Narrowing the Liking Gap and Feeling More Confident in Your Interactions

Raise your hand if you’ve ever walked away from an interaction and thought, gosh, I was so awkward! They’ll never want to talk to me again.

If this is you, you’re not alone, and honestly, it probably wasn’t as bad as you think; we’re often harder on ourselves than other people are on us. When it comes to connections, there’s a name for this underestimation of how much others actually enjoy interacting with us.

The Liking Gap is a social phenomenon that I discuss in-depth in Episode 41, and today, I want to talk about it again – but this time, how to reduce that gap with five tips on feeling more confident and connected during everyday interactions, no fake positivity required.

Whether you’re navigating friendships at work, struggling with small talk, or seeking genuine connection, this episode is packed with relatable stories, actionable advice, and plenty of encouragement. 

In this episode you’ll hear about:

• What the “liking gap” really is—a scientifically studied phenomenon where we underestimate how much others actually enjoy interacting with us
• Five actionable ways to feel more confident and connected in conversations, from being genuinely curious to using both verbal and nonverbal cues to show interest
• Insightful reframes for neurodivergent listeners, with practical pivots that turn common hurdles (like interrupting or not loving eye contact) into strengths
• Why searching for the good in others and starting with a baseline of respect can transform even casual acquaintanceships

Resources & Links

Listen to Episode 15 about staying curious in your interactions, Episode 41 about the Liking Gap, Episode 74 about small intimacies, and Episode 40 and Episode 144 about neurodivergent friendships. 

Like what you hear? Visit my website, leave me a voicemail, and follow me on Instagram and TikTok!

Want to take this conversation a step further? Send this episode to a friend. Tell them you found it interesting and use what we just talked about as a conversation starter the next time you and your friend hang out!

This episode is sponsored by Slowly, a digital pen pal app used by over 10 million people worldwide. If you’ve been looking for a low-pressure way to connect with someone completely outside your normal friendship circle, this is it. Exchange letters at your own pace, no small talk panic required.

Download Slowly free and get 30% off Slowly Plus using my link: https://open.slowly.app/miXL/l8ei5iw6

WANT MORE?

My book, Are We Friends Yet? hits shelves June 16. Get on the waitlist for pre-order bonuses + a first look.

Dive into The Connection Reset. A 10-day private podcast to help you see the abundance of connection that already exists in your day-to-day (Yes. Really. I promise you have more than you realize). Start today. 

Transcript

Podcast Intro/Outro: 1:26

All right, gang. Here's to nights that turn into mornings and friends that turn into family. Cheers. Hello, hello, and welcome to the Friendship IRL podcast. I'm your host, Alex Alexander. Each week we talk about what is working(and what is not) in our friendships, community and connections. Have you ever wished you could sit down and have a conversation about what is really going on in your friendships? Well, you found your people. Join us as we dive into real life stories and explore new ways to approach these connections. Together, we're reimagining the rules of friendship

Alex Alexander: 2:24

Be honest with me, how often are you walking away from a conversation, from a party, from a meeting, from just any social interaction, and you're thinking to yourself, gosh, I messed that up. I was so awkward. They are never going to want to talk to me again like That was terrible. You know, how often are you waking up in the middle of the night replaying the same conversation you had? How often are you walking away and just feeling like, I never want to be in that space again. I don't want to go to that group again. I can't believe I have to show back up here tomorrow, if that is you that is a very common experience, and maybe it's not every interaction, maybe it's just once a month, couple times a year, but today's episode is going to talk about what you're experiencing, which is something called The liking gap. Now I have done an entire episode on this concept of the liking gap. It's not something I came up with. It is a scientifically studied phenomena, and that episode is episode 41 linked in the show notes. But the very brief overview of what you're experiencing here is, I want you to imagine that you just had an interaction with a person by the water cooler at the office. Okay, you both turn around, and you walk away, and you get a notification on your phone and it's like, please rate how much you enjoyed interacting with Bob. And you click an eight because Bob made you laugh. And then it asks you a second question, which is, please rate how much you think Bob liked interacting with you, and you're already replaying the awkward thing you said the way that you didn't really laugh maybe as as heartily and like, full-bodied as you could have about his joke. You really liked his joke, but you maybe just, like, didn't show it enough. So you give yourself a five, and then a little while later, you get a notification, and it's the results of the quiz, you get to know what Bob said about you, right? You said that you were a five, but then you see that Bob ranked you an eight, and that difference between the five and the eight, that is the liking gap. Studies show that somebody, the person you are interacting with, often enjoyed connecting with you more than you perceived they enjoyed the interaction. We are always harder on ourselves. This shows up in so many areas of our life, and it also shows up in our connections. Now I've thought a lot about how we try and close the liking gap. I've done all sorts of episodes on having confidence in yourself and in you know, just like mindset overall. This is like, sprinkled through my entire 155 plus episodes before today. But as I was thinking about like, how do we narrow the liking gap? Sometimes I feel like all we can do is control what we bring to the table, right? Control your half of the interaction. And so today I want to talk about some things you can do that hopefully leave you walking away from your interactions with a little more trust that they were enjoyable so you can move on, because you're a lot more likely to keep having interactions with people if you're not so hard on yourself right now. The other thing about today's episode is. Is, the things I'm going to talk about are, you know, kind of you showing up, really, I don't want to say with your best foot forward, because I don't think that's necessary. But like, you're showing up ready to engage in this interaction, right? You are open to this that is going to make you feel more confident in narrowing the liking gap, and you'll see these, these five tips I have today. But the other thing about what I'm going to talk about is my hope is that these tips don't require you to sacrifice who you are, but in fact, they will amplify who you are. Because there's a lot of things out there about, like, how to be more likable, and I read them, and I just think to myself, like, you know, like, that's a lot of toxic positivity. That's a lot of kind of, like, faking it till you make it. My hope is that the ones I present to you today allow you to still be who you are. We aren't trying to shut down if you're having a bad day, right? We can pivot that into some vulnerability, into being open and honest with someone, into letting someone in. Now, my other caveat about today's episode is that as I was reading a bunch of blog posts and research and articles about how to, quote- unquote, be more likable, like how to have this confidence that you are a likable person, that you're gonna give yourself an extra, I hope, one to three points. You know, if you were to rate yourself, there is very little nuance if you are somebody who is neurodivergent, some of the things that people are out here saying about being likable, they just aren't natural for a good number of neurodivergent people, I should know I am neurodivergent. If you have not listened to those episodes, I have ADHD. Okay, now my ADHD shows up in a lot of ways. Most are not social. I can still pick up on a lot of social cues. I can still see like facial expressions and nonverbal things. But I think that my struggle in a lot of other areas, does make me very aware of, I don't want to say how it might feel, but like, how possible it is that it's just so not natural that, like making eye contact, might feel like the worst thing you could possibly ever Do and you want to gouge your eyes out. I can comprehend how that could be because I experience like analogous things in different areas of my life, if that makes sense. So I'm going to give some caveats today if you are neurodivergent on maybe a different way to think about this and to amp up your confidence, I'm gonna try my best. Okay, so with that, let's dive in. The first way to feel more confident in your connections is to be open and curious, which would be, also could be said as not being a know it all right. Likable people don't interrupt others. They are good listeners, right? They are engaged in the conversation. At the end of the day, that is the root of it. They are engaged in the conversation, and by being engaged, they make the other person feel important, feel respected, they make it feel like it is a meaningful interaction, and in doing so, you are giving someone your attention. You know, in a world where our attention is being tugged on in a million different directions, right, social media companies want our attention. They're trying to get us to stay on the apps. Advertisers want our attention. Television shows want our attention. The billboards as we drive down the street want our attention. Your attention is valuable, and that is one of the easiest ways to make someone feel like you are engaging with them is to give them your attention, which in doing so, right, means listening and allowing someone to offer their opinion, being open and curious, like Sure. You might know a lot about this topic, but ask them on their take, instead of just believing that you know everything there possibly is to know about this interest. Like an example of something I know a lot about is the rowing world. I used to be a coxswain on the men's crew team in high school and in college. I know a lot about the rowing world at all different levels. If I met somebody who's a rower, I'm still gonna ask them, like, maybe culture, or the rowing culture is, well, it is, I know it is. Like, it's different on the East Coast, maybe they rowed on the East Coast. Maybe they rode in California. What was it like? Right? The weather is different. I mean, I can get into really granular things where I know a lot about this topic, but even if I know the facts, how can I be open and curious about their experience? Maybe I'll learn something new. Now this is the first one I want to offer, kind of a neurodivergent pivot, because if you are somebody who is neurodivergent, it can be incredibly hard not to interject when a topic interests you. If somebody is talking about something that is an interest of yours, your brain might take off like a Ferrari, right? And you suddenly have 20 thoughts bombarding your head. You're having simultaneous conversations. You are so engaged in what's happening in your brain, right that your memory switch isn't happening where you're even like it can be hard to even listen to the other person. What happens if somebody is speaking really, really slowly and you are already anticipating the end of their sentence? Now, if this is you right, most research out there, most articles, most blog posts, will say, like, in order to be likable, don't interrupt. Someone interrupting is seen as rude, and I want to offer you a reframe. Now, I understand that this reframe is a little bit of like living in the world we want to live in, but I want to say that not interrupting, I don't think is as important as being engaged. Somebody can tell when you're engaged, when you're excited about the conversation, and if you're not engaged, if you're not excited, then ask different questions. Get curious about this person, try and shift to different topics until you find something that you are engaged in, like you might know everything, truly everything. If you were neurodiverging, you know what I'm talking about. You might know everything about a subject. Try and find space for others to share what they know, even if it's just their own experience. Make it about expanding what you both know versus you teaching them everything you know. Use this as an opportunity to see where other people have knowledge gaps about the subject that you have gone so incredibly deep in be curious about that. Where do you have this extensive knowledge that nobody can match? And when you get so excited and you're in the conversation and you are interrupting, I think that this is a great moment to use your words and be direct. Tell someone you're excited. Tell someone it's hard to hold back, because you could talk about this all day. That is a verbal cue to somebody that you are interested and engaged in this conversation, that it has your attention. Now, this was kind of me talking about like facts and information, another place to be open and curious and not a know it all is when it comes to opinions and advice, right? It's not very likable to force your opinion on others, to push forward and not allow other people to work through their own information and decisions. So create space, right? Be curious. Why are they thinking of making that decision? How did they come there? What research did they look at? How does it compare to what you've seen? Maybe you have a completely different opinion, and you would never make the choice they're making, and you come to find out that you have been looking at completely different information that they have. Maybe it's worth just looking at their information, maybe not. At least you know how they've come to this conclusion, right? And if a controversial topic comes up again, this is a great place to be open-minded, ask thoughtful, curious questions, rather than trying to force alignment. And if you want to go deeper into that, I have an entire episode way back in the archives, Episode 15, Episode 15, where I talk about managing differences and getting curious about your friends. All in all, I think that one of the greatest ways. Yeah, to narrow the liking gap is to trust that it was an exploratory conversation, rather than one where somebody was trying to force somebody to be something they're not. Right. Exploratory is that whole idea of being curious if you were trying to force your opinions, or you pushed forward the conversation around a topic of just unloading the Encyclopedia of information that you know about something that's not a very engaging back and forth conversation. If you can find that curiosity and that engaging back and forth that allows you to walk away from the conversation with some trust that that was interesting, that that held the attention of not only you, but the other people involved in the conversation. Now my next way to walk away from a conversation or an interaction feeling more confident is to use body language to show how interested you are. For many people that will be maintaining eye contact, smiling, nodding, laughing, doing all of these nonverbal cues regularly in your interaction helps the other person know that you are happy to be there, that you like interacting with them, right? That they have your attention. Because on the flip side, when the other person isn't interested in the conversation, and you can tell that they're kind of like looking around the room trying to figure out how to get out of this conversation, that's no fun. We've all experienced that, you know? That's no fun. And if you if you are the person who doesn't enjoy being there, if you are the one who just is really dreading small talk, then I want to tell you that I have an episode about what do I call it? My navigating Survival Guide for navigating small talk. That's what it's called, Episode 49 and I kind of go into this tactic of how to shuffle the conversation around to find something that is interesting to both you and the other person. So I would dive into that now for my neurodivergent people, because again, I read this, and I just think, man, the amount of masking you have to do for eye contact or smiling or nodding or forcing yourself to laugh, it might just feel like a barrier you cannot get over, and you would just rather never have a single social interaction than force yourself to mask that hard so if those types of things feel impossible to you, I want to remind you that there are so many other ways you can show that you are happy to be there. That is the point of the body language, right? People are doing it non verbally. You can do it verbally. You can say something like, I'm really enjoying this conversation. I'd love to talk more about this. I wish we had more time to discuss. You can also do things right, like you might naturally be leaning in, like your body might be leaning into the conversation because you are excited to talk about it, and people might notice that that is another nonverbal cue that maybe is a little more subtle, but you might naturally do, maybe ask somebody to see if you do that. Now, the next nonverbal cue should be acceptable. It should be something you're never self conscious about, but I'm sure many of you are someone that you are engaging with. Might notice that you got louder or that you got more animated, that you took up more space, that your hands went further and got bigger. And this might be something that you are self conscious about, because a lot of us are told to be quiet, to not interrupt the people around us, to be smaller, to take up less space. So I am sorry if that is you that we live in a world that doesn't see that for the passion that it is. But I do want to remind you that when you are animated or speaking louder or more excited, the other person is going to notice your excitement. I hope they don't correct you. I hope the people around you don't correct you, but that is a nonverbal sign of how engaged in this conversation you are. I would say the same thing about interrupting or speaking super fast, right? That all happens because you're passionate, and I hope that you let these signs shine through, instead of shutting them down, because at the end of the day, they are the exact things we say we want in people. And I would like to live in a world where we can be big and passionate and take up space now. Now the next way that you can walk away from your conversations and your interactions feeling more confident is to search for the good in people. It can be hard to interact with people who are different from you, have different personalities, different skill sets, traits, beliefs, but likable people try to find the good traits that they enjoy about someone. Now that doesn't mean that this person is going to become your closest friend. This person might forever be an acquaintance. It might just be the person you engage with at the bus stop, but still trying to find some positives and using those positives to interact, to find ways to get along, find common ground when you're connecting, when you're able to find the good in the other person and focus on that. I really believe that the other person that you're interacting with can feel that, right? We all know when we've been in a conversation, and you can tell that the other person really their brain has kind of gone off and left field and the things that they are thinking, you just don't really feel like they're that kind like we know. We know when that's happening. We've all experienced that. I've definitely experienced that where the other person, I can tell is kind of thinking things that of thinking things about me that like I am not very happy. They're thinking those things about me, I don't feel very good, right? So even if it's not the person I would pick to spend a bunch of time with to be my closest friend, maybe it's not the person I'm going to call in an emergency, right? I'm not saying you need to build some deep interaction with this person. I'm just saying the thoughts that we have on the inside can bleed through into the conversation, and so it means you can walk away, if nothing else, knowing that like you tried to focus on the fact that that person just they bring a lot of energy. In the morning, they wear really bright clothes, and you can smile about how much they are being creative. The rest of their personality, the rest of them may just grate on you, but if you can focus on that one thing, you don't need your interaction to go anywhere beyond that, it can stay right there. Now, for my neurodivergent community, it can be hard to search for the good when the other person is making you feel like you are different or out there, or the way that you communicate or interact just isn't acceptable. I always try to model inclusivity that you want to see in the world to whatever extent you can. But if this person is really just trying to force you to mask or to interact in a way that is just so far you know beyond what is necessary, they're just really making you feel like you feel like you shouldn't belong there, then I'm here to tell you that it's probably a great time to distance yourself from that person. Now my fourth way to walk away from your conversations and your interactions feeling more positive is to be positive how you show up to the conversation matters. Now this doesn't mean shutting down your feelings or covering up if you're having a bad day. Sure, we all deserve to say something negative if that is how we are feeling, but I think the difference is if you have let the negativity dominate the entire conversation that can be really old, and it means, you know, that nobody else in that conversation feels like they can say anything positive. So it's important to try to not always be the negative person. You know, if you go down a really negative space, maybe you get to the end and you just say something directly, like, Hey, I'm having a really rough day. But that doesn't mean that everyone needs to talk about all the bad things that happen today. We can talk about the good too, right? Maybe you again, use a verbal cue to pivot and allow everybody there to express how they actually feel, similar to how you did. Now for my neurodivergent community here, it is very, very common to be very direct, and sometimes being direct can be perceived as negativity, because you are stating the things out loud that the allistic people are maybe skirting around. Now, what I would say is that when these people are skirting around something, that doesn't mean they're being positive necessarily, right, like often, they are using body language and tone, whereas you are doing you are expressing it through words. I. I think seeing that as being direct and honest versus being negative can be really important for you to walk away from the conversation not feeling like you are have dominated the entire thing and made it negative, and if you are commonly, regularly interacting with people who can't see the difference between the being direct and honest verbally and constantly being negative, then it is probably best to invest your energy in finding people who do see that difference. Now my fifth and final and honestly, my favorite way to walk away being more confident in your conversations is that when you enter into an interaction, I think it's really important to offer basic respect from the start. What I mean by that is a lot of people go into conversations or interactions at kind of Ground Zero, and they believe that somebody has to earn their respect. They want to test them. But I believe that when you start with something in the bank, right, that person feels like they are not starting from nothing. It is a lot more enticing to interact and engage and share and open up and be a little vulnerable here and there, because they don't feel like they're starting from ground zero. Now, sure, somebody can quickly lose that starting balance that you gave them, but starting from zero feels really hard, and I think saying that I know is like a really abstract term, but we can probably all think of an interaction we have had with somebody where we really feel like we have just started from absolute bottom, and to me, like that is almost infuriating. Like I don't want to have that interaction, right? I feel like, as a human moving through the world, I deserve some basic feelings of respect, and if that's not there, I'm honestly just like, not even interested in engaging. So to me, what does that respect mean? The first one is being trustworthy, even if I've met an acquaintance, somebody I really never interacted before. I don't want that person to turn around at a party and tell someone else the little thing that I told them, right? Maybe I shared a small intimacy. I told them that I have something positive on the horizon that I'm really excited about, and if they turn around and they're just shouting that from the rooftops of the party. I'm a little like, Hey, I told you that I didn't tell the whole party. That if I wanted to announce that to the whole party, I would have strolled up and told the whole party. Now the same person, maybe this acquaintance, like a sign that they are trustworthy, and they're going to be so many I can't list them all in this episode. Could be, let's say we end up with a couple more people joining right our circle, our conversation, and I have mentioned that I'm a little self conscious about this good thing that's coming up, maybe this new person who I really don't even know the conversation kind of gets turned on me, And I don't really want to share more widely, and maybe they help me change the subject, because they can tell that I'm uncomfortable with a question that a new acquaintance asked right like to me, that would be a sign that they're picking up on me and how I'm moving through this space. Maybe this person shows that they are trustworthy because they trust me with something small. There are so many ways to open up in little ways with people we honestly, maybe even haven't met before. And if you're curious about how to do that and what that might look like, I would suggest you go listen to episode 74 which is all about my concept of small intimacies. Now, another way that I feel like somebody is giving me basic respect from the start is that they are encouraging when I share something with them, when I tell them about that exciting thing on the horizon, even if they maybe don't know me, they're like, Wow, that's going to be amazing. Things are going to look so different for you in a year from now. You know, maybe I'll run into you at another party. I can't wait to hear about how things have gone. Or can I follow you on social media? I want to cheer you on along your journey. All of these things express to me that this person wants me to continue on the path I'm on. The opposite of this is feeling judged, and we don't want to feel judged, whether it is through words or through nonverbal cues, right? Some encouraging things that somebody might do, non verbally, right? They might give you a hug. They might put a hand on your shoulder. They might raise their arms really wide to say, like, Wow, I'm so excited for you. They might clap. Now for all my neurodivergent people here, I want to remind you that you can be encouraging verbally, you can say, like, Hey, I am so interested to hear how this goes for you. Or, Wow, I've never considered that path, but I want to hear about your journey as you go after it. Now, a lot of neurotypical people, again, are doing this type of thing, non verbally. Some people are doing it well, and other people are doing it not well. But this is an area where you can do this verbally, Another space where I feel like you can offer some basic respect from the start, is to lean into your roots of friendship. And there may be very, very few roots here, if this is somebody you've just met, but if it's a co worker, you might have known this person for a year or two, and you might have some basic roots with them. And the ways to do that would be like, remembering the small details about them, right? That shows that you respected me enough, even if you don't get it right to be like, Oh, you live on the north end, don't you? Can you remind me where you live? Anything, anything I mean, anything down to like, have we met before? Right? One way that I now that we're talking this through, it's like the ways I feel like I've started out with no respect are starting to bubble to the surface. One thing that is infuriating to me is when you meet somebody that you know you have met multiple times, multiple times. I'm not talking about somebody who maybe has a bad memory, like this is a person who remembers a lot of things, like a friend of a friend, and you see them again, you have met them many a time, and they just, they're like, oh, it's nice to meet you. Have we met before? And you want to be like, Hey, we've met eight times, eight times. Like, I don't feel respected at all, and you don't need to remember my name. But you could just be like, Hey, you look familiar. Can you remind me how you know the host? That's all I need. So, remembering small details about somebody, if you've met before, you know, for maybe a co worker, somebody you know a little bit better, verbalizing beliefs and expectations about your connections, that is your story roots right there. So that could be something like, Hey, I'm up for that big promotion, and I'm just really grateful for how encouraging you've been on this whole journey of advocating for myself, right? That is like verbalizing something about this friendship. Maybe it is sharing the things that made you feel seen so that co worker again, it could be like, Hey, thanks for throwing my name out in that meeting. Could be entrusting a person with a small intimacy. We're talking about your co worker. Maybe it's sharing that you and your partner got in a really big fight this weekend. You don't need to tell all the details. Just like man Monday, my brain is kind of all over the place. Like Rob and I got in a really big fight this weekend. I just can't seem to shake it. There are so many small ways to open up and ease into your connections and to show that like little bit of respect, that little bit of interest and engagement and attention, right? And if you're curious more about the roots of friendship, that's not something you have heard me talk about before. You can go back and listen to episode 12, where I dive deeper into my roots framework. So how do we wrap this up? I don't think that this episode is going to get rid of the entire liking gap at all. I think your brain will probably always play some tricks on you. Unfortunately, I think we will always wake up every once in a while in the middle of the night overthinking a conversation. I think we'll always walk away from a conversation where we were indeed awkward and be like, oh gosh, not my best work. But I do think that the easiest way to quiet some of the noise, to dial down some of the negative self talk and doubt, is to do what you do and trust that that's enough so to do these things that I have mentioned and walk away with a level of like, okay, if you always felt like most of your interactions were a four, you can trust that you did enough that like this has to be at least a six or a seven, right? You showed them some respect. You were engaged in the conversation, you were interested. You verbalized that you enjoyed this interaction because you did like that was an honest take. The other thing I would note about all of this is, I think deep down, we know what some of these things are that make us quote, unquote likable. And if we walk away from a conversation. Conversation where we, let's say, broke someone's trust, we shared some gossip or a detail that somebody shared with us in confidence with another friend, deep down, you know, that doesn't make you a very likable friend, right? You know, you can't tell me. You don't, so at the end of the day, it's kind of like, do you feel like you did the right thing by your friend, the best thing for your connections? And if you do, then you need to trust that that is enough to make you a likable friend. And if you've ever wondered, What do I do, how do I show up as my best self? I hope this episode gave you some ideas. And if you do these things over and over and over again, it's just like any other area of your life, right? If you start to show up to the gym all the time, you feel like you're an active person, right? You start to identify as that. So this episode is similar. If you show up and you engage in these ways with people, and you kind of have your baseline checklist, over time, you will build trust with yourself that you are a likable and interesting and engaging friend and connection, and that will start to quiet your negative self talk and lessen the liking gap, because you will start to identify as a person who is pretty good in a conversation with a stranger, who can handle small Talk, who is likable and interesting, who is engaging, and when you start to identify as those things, it will break down the areas where you're just not being so nice to yourself. The final thing before I sign off today is I want to tell you that if you are one of my neurodivergent friends here, there are multiple episodes in my catalog that are focused on neurodivergent friendships, with guests, with people talking about their experience. And if that's you, maybe head to Episode 144 or way back in the archives, go to Episode 40 for some more neurodivergent friendship. Support with that. I'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to this episode of Friendship IRL. I am so honored to have these conversations with you. But don't let the chat die here. Send me a voice message. I created a special website just to chat with you. You can find it at alexalex.chat. You can also find me on Instagram. My handle, @itsalexalexander. Or go ahead and leave a review wherever you prefer to listen to podcasts. Now if you want to take this conversation a step further, send this episode to a friend. Tell them you found it interesting. And use what we just talked about as a conversation starter the next time you and your friend hang out. No need for a teary goodbye. I'll be back with a new episode next week.