People who demand nothing of you (or, notes on charismatic people)

How charisma feels

Cross-posted from Twitter.

Before I get into the post, I want to blow off the dust and say sorry I haven’t written here in over a year. I’ve instead gotten into the habit of writing extremely long Twitter posts ever since they added the feature. I just type 10 paragraphs directly in the box and hit Post. Other than that, I’ve still been journaling every day.

Meeting my friend Dan has encouraged me to start up my Substack again. At least, I can cross-post what I’ve been putting on Twitter. At most, it can become something more. If you’re still subscribed, thanks for being here.

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Photo: Sheena Ringo for GuitarBook Magazine (2000)

I've been thinking about what makes some people more enjoyable to be around than others. It might be impolite to talk about this, but at least from personal observation, there are differences in how people make me feel after I spend time with them. To a degree I respect polite fictions and what they do to maintain social ties, so I wouldn't support telling anyone outright if I found them boring—definitely not in front of others, and only very carefully in private if the situation called for it (it almost never does).

Disclaimer aside, the best answer I've come up with is that the most likable, charismatic, enjoyable people to be around are people who demand nothing of you. That's the best phrasing I can come up with after trying for two years. At first, I had "ask nothing of you" but it didn't quite feel right. It felt too detached, like they wanted nothing from others, like they never invited you to things or asked for commitment, and this isn't true of the people I'm thinking of. The most charismatic people I know, who seem to have this radiant, magnetic quality to their presence, are actually those who actively invite you to things with your best interests in mind but are totally okay with you declining, and they really mean it.

They don't need anything from you—or rather it feels this is the case. If we're just talking about charisma, it doesn't matter if it's actually true. In benevolent people it is, and in malevolent dark triad types it is not, but their power lies in convincing you it is so. Having the *impression* they don't need anything from you leads you to trust their invitation to engage because you think they have your best interests in mind. After all, who is more selfless than someone who appears complete, and despite this, they are being fully mentally and emotionally present with you, making you feel seen, loved, worthy? Archetypes come up when this happens, when the details of the individual seem to recede and a larger pattern takes their place. The saint, the joker, the magician, the devil.

Interacting with highly charismatic people gives you a high because of the intensity of being seen (and it's rare to encounter people who can really see you because most people have too much going on in their heads). This altered state makes it hard to tell in the moment whether this person is good for you or not, and this can be even more confusing if there are substances like psychedelics involved. The difference is in whether they encounter you as an equal or as a means to some other end, and this part never lies: see how they leave you feeling, especially over time. Do they empower you, return you to yourself, ask you to do what makes you most comfortable but also encourage you to grow? Or do they use their persuasion and charisma to convince you they know better, but they have your best interests in mind so for "your" sake you should trust them, serve them, sacrifice for them or their cause?

Let's go back to focusing on the benevolent charismatic people, one because I want to focus my time and energy on what I want to see more of, and two because they end up actually being more sustainably likable and enjoyable to be around than malevolent types (who can only keep this illusion up temporarily but move from friend group to friend group once people catch on and exile them).

Interactions with them come with the least number of strings attached. It feels like they are just having fun, lightly playing with possibilities. They are not holding love hostage when you don't act in accordance with their desires. They respect your autonomy and intuition. They approach your presence with gratitude, but don't demand you stay forever. There is no hint of scarcity. They live in the realm of what is possible and abundant.

There is little tension in their attentional field. Because they are in a fluid and spacious yet highly receptive and responsive state, they can meet you exactly where you are and entertain whatever comes up. They can flirt, joke around, dream, and love without restraint. They are not afraid of what happens, because no matter what happens, they know it will be fundamentally okay. I've noticed they don't leave what feels like a sticky "trace" after they are gone. I certainly remember them more vividly and am more deeply touched by them than others, but it lacks the feeling of molasses. This impression of sticky traces is very personal so I should probably illustrate what I mean with examples: I get the sticky traces when people guilt me, are passive aggressive, pedestalize me, ask things of me I don't believe are what they truly want and if I gave it to them anyway it's like feeding a hungry ghost. Every interaction with them feels like they are saying, "please love me" or "please make me feel okay" or "please give me a chance" or "I need you." This makes engaging with them complicated, not because I don't care about them, but because engaging with them is a bit of a foolish game where it won't really get you what you want and will also hurt me in the process, and this keeps me from wanting to get close.

I can tell they have a series of tough knots, and they are haunted by them, but I cannot unknot it for them. I can only watch compassionately and try to point them to how they can unknot themselves, and also be present to the stickiness, because it is there. The stickiness accumulates like gunk that I then have to meditate, journal about, or otherwise process. It solidifies and reifies experience, convincing us the set of infinite possibilities is anything but infinite and boundless. It suffocates.

Charismatic people are like empty vessels. They receive and pass on sensations without resistance. They are usually the one with the most regulated nervous system in the room, which allows them to encounter other people's ego/attentional structures and dance with them no matter what the exact configuration is, which is why charismatic people are charismatic to a wide variety of people—they literally fit better together with people in general! Contrast this with someone who has very rigid expectations or ideas of what kind of experience they *should* be having and fighting off what is arising if it conflicts with what they want. If a person with a very particular and rigid structure encounters a wide swath of people, the percentage of people their shape "fits" well with is a lot slimmer.

And this is really, really hard to fake, which is probably one reason why it's trustworthy as a determinant of social hierarchy. I'm not afraid that writing this post will help people Goodhart it, because people are extremely sensitive to when someone is *pretending* they're happy, present, and filled with abundance. It usually looks nothing like the real thing, and more like someone who is bad at acting, or a teenager asserting they don't care.

To be the type of charismatic I'm referring to, you have to genuinely be having a good time, as Paul Graham mentions in his essay What Charisma Is:

I suspect the key to charisma is to like people. All politicians smile when they're working a crowd, but the really charismatic ones don't have to remember to smile. Their smiles are genuine, because they're enjoying themselves. If you look at photographs of Clinton in a crowd, time and again you see him stretching way out to reach people's hands--- often over his own Secret Service agents, like a basketball player stretching to block a shot. And he's not merely smiling. He's ecstatic. Working a crowd is not a duty for him; it's the part he likes.

You have to actually like people, be present, and set down whatever stands between you and vibrant, pulsing reality. It's a lot more like practicing how to free fall than learning how to act in a movie.