiple social groups, then the annoyance factor is lessened since each clique gets smaller doses. For some people any attention at all is better than being alone.

I did it as a kid and it didn't really work. I still didn't get friends.

I've done it. It creates a lot of stress. I felt like I always had to be funny around my friends. If I wasn't funny enough, I felt like they would forget about me. Like I wouldn't of use to the group anymore.

I remember doing that very poorly when I was younger. It doesn't work when you know nothing about social things, and thinking this is how you get friends is an indication of ignorance to social matters.

these days i aint got the energy to this, i used do this in school alot but never completed any work, nowadays i try it at my workplace but this time i actually am completing work n i dont know how to balance being social and making a effort with workmates and getting my work done aswell.

I did it rather well as a kid.

It came through on my report cards.
None of the "friends" I made then are friends now.
In fact, none lasted more than one or two years, once the routines wore off.

It's an ok stop-gap but it won't bring proper friends.

It worked very well for me, but it's best if it's rather subdued. I'm somewhat prone to making clumsy or absent-minded mistakes, and that should make getting the material for self-deprecating humor more natural. So there's no need to push it, just make the mistake and laugh about it, and look confident but modest in doing it. Otherwise it looks like you're trying too hard, and it'll sap your energy very quickly.

I went through this process when I was in high school. I would sing and rap songs and dance for people in order to get their attention and establish friendships with them. I also did this to attract the ladies. But it never seemed to work. In other words, people would laugh at me but would never talk to me via phone, ask me out, or bother hanging out with me. Teachers would worry about me whenever I continued to do this. It was a failure for me.

To me, I see it as a dangerous tactic.

Being the "class clown" works if your personality causes people to laugh and respond positively to your antics. Otherwise, you're being an attention whore that people despise putting up with.

Even among NTs, it doesn't work. You have to have a chemistry for making people laugh. That it works for some doesn't mean it will work for others.

I can't do that, if I did that I would just be a phony and I cannot be a phony. I am who I am and I will not change myself for anyone.

isn't that just called standup comedy?

I USED to act like the class clown to get attention and make friends, but it didn't work. I just wanted to have friends so I figured if I got attention, any attention, it'd be one step closer to making friends. This phase lasted about the last year of Middle School and two years into High School and it severely damaged my GPA, etc. I have long since quit acting like a clown and started doing my own thing regardless if I have a group of friends or not.

Yeah, I used to do this a lot. It got me the attention I wanted, but no real friends. Being the entertainment isn't enough to build personal connections is what I found in middle school when I was left on the outside of newly forming cliques.

Still can't stop... though I'm not sure it's for attention. It may be social anxiety or a coping mechanism.

i think it only works if it comes naturally.