People are interested in people who are interested in them. I have a deep reserve of inner confidence, partly because my Mother was always fascinated in, and supportive of, anything (and everything) I found interesting. My curiosity always had an army of motherly reserves. The South African bubble I grew up in has some resistance similar to British reserve to faking and overenthusiasm. I didn’t read the book “How to win friends and influence people” (Dale Carnegie) for years because the title sounded very “American” and fake. It is, I discovered, a brilliant text with some very practical observations on reality. One of those realities is we respond to people who show interest in us. Who are interested *because* we are interested. We recognise that indicates a deeper level of loyalty and willingness to put effort in, in order to share our worlds. If you want people to be genuinely interested in you, be genuinely interested in them. Yes, that takes effort. It shows.
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