201–210 of 510 posts
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I trust you don't use a calendar to keep track of birthdays, otherwise people will try very hard not to talk to you.
Implying that forgetting a date and forgetting a person are equivalent.
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Yeah I tried giving up social media for a while and just texting my actual friends etc instead. It works for the groups of friends that we have active WhatsApp groups with. But especially texting friends of the opposite sex - now that we're grown up, married, etc - just feels invasive, unless it's asking a specific question, or to arrange something.
I feel exactly the same, and honestly, it keeps me from approaching some people I‘d like to. If anyone has figured out a pretext or mental framework for warming up conversations that have effectively died long ago, I would be delighted to know about it.
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> Relationships are two-way, so you'd expect that the other part initiates contact a significant amount of the times. Seems both fair and reasonable, but IME it's wrong. It's wrong in a way that is stable as well, and that is why it takes effort to fight: people easily get anxious about rejection, and they easily get it in their heads that the other person doesn't want to hear from them. Anything from "we had a bad i…
> It's wrong in a way that is stable as well, and that is why it takes effort to fight: people easily get anxious about rejection, and they easily get it in their heads that the other person doesn't want to hear from them. Anything from "we had a bad interaction" to "they didn't reply last time" seems to be an excuse to cut contact. I get that can happen with some relationships. But with all of them? I think that eve…
This is one thing I thought about doing, but it seems like there's a lot of APIs that are now closed. But also, relationships are not like a tennis match, it's ok to write twice.
> I honestly don't think so. A consistent lack of response usually indicates the other person doesn't care.
I send out a load of mails over New Year's almost each year, and each year someone writes in April or July saying "OMG I forgot to write back" and then picks up the thread. There's no reason the people who never write back have decided not to, except in very obvious circumstances of relationship breakdown.
> I'd like to think that my friends won't forget about me completely if I stop contacting them
They won't forget you but they also won't contact you. A lot of people just feel weird about it.
Mostly I guess I'm default-positive. Very few people have ever let it be known, directly or indirectly, not to write to them anymore.
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I trust you don't use a calendar to keep track of birthdays, otherwise people will try very hard not to talk to you.
Implying that forgetting a date and forgetting a person are equivalent.
Hey, you just popped into my mind, I hope all is well with you and yours!
My completely un-scientific view is that most people think of others once in a while. Perhaps we're too busy to reach out, or the guilt of getting out of touch makes it hard to push through that resistance. I just push through it.
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What's the point of networking. I used to not care for decades, now I wish I'd spent more time and effort on it.
With that said, I haven’t used any system for keeping in touch with people.
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Think of it as the lowest common denominator. It isn't "this person is not important, so I will contact them only once a year", it is "this person is important enough for me to contact them AT LEAST once per year". Flexibility isn't lost, but you have baseline level of commitment to every relationship. If you don't want to contact that person anymore - it's a conscious choice, not "just lost touch", but if you want t…
> but you have baseline level of commitment to every relationship. Well, the issue is that baseline level of commitment is extremely low, to the point where I don't think it's an actual relationship if you only talk once a year. Once a year and zero are practically the same. > You, obviously, SHOULD try to read blog/twitter/whatever BEFORE contacting that person, try to find something interesting there and talk about…
If I may, it seems like you’re assuming “if I only talk to this person once a year, it’s not worth it. Especially if I have to contrive some basis for reaching out.” If it’s that difficult, and that low value, sure, don’t bother.
But the other lens to apply here is “how at risk am I of never talking to this person again if I don’t manage to say something, however simple, at least ?” There may be folks in your life with whom your relationship is threatened if you don’t consciously make an effort, or if you don’t have a system like this to help you.
a friend of mine would send all people he knew new years wishes via regular mail. It was hundreds of letters he would all print out and sign manually. Most people would ignore it, a few even found it offiensive fo receive a mass letter. But every year dozens answered with a happy reply.
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Who is arrogant there? It's not an issue not to keep in touch every 3 weeks with someone. When you have a child, you just meet new people, parents of your child's friends for example. Relationships don't disappear, they pause, when you get back to them, it's like riding a bike, and if you don't get back to them, it's ok. It's what you do with your life which dictates who you meet, and who you have relationships with.…
Not everyone is good at socializing. Just live your life is a terrible advice for someone who is struggling with people.
Interesting way to approach it, my approach might be less technical, when someone comes to mind randomly, I just txt them with: Hey, you just popped into my mind, I hope all is well with you and yours! It's simple, lightweight, and you'd be shocked how often the other person pings back. My completely un-scientific view is that most people think of others once in a while. Perhaps we're too busy to reach out, or the gu…
I actually kept a table with people to stay in touch with them every: - month - quarter - 6 months - a year (if its less then you remember anyways)
I quickly killed that approach, because people who genuinely understand overwhelm also are always happy to catch-up once in a while and we hold no hard feelings if we don't speak for another year.
Serendipity and randomness wins.