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Bail – Get out of your plans, guilt free

bail-app.netlify.com

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Re: Bail – Get out of your plans, guilt free

#111

Post by gizmo »

gfodor wrote: post #83
andrewzah wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry but this has nothing to do with empathy. As an adult, you should have the grace to understand that sometimes people, for whatever reason, don’t feel up to hanging out. You are seriously overthinking this. Empathetic people can still communicate.

My claim is that empathetic people can be dishonest and still be virtuous, not that no empathetic people can be honest. Concretely, I know people who do not express preferences directly on such things where it may harm me, out of empathy for me. I don't consider these people morally corrupt despite not being completely truthful. An app like this (or any tool like this) which removes the conflict between these values…

The dishonesty doesn't help anybody, and it makes navigating the relationship more difficult for all parties. Empathic dishonesty is a consequence of poor social skills, where people don't know how to be truthful and set boundaries without being hurtful.

Re: Bail – Get out of your plans, guilt free

#112

Post by yebyen »

kazinator wrote: post #48
kerkeslager wrote: post #23

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.

Someone explained to me once that they had a friend who always cancels on them, or vice versa and they always cancel on them. And it was an open secret between the two of them that they both strongly hate going out, like serious dread feeling. So they would make plans with each other, or even have a standing date... and rather than anyone getting upset when someone inevitably decides to cancel the plans, both of them actually get a huge euphoric rush each time.

It's such a relief whenever they found out they don't really have to go out today!

They were best friends, and they hardly ever saw each other. At least that's exactly how they described it to me... (or, if anyone else has seen this show and remembers, maybe that didn't happen, but I guess it was believable anyway!)

Re: Bail – Get out of your plans, guilt free

#113

Post by danShumway »

kelnos wrote: post #73
danShumway wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you might be underestimating: A) the number of degrees of discomfort between, "I can talk about this any time with no effort", and "I literally can't talk about this". B) how normal it is for certain types of people to struggle with this kind of interaction in general. On the first point, I am perfectly capable of being frank with friends. I am perfectly capable of telling them how I feel. And when I need to…

Not the parent you're replying to, but I agree with their perspective for the most part. I think absolutes are silly to use as arguments, and sure, there are certainly some people for whom it's really difficult to proactively cancel plans. Sometimes I'm that person. But I choose to suck it up and act like a human instead of (if I were to use this app) hiding behind a computer to let it do my dirty work for me. I cert…

When I say that you're underestimating the number of people who have these types of anxieties, I don't mean it in the way I might say, "you'd be surprised how many people have PTSD", or "more people than you think are homeless." What I mean is that there are a lot of completely normal people that you probably meet every single day who feel this way about social interactions.

The reason you find that hard to believe is not because those people are wildly uncommon or because they're hiding, but simply because you don't personally know how to recognize them, or that (ironically) you haven't been in a position yet where one of them talked to you that openly about their feelings.

What I'm trying to get across is that people like me are not aberrations, and our personality traits are not debilitating character flaws.

To try and get across how weird your perspective feels to me:

Imagine that one day you showed a friend Candy Crush, and their immediate reaction was, "but who would ever install this? Sure, occasionally even I get bored, but when I do I just sit silently and motionlessly like an adult. I don't need constant distractions."

Imagine trying to convince your friend that:

A) Installing Candy Crush doesn't actually mean that you have undiagnosed ADHD, and that

B) It's actually not that big a deal if people occasionally pull out an app to keep themselves from getting bored during long flights, or train rides -- that the fact that some people get bored sometimes is not a big societal problem that needs to be addressed by altering their personalities.

Phrases like this stick out to me,

> act like a human

because from my perspective, I'm not sure I can think of many things more human than caring a lot about other people's preferences, even occasionally to the point where I dismiss what I want to do. And I don't see how using an app to accommodate someone else makes that accommodation suddenly robotic.

I'm seeing a bunch of people on here who (as far as I can tell) have a view of introverted relationships like they're this completely impersonal thing that comes down to never wanting to see another person's face or deal with conflict in any way. And the reality is that of course introverted people have conversations and conflicts. In reality, what these relationships often look like is just friends accommodating each other a bunch and going out of their way to make each other feel comfortable via tiny, almost invisible gestures.

My proposal: in moderation, maybe that kind of relationship can be nice sometimes, and you don't have to be frightened that society will collapse if more people do that -- even if that involves using an occasional app?

Re: Bail – Get out of your plans, guilt free

#114

Post by kthakore »

yebyen wrote: post #112
kazinator wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Someone explained to me once that they had a friend who always cancels on them, or vice versa and they always cancel on them. And it was an open secret between the two of them that they both strongly hate going out, like serious dread feeling. So they would make plans with each other, or even have a standing date... and rather than anyone getting upset when someone inevitably decides to cancel the plans, both of them…

Sounds like Ron Swanson

Re: Bail – Get out of your plans, guilt free

#115

Post by kelnos »

mywittyname wrote: post #47

Where I come from, it's common practice to follow-up before an event in an effort to give the other person an out. I.e., "are we still up for lunch tomorrow?" Do other people not do this?

It's situation dependent for me. If I've made plans with a friend to grab lunch/dinner/drinks on a particular day, we often won't decide on a location until less than 24 hours beforehand. So in that case, I'll usually open with "Hey, are we still on for lunch? Where should we go?" Even if a location is already set up, if the plans were made more than a few days in advance, I'll likely confirm.

But if I've made plans with someone for only a few days in the future, and we've already picked a location/activity, I'll assume they'll be there unless they reach out to cancel.

Re: Bail – Get out of your plans, guilt free

#116

Post by xyzelement »

I don’t think the developer even thinks this will ever work.

To begin with - this means that both parties must register their event on the service when making the original plan. (How else would you later manage what to bail on and who that affects)

Can you imagine anyone actually doing that? If you are someone who makes such flaky plans constantly, you aren’t also someone who will think ahead like this.

To be honest reading the comments that treat this as something other than an obvious dead end is scary.

Re: Bail – Get out of your plans, guilt free

#117

Post by kelnos »

hug wrote: post #106
kelnos wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That... also sounds worse. This is all just advocating for not actually communicating with your friends. That's not friendship, that's transactional hanging-out.

I think a lot of people here are missing the point. Let me tell you a story. Wednesdays, my friends and I go to the bar to hang out. We grab some beers and some wings, and we have a bit of a chat about, y'know, whatever. Sometimes we're around because someone just wants some company. Sometimes we're around because someone just wants to gripe about something going on. Sometimes we're there because... well, some Wednes…

I feel like if you really wanted to use technology to fix this issue, it's just as easily -- and maybe better? -- done in a more affirmative way. Say you have a repeating calendar invite for your nights out. Everyone agrees that they'll leave the invitation un-responded until they definitively do or do not want to meet up. If, within an hour or so (or whatever) of the meeting time, no one has replied "yes" to the invitation, it's implicitly canceled. If at least one person says "yes", then others who are on the fence can see that someone else really wants to meet up, and possibly decide to join.

Regardless, I agree, as you say, that this problem maybe isn't really one that needs solving. But I also agree that using some sort of no-communication-needed app to solve this particular coordination problem does not present an apocalyptic threat to human social interactions ;)

Re: Bail – Get out of your plans, guilt free

#118

Post by flatiron »

crtlaltdel wrote: post #80

i applaud the lean methodology. minimal detail, free-tier hosted contact form. throw it out on HN and a few other sites (i've not looked, just assume) and check the your conversions per channel in a day or two. HN is a great place to see what tech-leaning people think of stuff (even if it can get a bit sideways at times) and get some free unsolicited advice on everything from implementation patterns to prior art to t…

Are we getting yelped?

Re: Bail – Get out of your plans, guilt free

#119

Post by leetrout »

calebio wrote: post #61
leetrout wrote: post #6

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.

I agree, this app is dumb. 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 .

No I didn’t say I was mad. More and more my friends don’t want to chat on the phone at all, which ironically we’ve talked about on discord or on the phone. It’s not the subject matter (just chatting about their day or what’s new in their life) but the ratchet of the ability to have complete control of our time responding to texts when it is most convenient for us but forgoing some human connection of hearing a voice. And I think it’s that way across society and I think it’s a little bit sad and a little bit scary.

I’m not on Facebook so maybe the portal screens are getting traction and things will tip back toward a human element with video.

Re: Bail – Get out of your plans, guilt free

#120

Post by gfodor »

gizmo wrote: post #111
gfodor wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My claim is that empathetic people can be dishonest and still be virtuous, not that no empathetic people can be honest. Concretely, I know people who do not express preferences directly on such things where it may harm me, out of empathy for me. I don't consider these people morally corrupt despite not being completely truthful. An app like this (or any tool like this) which removes the conflict between these values…

The dishonesty doesn't help anybody, and it makes navigating the relationship more difficult for all parties. Empathic dishonesty is a consequence of poor social skills, where people don't know how to be truthful and set boundaries without being hurtful.

So says you. Like I said, I know people like this, and I am not willing to label them as people who have poor social skills or other disparaging things. I don't consider this category of dishonesty to be one that a person necessarily needs to correct, if there are approaches to the scenario where the conflict between honesty and empathy that conflict for them could allow the person to live more according to their values by preventing the need to make the trade-off altogether.
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