131–140 of 168 posts
Hi, I created a quick landing page to validate an idea for an app. I'll be honest, the idea isn't mine. I saw it suggested in a Twitter post which had huge traction, and decided to run with it. At the moment I'm just trying to refine the concept and get an idea of whether there really is space for something like this out there
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…
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"communicate like a normal human" is a bit unnecessarily negative/aggressive there. Some people genuinely do have trouble with that. belittling them isn't gonna help any...
Normal is a perfectly fine adjective. If you struggle with something like social anxiety by definition that's not normal. Not normal doesn't imply bad, it means not normal
"Normal" is derived from "norm" which does indeed carry a strong moral connotation. Someone who is not normal ("abnormal") is failing to live up to society's norms. There's a reason why people have been pushing against using this word for years — it has a negative connotation.
If you're trying to simply say "statistically uncommon", then "atypical" or "unusual" are better neutral words.
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Someone once noted that there were a whole series of various startup ideas and products that could be covered by "things 20 something engineers wish their mom would still do for them". I feel like this one is "Mom I don't want to meet up with Sarah today, can you tell her mom that I have a doctor's appointment?"
It's remarkable how much of the criticism aimed at SV can be summed up as: # they're 20-something. # they're white. # they're male. # and this is low status.
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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 not just feeling guilt/anxiety though. 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'…
I agree that an app to solve this seems a bit overblown, but it does address a real thing which regular communication cannot. Communication skills aren't the issue, base human politeness is.
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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 get what you're saying, but with both these scenarios -- (1) "going out when you don't feel like it because a friend needs your support" or (2) "telling a friend you don't feel like going out because you're feeling down, but they realize they have the energy between the both of you to buoy your low spirit" -- these are both important social negotiations that make us better at human'ing. An app that attempts to take…
I do get, you though. This isn't a tool that I'd want to put every single one of my calendar events into, but it's a tool I can see being useful for some class of events, with some other people.
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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 i…
I think there are limits, though, to caring about people's preferences. To me, dealing with people who make me jump through hoops to successfully communicate with them is an incredibly draining, patience-testing, tedious activity. For some people it's worth it, and for others it's not; I've definitely reduced my level of interaction with some people due to this. I used to be very introverted and shy, and I still hate…
So yes, I can see a world where someone uses an app or system like this to avoid conflict to an unhealthy degree. And to be clear, a friend that refuses to meet your extroversion halfway or that demands that you jump through excessive hoops to interact with them is a bad friend, period. But I really disagree that the potential for that kind of abuse means that introversion is somehow a problem. I don't see a difference between boredom and small-scale social anxiety.
There is a well-meaning kind of person that I will occasionally run into that is very interested in getting rid of personality traits I have that they consider problematic. And often I find myself eventually tolerating more quirks in them than they will tolerate in me.
Friendship is, in part, about people accommodating for each other and helping each other -- that's the part that makes friendship special. So I provide affordances for people who get incredibly lonely if I haven't spoken to them in a week, because I recognize they can't just 'act like an adult' and take it at face value that I haven't abandoned them. I provide affordances for people by adjusting my body language, how I talk to them, and where I look while I'm talking to them, because I recognize that some extroverts have trouble emotionally connecting to other people without a lot of extra signals of affirmation. In the same way, I make affordances for people by calling them instead of texting them, because some people place more emotional importance than I do on hearing a voice.
All of this is, to be blunt, crazy. It's just that some people have a random chunk of their brain constantly making them feel anxiety over the fictional idea that "I love you" means more when it's heard in someone's voice then when it's written on a piece of paper.
But generally, we don't describe those people as having a problem. It's not a problem that they have a section of their brains that says, "if someone doesn't make small talk, then that means they're being confrontational or angry." But it is a problem for some reason that I have a section of my brain that says, "if you ask someone for a favor, maybe they didn't actually want to do it, and maybe they might lie about their preferences." And I do kind of regard that as a double standard, because when I accommodate extroverted behavior, I just feel happy to help my friends -- I'm not thinking in the back of my mind, "that person should see a specialist."
I dunno. Every day, everyone here tolerates tons of personality quirks that seem to me to be way, way more crazy, and way more debilitating, and way more problematic for society than something as trivial as being anxious about disappointing friends if a movie night gets canceled.
Any personality trait or quirk, if taken to the extreme, will become a disorder. What is different about introversion that means it's dangerous to accommodate it?
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It's not just feeling guilt/anxiety though. 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'…
What you seem to propose - calling/etc to establish that you want to cancel only if they do too - isn't a real mode of communication though. People are generally sufficiently polite that if you tell them that, they will cancel the plans even if they were looking forward to it. I agree that an app to solve this seems a bit overblown, but it does address a real thing which regular communication cannot. Communication sk…
I reckon I send a "hey, we still on for tonight?" message to sound the other person out about how keen they are approximately once or twice a month maybe?
(Also, I feel there's possibly an unstated thing going on here. If the only decider about whether or not you are going to go out tonight is being able to identify with reasonable certainty that the other person is (or is not) considering "bailing" on you, there could well be stuff going on that means going out tonight is 100% the right thing for you to do. Depression is a sneaky bastard, the way it makes you think sitting on your couch and arguing on the internet is a better way to spend your evening that grabbing drinks/movie/dinner/walk/shooting-pool with a friend. Even your friend _was_ vaguely considering bailing on you, it's super likely that spending time with them is a way better way to be happy than ditching them... Possibly for both of you.)
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What you seem to propose - calling/etc to establish that you want to cancel only if they do too - isn't a real mode of communication though. People are generally sufficiently polite that if you tell them that, they will cancel the plans even if they were looking forward to it. I agree that an app to solve this seems a bit overblown, but it does address a real thing which regular communication cannot. Communication sk…
I guess it depends on how direct you want/need to be. I reckon I send a "hey, we still on for tonight?" message to sound the other person out about how keen they are approximately once or twice a month maybe? (Also, I feel there's possibly an unstated thing going on here. If the only decider about whether or not you are going to go out tonight is being able to identify with reasonable certainty that the other person…
I think the depression is a reasonable call. I think a lot of people also feel altogether too concerned about others' wants at the expense of their own. Both of those probably don't need an app to encourage them.
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Does that extend to backing out of a social engagement at very short notice, simply because you no longer feel like it, without fear of causing offense? I think a lot of people make plans with friends in all sincerity, but sometimes end up feeling tired or socially burned out whatever, and wish they had left the time free but would feel unfriendly canceling at the last minute without a stronger reason. edit: also, I…
Social commitments are called that because they are exactly that: commitments. You promised to your friends you'll show so you just show. If you never flake you don't have to waste precious brain cycles agonizing on whether to cancel. Do you want to be a flake and do you want others to think of you as a flake? If not, just keep your social commitments. Pretty basic stuff.