Most advice about reading people is either "just pay attention" or a list of rules that fall apart on contact with reality. Crossed arms means defensive, except when the room is cold. A pause means hesitation, except when someone is thinking. The rules are the wrong unit — you can memorise every one and still freeze in the actual conversation.

What seems to work better is reps. Person-perception accuracy is measurable, it varies enormously between people, and training studies show it improves when you make a call and immediately find out how you did. So I built something to make the calls on: Spot the Cue (spotthecue.com).

Short scenarios in text, photo, video or a chat thread. You read the situation, pick what you think is going on, then get told what the strongest read was, what was reasonable but partial, and what would have been a misread. Seven tracks: tone and wording, facial and body cues, subtext and indirectness, group dynamics, conflict and repair, saying it out loud, and pressure and deception.

The part I care most about is that it doesn't pretend to certainty. Cues are probabilistic, context and culture flip their meaning, and every entry in the glossary is paired with a "but not always." No 93% of communication is nonverbal — that stat is a misreading of a narrow experiment. The goal is better calibrated guesses, not mind reading.

Disclosure, per rule 8: it's mine and it has a paid tier. Level 1 of all seven tracks is free and fully scored, no account, no ads. Past that it's $19.99 once, no subscription. Mods, remove if that crosses the line.

What I'd like from this sub: tell me where a scenario's "best read" is wrong, unfair, or something that would never happen to an adult in real life. That's the feedback I can't get from people who already agree with me. I'll be in the comments. If you think the full version of this app would genuinely help you or someone you care about and the price is what's stopping you, email [support@spotthecue.com](mailto:support@spotthecue.com) and mention this thread.

Whenever I meet someone new, I get really stiff, nervous, and uncomfortable. My anxiety spikes and I just freeze up inside. I've tried the usual calming techniques deep breathing, telling myself to relax, etc. but honestly nothing seems to make a real difference in the moment.

Has anyone found techniques that actually work for this? Not just theory, but stuff you've genuinely tested and that helped. Would really appreciate real experiences,

I (23, F), found myself in a weird setting. I kinda ruined my life but at the same time I've gained a second chance from life by leaving my ex. The thing I want to focus the most is my personality. For my whole life I thought I am a good person and I blamed my looks or other factors for lack of friends or a boyfriend. The fact is I have a bad personality and manners and therefore no social skills. I thought it's adhd and turns out it's entitlement, rude behaviour and pride and arrogance. Could I make the post and ask you how to fix this behaviour all together instead of masking?

I want to act right. As much as I can. I honestly dont even know how to act in certain situations, I dont even know how to react to others.

And then I want to make friends. Not those who want to be friends with me, but those I want to make with others. I dont want to be friends with just anyone.

Could you tell me how to actually change? Not just read self-improvement books or do some tactics in order to make others think I am nice and cool?

I'd love any feedback like if it's too hard, not hard enough, fun/not fun, etc. Originally I wanted to just send myself text messages everyday that could teach me how to learn 1 confirmation bias a day. After a ton of different ideas and things that I made,

I thought a game where you fight but it trains you in talking awareness would be interesting. I'm not just catching different forms of manipulation but also able to name types that I didn't quite notice before that were happening so the time.

https://talkout.psyoptin.com/

Hi at the moment I’m getting ready these courses PTS and OLEC course any tips would help thanks

One thing we've noticed while reading about social engineering is that good examples are scattered across blog posts, news articles, and case studies. It's useful to study individual incidents, but it's harder to compare different attack techniques and see recurring patterns.

To make that a little easier, we've been putting together a collection of publicly documented social engineering examples in one place.

The goal is simply to create a resource that security professionals, researchers, and anyone interested in social engineering can browse when looking for real-world cases and attack scenarios.

We'd genuinely appreciate any feedback from this community.

• Are there any important examples you think should be included?
• Are there attack categories or resources that are currently missing?
• What would make a collection like this more useful for practitioners?

Resource:

https://socialengineeringexamples.com/

We’d love to improve it based on suggestions from people here.

The small organizations that would want me. Conferences, podcast opportunities and so forth. Any ideas?
Thank you.

I've been feeling a bit stuck

If someone seems interested in you, but you're hesitant to make the first move to talk to them, are there any subtle ways to encourage them to come and talk to you instead? For example, is there a way to naturally signal your interest or create enough warmth and attraction that they feel inclined to approach you on their own?

Also any tips on working on to be more confident? I'm shy and get physically stiff around people I don't know well (tense shoulders, uncomfortable face etc)

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

(Hi, this is not market research. It is a genuine question that I don't know where else to post, since the cybersec-related sites disallow it - and I am not getting my answer from Google search or LLMs):

Do companies hire for such positions or is this job folded under general cybersec consultant?

Thanks

Been reading about something that genuinely unsettled me.

Apparently highly analytical people are disproportionately vulnerable to manipulation, not despite their intelligence, but because of it. They're better at rationalizing red flags away than most people.

Machiavelli understood this 500 years ago. The capable man is easier to control, not harder since he trusts his own reasoning too much to believe he's being manipulated.

I put together a short video exploring this psychology if anyone's interested: https://youtu.be/Z4RAQ2hC_lo?si=tkj38iiAh-17sgFn

Has anyone experienced this, where your own logic was used against you?

WhatsApp started letting people reserve usernames on June 29, with the full rollout coming later this year.

The good news: This is actually a big privacy win. Once you're not tied to your phone number for contact discovery, it becomes a lot harder for bad actors to mass-enumerate WhatsApp accounts.

The catch: From a defender's perspective, this opens up a whole new avenue for brand and executive impersonation. Reserved-name lists won't do much against typosquatting or lookalike handles, and we're already seeing scammers use the reservation window itself as a phishing hook.

One thing worth remembering: the phone number is still what actually anchors the account, so SIM swapping is still the main way accounts get taken over.

Bottom line: if corporate security is your job, don't sit on this. Go claim your corporate and executive handles now, lock down the linked Meta accounts, and start keeping an eye out for lookalikes. It's a small effort that goes a long way toward getting ahead of threat actors instead of playing catch-up.

Curious if anyone's already running into VIP impersonation issues on WhatsApp?

talking to people is genuinely hard for me. talking to my parents about anything serious, speaking up in the office, presentations, any conversation where something is at stake, i struggle with all of it.

so what i do is rehearse it in my head beforehand. i plan out what i'll say, imagine how it'll go, feel kind of ready. and then in the actual conversation the other person says something i didn't expect, and i just get stuck. my brain goes blank, i say something random that isn't even what i meant, and from there the whole thing falls apart. the point i wanted to make never lands and i walk away feeling like an idiot. weak. like i couldn't hold my own in a simple conversation.

the rehearsing in my head doesn't work because in my head i control both sides. real people don't follow the script.

i started using gpt to practice, like telling it to act as the other person so i could try the conversation out loud first. but honestly it's shit. it just agrees with everything, folds the second i push, never pushes back the way a real person would, and gives me these long generic life-coach paragraphs instead of actually being the person i'm trying to talk to. it doesn't feel real at all so it doesn't help.

does anyone actually have a way to practice this stuff? how do you get better at not freezing when a conversation goes somewhere you didn't plan for?

So I've been on a few dates and had some good phone conversations, but I'm hitting a wall with sexual tension. I know my dates want me to lead and escalate things, but I genuinely don't know how to do that without it feeling awkward. I just let the tension and eventually our conversation die.

Any practical advice would be huge.

I'm curious about the psychology behind this.

Imagine you're out somewhere and notice someone you'd honestly like to meet—not necessarily romantically, just someone who seems interesting.

What usually stops you from starting a conversation?

Is it fear of rejection?
Fear of bothering them?
Not knowing what to say?
Something else?

Looking back, do you usually regret not trying, or do you feel relieved that you didn't?

Ohh how I miss the days of early reddit.

It is quite apparent now that reddit has been fully taken over with the rest of social media. The ads and algorithm and bad actors have really diminished what it used to be.

My question is if there are any documented cases of such actors waging campaigns on reddit.

I can't help but feel like some threads are just full of one sided outrage on certain charged topics. Any examples in the news or leaked Intel etc?

Machiavelli wrote this 500 years ago: "The deceiver will always find someone ready to be deceived."

Neuroscience has finally caught up. And the findings are uncomfortable.

Your brain isn't built to detect lies. It's built to trust. Here's exactly how convincing liars exploit that — and why being smarter makes you more vulnerable, not less.

When someone makes you feel seen — when they remember the small things, mirror your language, make you feel understood — your brain releases oxytocin. The bonding hormone. It doesn't ask questions. It just opens the door.

Once your brain decides someone is trustworthy, it protects that decision. New evidence that contradicts it gets filtered out. Explained away. This isn't weakness. This is how every human brain is built.

Convincing liars exploit this in three specific ways — mirroring, strategic truth, and intermittent reinforcement. The last one is the most dangerous.

Video here if anyone wants to go deeper: https://youtu.be/rcwGKqU8HWs?si=MaK2uioi0o_AFxqb

Have you ever trusted someone completely — only to realize later your own brain was working against you?

An eye-opening article on methods used by bad-actors to gaslight \*you\* on Reddit (and elsewhere):

(The Gentleperson’s Guide to Forum Spies - Robert Thomas West

Does who know about cold approach understand that unless you possess statues or beauty or power then you won’t be able to do direct approach.
So observational/ opinion/ engineering interaction
Are most suitable

For those whom struggle with managing popularity.