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theory: a huge part of having a good social life is just taking social bids whenever they become available. examples of social bids both large and small include: deciding whether to join your friends on a roadtrip; getting to know someone you just met; getting to better know someone you bump into occasionally but usually never talk to; standing in line, seeing something amusing, and having the option to point this out to another stranger in line; saying something funny in a group conversation; following up over text with someone after meeting them; flirting; cold emailing someone on the internet; catching up with a friend.
there are a variety of reasons why we might end up not taking social bids. if you don't have the social ability to notice opportunities to take bids, you might miss bids that you could take. if you force yourself to take bids without the requisite social ability, and end up taking bids which you incorrectly believe to exist, you might act in ways that people find weird, and burn potential connections, or intrude on people. if you are really tired or low-bandwidth or depressed or stressed, you will not want to take bids, because taking bids requires quite a lot of activation energy investment. if you are really focused on something else, like a research project, you will not take bids, because they distract your focus.
i find that when i make more successful social bids, i feel a greater sense of community and connection, and often feel happier too; and conversely, when i don't, i feel isolated. my most common reason for not making more social bids is often just being super tired or busy.
also, i feel like people around you generally mirror the kind of energy you bring to social bids; if you are super enthusiastic and friendly about taking social bids, then other people will also treat your social bids similarly. if you are having an amazing time meeting lots of new cool people, then other people will be more excited to meet you and willing to help you on your quest; conversely, if you are miserable and merely exist to complete your requisite daily activities, other people will also be hesitant to include you in their groups, or invite you to things, or spend lots of time with you. this can create a self reinforcing feedback loop.
I agree, taking risks and generally being a 'yes man' is much more likely going to result in positive outcomes compared to taking no action.
But I do wonder, on average, are people incentivised to seek connection to satisfy their actual personal needs and circumstances, and how much is possibly from a culture that prescribes an 'instagram' lifestyle and a huge friendship network as a goal to work towards?
For me, I find that shared interests are the automatic icebreaker that circumvents the awkward/social convention and risk elements and that finding a group that does/discusses what I am already interested in makes the whole thing feel effortless/natural and fulfilling.
This was a fun quiz. I'd not come across it before!
(I ended up with high scores on both indices, but higher on the second subscore (leadership and confidence) which surprised me a little. Overall I scored 249, which Claude reckons based on the chart they provide is about +1.5 SD among extraverts.)
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There is also an efficiency component to the energy expenditure of making social bids. Not only it can take someone more energy to make the same (perceived) bid, but the same bid can have different effects based on social skillfullness and a bunch of other things. This can be seen as a parameter in the dynamic equilibrium that can produce the feedback loop you mention.