61–70 of 168 posts
This is a little bit sad and a little bit scary. Have we reached the point where we now prefer to avoid actual communications with our "friends" that this exists? It's up there with people who won't answer phone calls and only want to text.
But what's up with getting mad when people don't want to talk on the phone? I don't want to assume but it sounds like you feel entitled to a certain method of communication .
I can't look at this and consider it interesting, it's not only enabling a toxic behavior, it's encouraging it. I'm actually disgusted by this.
I'm glad I see other people with the same perspective in the comment section as the fact that someone thought about this, thought it's a good idea and implemented it is terrifying.
What happened to "Hey, I don't feel like doing this tonight, let's postpone it?"
Looks interesting, but would really require some velocity. There's the social problem of requesting others to install the app by an individual. I'm not gonna ask my friends to install bail just in case they'd like to cancel, because I might want to cancel.
I'm leaning towards a setup where its a calendar integration where you and your friend may have no idea if the other even has the app installed.
However, I have an issue right following that idea: I rarely ever send calendar invites to social events. In the example on the site, "Drinks after work", that's an event I cannot possibly imagine sending as a calendar invite for, so it's baffling to me how I could Bail it.
Clearly this is to combat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluralistic_ignorance on the two-person level[0] which is utterly reasonable considering the phenomenon is widespread no matter how much people like to talk about their ability to be socially able to handle interactions.
My objection is that it may make it too easy to get what I want momentarily, i.e. I want to place high activation energy constraints on exiting because in the period leading up to the event, there will be many moments where I dip below my threshold of excitement for the event. However, since activation energy to set up the event is high because of natural constraints (I have to make sure everyone is available, that the event is available, that the venue is available), this means that if I lower the threshold to exit, I will bias strongly towards exiting.
Given that, I consciously hard commit myself to events. Post making this choice I have a far more active social life. This is why I won't use your app. It's because it actually does make a thing easy, but I don't want it to be easy.
Love that you used Netlify to knock it out, though. How did you enjoy the experience of developing it?
0: Really, this is exactly the Abilene Paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene_paradox
Back of envelope total addressable market calculation: I’m guessing this will appeal greatly to people 3 or 4 standard deviations to the “introverted” side of the introvert/extrovert bell curve. So maybe 0.15% if it’s as high as only 3 sigma. It’ll be useful to people who’s friendship circles overlap in that 3 standard deviations of introversion. Let’s assume Dunbars much discredited but widely quoted ideas are right…
I think more than 0.15% of people feel guilt/anxiety about wanting to cancel plans last minute. I don't have any data to back that up, but it is a fairly common emotion. 999/1000 people feel nothing when they have to renege on a social engagement?
It's that combined with wanting to avoid regular calling/texting/emailing type communication saying you want to cancel, and even then only in situations where the reason for cancelling is trivial enough that the other person actively looking forward to it is good enough grounds to go anyway.
Could easily be significantly less than 1/1000 who feel guilt/anxiety and also don't have the communication skills to deal with it in ways an app like this would help?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not the reason. Telling a friend you want to cancel is hard, and depressing, and so you oftentimes go just to not bail on them. And hate it. But what if your friend is feeling the same way? What if you both want to cancel, but neither of you wants to hurt the other person. Well, with something like this, you can bail without letting them down; they only know you wanted to bail -if they also want to bail-. That…
Or you could be adults and talk to each other. Telling a friend you want to cancel is usually hard because you haven't practiced setting boundaries. This app doesn't help. It just postpones the problem until you meet somebody who doesn't need the app, except now you're even further behind in practicing that skill. I get the desire to automate interactions. I really do. I have days where I really would rather not see…
Sheesh, if you're going to go out with me, your friend, just to be nice yet hate it, stay home. Have some respect for both of us and just cancel.
It's good that a cancelling party feels some shame. It keeps humans from letting their short-term avoidance always overcome the communal and long-term benefits of some kind of sacrifice.
I can't imagine being friends with someone who is this incapable of communicating. The solution to this problem is sending a text that says, "Hey, I'm not feeling like coming out today after all. Rain check?" This app is a worse solution than the obvious solution. Trying to be empathetic: if you feel the need to use something like this, I'm not qualified to diagnose you as having social anxiety, but I would suggest y…
But this app doesn't send any notification to the other person unless they also bail, so it is not equivalent to sending that text. If the other person doesn't bail, you can stick with the commitment. That opens possibilities, like getting a better opinion about time spent with that person.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. The protocol works, but it does avoid emotional honesty. If this is a chronic thing, then perhaps there are some unsaid things that need to be said between the friends. For others reading this, I suggest a book called Crucial Conversations . If bailing out is a proxy for deeper issues in the friendship, maybe it is time to have a good chat about it.
> If this is a chronic thing, then perhaps there are some unsaid things that need to be said between the friends. I have an idea for that! How about an app where you can write things to your friend, which are held in the system's escrow. "unsaidthings.io" Then a machine learning algorithm compares them for similarity/reciprocity. If they are similar, then the escrow is released, otherwise neither person knows whether…