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Always Invite Anna

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Re: Always Invite Anna

#21

Post by cultofmetatron »

numbers wrote: post #10

this reminds me of a friend who we've excluded from the group b/c of the age old advice of "the worst they can say is no". Well, we invited him to everything at first it was either no responses or late responses like "sorry was busy with work". The whole friend group took their turns and attempts at inviting him. It sort of stopped altogether when we started getting responses like "hey, don't call me without scheduli…

>For context, this has been going on for 10 years and about a year ago everyone stopped trying.

frankly I'm a little jealous.... I can't imagine anyone, let alone a whole friend group, putting in that level of effort to stay in touch with me. I would probably disappear from everyone's imaginations if I didn't regularly reach out to people.

Re: Always Invite Anna

#22

Post by robofanatic »

Great story. Alexei is definitely a lucky man to be surrounded by good friends otherwise it’s too easy to be teased by your friends like your acting like some sort of philosopher or something.

Re: Always Invite Anna

#23

Post by Ancapistani »

I'll add to this: it's usually not only OK, but appreciated when you're explicit about this.

I'm not a very social person by nature, and it has taken years -- decades, actually -- for me to get to the point where I feel comfortable in professional situations. One of the strategies I've developed to cope with this is to just be completely honest and upfront about my intentions.

This has backfired a couple of times when I started doing it, so I've since modified it to "wait until you're confident they're not shady". With that addition it has served me well.

Re: Always Invite Anna

#24

Post by Ancapistani »

numbers wrote: post #10

this reminds me of a friend who we've excluded from the group b/c of the age old advice of "the worst they can say is no". Well, we invited him to everything at first it was either no responses or late responses like "sorry was busy with work". The whole friend group took their turns and attempts at inviting him. It sort of stopped altogether when we started getting responses like "hey, don't call me without scheduli…

> It sort of stopped altogether when we started getting responses like "hey, don't call me without scheduling a call with me before" or getting a text 3 days later "hey what's up, I don't want to hang out".

This is a good thing!

It doesn't (necessarily) mean that person doesn't want to be friends or doesn't value your group; it means they feel comfortable telling you how they feel even though doing so is a mild violation of social norms.

If I were in your shoes, I'd just make sure they're not accidentally booted from the group chat (etc.), but otherwise just leave them be. Maybe a couple of times a year mention something like "We're all going to ___ next week, if you'd like to join. No stress!" just as a keepalive, but otherwise let them do their own thing.

I have several very close, long-term friends that I've not spoken to in months or years, because that's just who we are and where we are in life. If any of them called me in an emergency I'd drop everything to help them, and I'm 100% confident they would do the same. We _have_ done that for each other before.

Re: Always Invite Anna

#25

Post by Ancapistani »

squigz wrote: post #12
numbers wrote: post #10

this reminds me of a friend who we've excluded from the group b/c of the age old advice of "the worst they can say is no". Well, we invited him to everything at first it was either no responses or late responses like "sorry was busy with work". The whole friend group took their turns and attempts at inviting him. It sort of stopped altogether when we started getting responses like "hey, don't call me without scheduli…

I was all ready to respond and defend this guy, but... yeah, no. All advice has limits. In this case, "telling your friends to schedule their calls with you" is that limit... and then some.

I strongly disagree.

Maybe it's an age thing, a "head of household" thing, or just an A(u)DHD thing - but I've definitely been in places in my life where I didn't have time to do anything discretionary.

To put it another way - if they're willing to ask you to schedule time to talk to them, they're already violating social norms. Why would they bother to give you a way to get ahold of them if they didn't value the relationship? Why not just reply "I don't want to talk to you" instead?

It sounds to me like they're legitimately just way too busy, to the point that they're likely well down the road toward burnout and don't even have time for themselves.

Re: Always Invite Anna

#26

Post by thinkingtoilet »

This is a great thing to remember when you have friends with depression. I had serious medical issues for a year and a half of my life and experienced depression because of it. There were so many things I said no to that I otherwise wouldn't have. People stopped asking at times and it made me feel so much more isolated. It is very true that just asking someone can go a long way, even you you're 99.99% sure they'll say no.

Re: Always Invite Anna

#27

Post by n4bz0r »

Ancapistani wrote: post #23

I'll add to this: it's usually not only OK, but appreciated when you're explicit about this. I'm not a very social person by nature, and it has taken years -- decades, actually -- for me to get to the point where I feel comfortable in professional situations. One of the strategies I've developed to cope with this is to just be completely honest and upfront about my intentions. This has backfired a couple of times whe…

> This has backfired a couple of times

Mind telling more about that?

Re: Always Invite Anna

#29

Post by BeetleB »

By the time you get to my age, your list of potential Anna's will be in the high dozens. You simply cannot keep this up with all the Anna's.

A lot of people genuinely don't want to hang out with you. Likely that number exceeds the "real" Anna's by an order of magnitude.

If there's someone I particularly like, I'll keep inviting him. But if the person is otherwise normal (e.g. clearly has a social life), I invite 3-5 times, and then stop. If the guy wants to hang out with me, the ball's in his court.

You'll find no shortage of people who'll say "Hey man! What happened? I never hear from you any more!"

To which I'd love to respond with s/any more/ever/

If you're the guy who always invite people regardless of their response (or non-response), you'll find that people will have an expectation that you always invite them. I would recommend not getting to that point.

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