Why isn't making friends like a video game? Why isn't...

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...giving gifts going to make them any more friendly to you in various circumstances?

You see, in your typical RPG game, if you give a friend a gift he likes, a game message will tell you something to the effect of:

Thanks to your wonderful gift, you have now earned 100 friendship points with Robbie, bringing your total with him to 400.

(In this example, 0 would be neutral - you haven't met and the other party has no preconceived notions about you. A negative score means they don't like you to varying degrees.)

So in video games like these, anyone who becomes your enemy becomes a friend again quickly when you give them enough gifts to appease them.

However, in real life, a girl who doesn't love you anymore won't accept your gifts, even though you know for sure that she loves them and never gets tired of them. But she doesn't accept them simply because they only came from you.

So in real life, why does she deny you those chances to make you feel better about her? Why does it take practically rescuing her from falling into a chasm to win her back? Why can't restoring friendships work like the video game example up above?

I don't think giving gifts is a bad idea but I think many people see it as a sign of over compensation or weakness. I think it depends on the person and your relationship with them at that time.

Video games are a special interest you can share with people
that might become your friend, if there is any kind of place
people gather to dtalk about video games today.

MOGs depending on the kind, may be a way to meet people
in video games although I am not familiar enough with any
recent ones where the game is more social than shooting
everything you see until you die.

There is a game forum on WP.

because people dont have a simple set of preprogrammed responses

Because we like to kid ourselves that friendship is above being bought .

Trust me, someone who agrees to be your friend if you give them stuff will not last. The second you run out of valuables, they're outta here.

Because friendship is not material...it is social.
You give material things to get material things
You give social things to get social things.

By social things, I mean manners, kindness, acceptance, talent, information, status, empathy, and humor

Most people cant give all of those things, but some of them will do.

As far as the girl goes, sounds like its over...use your relational energy elsewhere

Making friends isn't the hard part, keeping them is. I always find my self loosing interest in friendships, and eventually i cut all contact. I sometimes feel bad about not being a true friend, or at least being able to play the role as a one.

People are infinitely more complicated than video games. Though, I do admit that my life would be a lot easier and less confusing if things *did* work in such a simple way.

Maybe because they don't like it when you view their friendship like a video game.

This thread made me chuckle a little bit.

I remember when I was little, there was a girl in my class who I didn't get along with. We fought all the time, and the teacher eventually talked to both our moms about it and my mom told me to be nicer to her. I had no idea how to "be nice" to someone, so I started bringing her presents on the bus every morning... I think I confused her.

Actually, it isn't terribly unlike a video game, in a way; there are conditions where, if you meet them, their opinion of you, or comfort with you, increases, while there are conditions where it decreases.

The problem is that there are a number of different conditions, and not every condition works the same for each individual. There are trends though, so it's not exactly 'limitless,' in a generalized fashion.

The other problem is that if you look at it from the paradigm of "If I do this for them/If I give them this/If I help them X, then they will appreciate me more," then you'll be a bit off the mark. It's easy to think such a thing would help, but it's actually not like that. People are usually more interested in the behavior you exhibit. So a more accurate description would be be like "If I cultivate X behavior, they will appreciate me more." So gifts, or favors, or sacrifice, etc, are right out the window. It's more about how you act in general.

Matter of fact, usually gifts/favors/sacrifices can tend to backfire. Often times it pushes people away. It's frustrating because lots of stories and movies and games and other narratives make it out like the gifts/favors/sacrifices paradigm should help. We keep presenting this paradigm in our media(especially games, as you've noticed). But it's quite false.

So from a rough systematizing point of view, or from a cause/effect, if/then sort of perspective(not unlike a video game) it's a matter of figuring out which groups respond positively to what behaviors you can exhibit. And then figuring out what group an individual belongs to.

Probably the most commonly appreciated behavior across most groups, and therefore the vast majority of individuals, is confidence behavior.
Heh, but unfortunately, confidence, is one of the most complex behaviors to model. However, it can be focused on until a rough idea is there. Apply the behavior, and peoples opinion of you slowly creep up.

If all this sounded cheesy and condescending, I apologize. I don't mean it to be.
I am being perfectly honest in saying that my socialization is often times very systemic, and not unlike a game, so I'm not just completely BSing here. The above post more-or-less describes how I think about social interaction, although I've been using my current system for about 6 years now, and it has given me some success. It's quite coarse, since I rely so much on trends, and stereotyped reactions, but it's gotten much more nuanced over time. It works for me.

Holy Moley, this really hits home for me. I have even recently been trying to get advice on friendships, and describing it such as "I did this thing for them, complimented them this way, and paid attention to them in this amount....which to me seems like I have "earned 100 friendship points" but then I try to go "redeem" them and they act like I have only earned 3 points or something." Totally trying to earn friends or whatever. It still doesn't actually make sense to me why that doesn't work, but I have learned enough to know to stop trying it. I just have to learn the social part now, I guess.

And don't get me started on 'confidence.' I really don't like that word.

I play The Sims sometimes. I noticed today that all of my sims are loners with high end computers and the social life of a tomato.

Hanging around too many sims stresses me out. FML

Confidence isn't hard to display when you're absolutely amazing.

Because life is not a video game. It's reality.

I sometimes thinks that reality is like a complex videogame. In a normal videogame you only give her the gift, but in reality you have to consider all the factors before giving the gift. Not as easy as it sounds.