Bit of a shower thought: Outside of limited circumstances, like interviews or therapy, nobody is really expected to give you honest feedback on how you come across.
This sucks. I’ve been told I come across as unfriendly once, but I have no idea if I was just nervous and tired at the time. I still cherish that one moment almost 10 years ago when someone told me I was funny in some corporate team building bs.
Now, I could ask friends and family, but I believe they would probably not tell me the full, honest truth. After all, they (hopefully) like me and I would probably avoid being too harsh to everyone but very close people in private.
At the same time, I know plenty of people who really should get some feedback, who probably believe they are funny while everyone is bored and annoyed and hopes they talk a little less and the like.
So, are there socially accepted ways to get feedback on how you come across?
I realize that people are strange, relationships are hard, P!=NP and anime is not real. Still, it would be nice to have.
This is going to sound like a joke, but I try to be just cocky enough that people feel comfortable being perfectly honest with me. I used to be pretty agreeable, but people don’t really want to correct their nice friends, even when they’re wrong or acting uncouth, and I could tell that there were aspects of my behavior that might be off-putting but no one was telling me.
Now, threading that needle is a pretty advanced technique. It necessarily requires enough behavioral awareness to be confident enough that people correct you, but not so arrogant that they just write you off as an asshole.
But besides that, yeah it’s a tricky situation. Ironically the same consideration that keeps people from criticizing you prevents you from improving. I think the real problem is that most people don’t really actively change to improve themselves based on constructive criticism, so most people avoid rocking the boat with constructive criticism.