This is a useful analysis of what "being an adult" means. I've noticed that the moment when I feel like avoiding social discomfort or potential conflict as the precise moment when I have a choice: either be an adult and understand what I want and communicate it, or avoid it and dislike myself and project those feelings onto others.
Invariably when I choose to behave like an adult I feel empowered and ultimately at peace with myself and others in the end. If I choose avoidance, resentment builds, and further avoidance follows.
The idea that avoidance behaviors can be selfish or agreeable cuts through much self-deception. This can be helpful when I tell myself "I'm just being nice" because it adds the proviso: "yeah, but I'm not being an adult." Which I could see being a really helpful inner monologue in those situations.
This is also intimately connected to the concept of "taking responsibility", which begins with not avoiding something which "someone else" might deal with so you don't have to.
Everything you said is true, but just to add a little nuance, I think it's possible that avoidance can still be the correct choice when confrontation is unhelpful. Confrontation for the sake of confrontation is another form of indulging yourself to avoid certain emotions, like feeling weak or disempowered. Managing that in the height of emotion takes some real meta-cognition.
Just an observation, n=1; when I moved to Los Angeles to go to school, I was shocked to find that people cancelled plans on me all the time. At first I took it personally, because that didn't happen in the more rural town I'm from. But then I realized: its part of the culture, and maybe its just an attribute of very dynamic urban social networks, where an exciting new opportunity might pop up any moment. So I learned to not get my hopes up, and learned to cancel on others too without worrying about it over much.
When I moved back to rural California, people thought I'd become a jerk. Took me a while to shift back.
As a New Yorker, I find the social culture out in LA to be super flaky and pretty annoying. People are non-committal, or cancel, or complain that you're staying in an inconvenient neighborhood for them to see you in. I blame it partially on the physical landscape of the place, just a bunch of suburbs smashed together trying to pretend to be a single city.
In NYC people might show up late, but generally I find New Yorkers to be good at keeping plans and the city lends itself to spontaneity. In LA if the restaurant in the strip mall you tried to go to is full, it means driving to another strip mall and interrupting the flow of the night. In the city you can just walk down the block and change your plans on the fly. In LA I've had friends cancel plans to later find out they got an invite to some famous person's house. In New York, you'll likely end up getting invited along because who cares if you were in a movie.
It feels to me like your initial intuition was right - they are being jerks/babies and they aren't respecting the decisions their past selves have made.
I went through a phase of tongue-in-cheek "quantum planning", wherin I would give my friends a percentage on any plan I was invited to. So if I was asked to dinner I might just say "60%". Needless to say this didn't go down very well with people.
There is a value to your word, and yes, it is more prevalent in closer-knit communities than in bigger cities, but I think that's because the cost of ditching a "friend" in a big city is much lower - after all there a plenty more potential friends to be had. But in my opinion someone who habitually breaks plans is giving a clear indication that they don't value their word and don't value the person they break plans with.
IMO cancelling plans on people because 'something better came up' is rude and selfish. I just stop being friends with people like that.
e.g. I had someone cancel plans made weeks ahead to meet up with me and my family at the last minute because they got invited to go skiing (this is in an area near many ski resorts, it was not a once in a lifetime opportunity). I just lost interest in meeting up with that person again.
I similarly dislike dealing with people who "keep their options open" by refusing to commit to plans until the last minute (e.g. RSVP-ing to a birthday party invite the night before).
> Los Angeles [...] people cancelled plans on me all the time
Traffic. It's because of traffic and sprawl.
LA is massive[1]. If you lived in Manhattan and made plans with people living in Queens or Brooklyn or East Rutherford, you would expect them to flake just as much as people living in LA. If I only make plans with people in Santa Monica and I live in Santa Monica, they will probably show up.
The reality is that in LA you do not have subways that go everywhere. You also do not walk. So you interact with people that mostly got to that location via freeway and probably live at least 30 minutes away. Plans sound nice and people like to be agreeable, so they will say "sure, I might make it." And usually you do not get a strong yes. It's always a maybe. Because when the event rolls around, you're stuck deciding whether you feel like getting into the car and driving a good hour in heavy traffic or not. It's not because people are dicks, like everyone is claiming. It's because the city wears on you. Distance is measured in time, not miles in LA.
Also, parking. If you live in WeHo, KTown, DTLA, or Santa Monica and you're asking people to find parking, be prepared for lots of canceled plans. No one likes circling the streets for 20 minutes to find parking.
Barry Sobel made hay of this aspect of LA culture back in 1992:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLf3EaDEf68
I'm amazed this has been bouncing around in my head for 30 years, and equally amazed I could instantly pull this up with a Google search.
Grew up in LA. Never had people flake. My guess is via random variation, some people get unlucky, have a few people flake, and assume it's the cultural norm. You can insert "people from ____ are flaky" and find complaints about pretty much anywhere.
Common experience for me, rural stores closing 15 to 30mins early (so from my pov as a customer, flaky, by not being where they said they'd be)
I'll affirm and agree with the sibling comments here: I know lots of people who live in / spent time in LA and they report the same thing -- that lots of people there are just flakey on plans.
I don't think the fact that lots of people do it makes it OK in any way whatsoever. If the culture is to be rude and flakey, you don't have to conform to that, and you don't have to accept that from others. I'm friends with some people in LA and we all know that flaking on plans is a no-no regardless of what city we're in / from.
This must be a cultural thing because it's the rudest thing I could imagine! Agreeing to a plan is a commitment. The other people involved (who have also committed) rely on you doing your best to honour your commitment - who knows how their plans would have been different had you not committed in advance.
Also n=1, but a buddy of mine from the east coast lived in LA for 7 years, told me the people there were the most selfish and fake bunch he had ever met. He said he never made a real friend in the entire time he was there, and that was a major reason he moved back east. I think you just ran into a bunch of assholes.
A bit of insight, the people you we’re hanging with weren’t from LA either. There is a difference between the people who grew up here vs the people that are here to act out some fantasy.
I like this article, but I wish it was phrased "are you being a baby" instead of "are you a baby". Labeling oneself as wholly a particular attribute is one of the mechanisms by which anxiety takes root: you _are_ or _aren't_ something, full stop. Labeling actions or states shifts your mindset so that you can clearly see this is something you're free to change. It's the sort of thing that makes no difference at a factual level (they're logically equivalent! right!?) but emotionally the tone shift makes a huge difference.
It seems blindingly clear what the author means, and if one isn't going to connect with the article because they're hung up on "is acting like" versus "is", they weren't going to get it anyways.
Excellent point. I try to do that on HN: differentiate between describing how you interpreted what they typed ("said something greedy and childish") rather than a value statement about that person ("you are greedy and childish"). Easy to forget sometimes, but super important to separate the words/actions from the person. We all say/do dumb shit sometimes that is out of our normative character for all sorts of reasons.
This makes me think of an interesting story from an article [0] about MIchael Bublé's latest album, and his work on it with Sir Paul McCartney.
> “It was a long day, we were playing live, and he was really calm and patient with me. He helped me to make sure that I told the story the right way. Less was more for him. I’m dramatic, so I have the urge to go over the top.
> “I was taking liberties, and he didn’t like that. He had to make a long walk from the control room to come down and put me right a few times.” When Bublé sang the line “I’m waiting on a sign”, McCartney called a halt and arrived in the booth.
> “Can you explain to me what you’re waiting on?” he asked. “Yes. I’m waiting on a sign,” trilled Bublé enthusiastically. “So are you actually on the sign, waiting?” asked McCartney, “or are you waiting for a sign?”
> Recounting the tale, Bublé hangs his head like a defeated schoolboy. “I’m waiting for a sign, Sir Paul.” He laughs. Bublé’s revived love for his craft is endearing.
I don’t think they're logically equivalent at all.
“Are you being a baby?” - Are you temporarily being a bit of a baby, like, at the moment? Could you maybe be a teeny bit braver to get through this current bit of anxiety you're feeling, and then we'll worry about the next bit tomorrow eh?
“Are you a baby?” - Is it possible you have always been a baby? Is it time to grow up, ie, make a real, permanent change to how you think? To start taking responsibility for managing your own emotional responses to the all the inevitable sources of potential anxiety that life will continue to throw at you forever? To break the cycle of weak/passive/burdensome social behaviour once and for all?
The author obliquely touches on this, but my sense is that people need to cut themselves a lot more slack. A large part of becoming an adult is learning to navigate ambiguous social signals, and to make decisions without the comfort of having another adult's prior approval.
My advice to 20-somethings is to be gentle with themselves. The "boot-strapping, we-can-do-hard-things motivational speaker" talk isn't so much wrong as it is ascetic. As it turns out, you can be a responsible, virtuous and respectable adult without being so damn hard on yourself. In fact, I think I became an adult the moment I recognized that the child in me needed some care, and that I alone could provide it.
EDIT: on second thought, my wife provides a fair bit of that too, and I for her.
I find it a bit strange that the author leads with the example of wanting to "blind cancel", and then suggests that maturity and communication is the real answer to that scenario.
People sometimes seem to imply that if we could just select the most appropriate types of language, and only express our true, heartfelt feelings, then our language will never cause pain.
But that's just not true. Sometimes your friend may also secretly want to cancel, but other times your friend will be hurt by knowing you want to cancel the plans you made together that they have, for whatever reason, been really looking forward to. And sometimes there doesn't exist a way to communicate your true feelings without potentially causing pain. Being mature and communicating truthfully cannot solve this problem. Often times the solution is to suck it up and stick to the plans -- but that has nothing to do with communication.
The key bit here is communication: An adult communicates their rationale for a given situation while also acknowledging that the rationale may not be shared by others. In the old days we called it sticking to your principles.
For the dinner party, it’s perfectly okay to be late if the lateness is communicated ahead of time to the host and the reason is a valid one. “Afraid to meet you on my own” is not a valid reason.
Canceling or ghosting is not a valid reason period.
I enjoyed this post. Choosing what actions to take when there isn't a clear right or wrong is really what makes being an adult interesting.
I've found that it helps to ask if the thing that I'm avoiding is something that is reasonable for me to accomplish and something that will help me grow, such that perhaps if I encounter it again I can handle it better. If so, I should take action instead of avoiding it.
In the case of the mosh pit example, staying in the pit even if you didn't want to didn't really give you any growth opportunities, unless you were really eager to "learn" how to mosh.
Going to the party when you didn't want to, although possibly awkward, was such a growth opportunity. It afforded a chance to flex social skills, and the downside was likely overstated. In the future, should such a scenario arise, the author can now deal with it much more easily.
I think we have deep feeling of "I didn't do what I should've" (and a sense of personal failure) when we choose to avoid action and we recognize that we've denied ourselves a growth opportunity. Our analytical brain may not pick up on it to form the thought, but I think we still know it.
When you presume a feeling for someone else, you're robbing them of their own agency.
You may not even be wrong, but people have a right to choose how they feel about something, how something affects them, and the only way to know is to talk to them about it.
Attributing to someone a feeling or thought they themselves did not actually have is among the worst things you can reasonably do to someone on a daily basis without interacting with them at all.
I worry people don't quite realize how harmful this behavior is, or how often people do it.
The solution, as always, is to communicate. Just speak, using words, to the person you're inventing thoughts and feelings for. Often you've successfully detected something (we are social creatures, after all), but rarely are you right on the specifics.
I hate to say it, but this post shows how absolutely smashed mentally some city-based Americans are. Full of anxiety, fear, and general angst about what should be normal operating behaviour as a common city resident. I'm finishing a week up with my buds in Barcelona, and everything in this post is the exact OPPOSITE of the mentality we've seen here. Friendly people, happy to chat, guys and girls alike, no concern or fear and no overwhelming motive of anything. Talking for talkings sake.
My buddies are still working and living in US but I've been living in europe for the past 6 years... and I gotta say, the US has become so weird to me, especially super "liberal" culture, if you can even call it that. People simply don't know how to talk to one another anymore. It's fucked.
Makes me wonder though about how we inevitably generalise people's personal stories into rules of thumb. I'm acutely aware how one person's journey for an antidote to their personality dysfunctions isn't always medicine for another person.
If Hayley has dominantly anxious-avoidant attachment style it'd explain her ambivalence. The antidote is engage executive regulation (to supress the anxiety and flight response), and downplay emotional resonance.
Common a formula as it is, could be a muddle for you or I if we don't have her underlying predispositions.
I have zero idea what “The antidote is engage executive regulation (to supress the anxiety and flight response), and downplay emotional resonance.” even means.
Pretty impressive someone took the time to even write this.
If you are going to anything: BE ON TIME. We have more reasons than ever to be on time or even early, live directions, maps, scheduling. Things happen and some times can be non-exact, that's totally fine. But if you're showing up 2h late to a show, or event on the regular there are issues you need to fix in your life. How did people without smart phones manage!?
If you cancel/try to reschedule a group event the same day, more than once, it is unlikely I will ever give you a concession on time or place in the future because you're a pain in the ass.
I've had these kinds of main character friends who will cancel on an event the morning before, then offer a reschedule that same day to a later or earlier time. Repeatedly.
This signals to me: "I am more important than the other people that are coming, so they should change their schedule for me." No thanks. I'll drop you a note when everything is happening but until you hit the mark I'm gonna disregard everything you say. It has driven my other friends crazy to their point they have asked me: "Hey what's up with your friend Emily?"
Other people have lives, just like yours!
Don't offer to come in the first place if you can't make it. There are times when you can't make it due to an emergency, and that's fine, car breaks down, relationship issues, work explosions, w/e.
You can be busy, or whatever I don't give a shit, it's your life sort it out. You can't do everything. You made too many plans: I don't care. You decided something else was more important at the last minute: This one is a guarantee I'm inviting you to less things. This seems harsh, but do this rodeo more than a few times and it will make YOU crazy. Also, "neurotic freak" is a weird way to write "jerk".
Probably there is a huge selection bias here as I have two friends that are now less good friends due to whatever this cancel algorithm is. I've lived it and fixed it! :D Save yourself a click, read Nonviolent Communication, and improve your life.
Reminds me of The testaments (the sequel to handmaid's tale). There was a bit on that fact that no-one actually wanted for Gilead to happen, but the movement started too fast and everyone was too scared to diverge. It took a life of its own.
I think this is a legitimate social behavior where for various reasons you don't want to divest from a commitment (don't want to be an outlier, FOMO, don't want to hurt people, ...). Ideally you would fix that through communication, but we're also human after all, and have to deal with reality of social constructs and culture. You don't always have the emotional capital with people to just bail. Sometimes you're in a situation where you know that, were you to bring up that you'd prefer not to do something, the other person would immediately cancel to accommodate, even though the cost (emotional, not $$) for you to do it is lower than the cost for them no to do.
And then sometimes you enter a loop about something scary that you only do because your friends are in. A year ago I did my first major multi-day ski touring traverse. A physically and psychologically taxing thing, where once you're committed in it, you don't have a choice but complete (you can't ski down, you have to finish the loop, no matter how hard it is). I was scared AF, trying to find a good excuse to skip. It didn't and we did it, and it was the best thing I've done in all 2021. Talking about it afterwards, turns out we were all in that mental space, scared and only motivated by the fact that we'd do it together. If 1 person had emitted doubts, we would have all bailed. In the end, luckily no-one did.
So I don't think the idea behind it is necessarily bad, and I don't think you're a baby for not telling someone you're not ecstatic about something.
> The other day some friends and I were reminiscing about an app idea we had years ago that would allow you to “blind cancel” on your friends. That is, flag if you were open to canceling a plan, which your friend would only see if they also flagged it. Basically, it was Tinder for bailing. This was our ultimate dream: an official, guilt-free conduit for the quiet hope that your friend wants to cancel, too.
Extend the logic to tinder: is tinder just a mechanism to childishly avoid social discomfort (expressing romantic interest, risking rejection)?
I think tinder serves a second purpose which is the consent component. I think social mores around what is an acceptable romantic environment are changing. It used to be a given you might meet a partner at work. I think it's verging on inappropriate given changing gender roles in the work place, and that extends to other environments as well. You might assume a bar or club is an acceptable environment, but lots of people go to the club to dance and not meet someone.
I think there's some truth to that. On the other hand, it does allow you to connect with people that you would've likely never incidentally crossed paths IRL to express romantic interest in the first place.
Technology is a symptom; not the disease. We wallow in narcissism and convenience because of the relatively enormous wealth we, and our country in general, enjoy. Being able to buy just about anything that we want (at least some version of it), and being able to insulate ourselves in a tiny bubble of like minded people and thought has infantilized us. Technology -- enabled by the wealth of the Western world -- has enabled it, but wealth is at the core. We can AFFORD to be babies. So we are. Boy, howdy! We are.
One of the most neurotic pieces I've read; that said, I understand now that a lot of people are not comfortable with their identities, that they are still "trying things on"
Cornel West has this depiction of pity vs compassion, which I think is a good model.
Pity is a spectator activity - you observe someone from the outside, you sort of judge them, make a token action, and then feel good about it. Pity is the agreeable option. You go into the party alone because it's something you can do. You stay with your friends on the dance floor because you don't want to leave them there.
The feel-good is not necessarily the right metric, though. It's more of a local maxima.
The adult mode would be compassion. Compassion is active participation. You are concerned enough to change someone's situation. Going to the party alone is an act of compassion. It's uncomfortable but you're doing it because you think the host should also have a good time. You're not going alone to avoid the bad feeling, you're going alone because you want the host to have a better evening.
There's also the compassionate option of leaving the dance floor with your friends. If you really think your friends are being babies, then the compassionate option might be to all leave together and enjoy it from a distance. But it sounded in this situation that they might actually be having fun in the crowd (it's hard to tell). So the compassionate option would be asking them if they're fine there and want to step out a bit. If they are comfortable, then excuse yourself in a manner that doesn't guilt them into following.
The quadrants make it seem a little black and white, but I think the axes are off. I would put one side to being passive and the other to being compassionate. Selfish might also be a misleading term, because in this case, it's being compassionate towards yourself, where you're experiencing a lot of discomfort but your friends aren't.
The fact that most comment threads for this post exist baffels me... it's like... 'lets analyze confrontation and create weird uncanny formulas for what are complex and always spontaneous human interactions' I don't like it at all.
Reading this thread is surreal. If this is the litmus test for being an adult, we’ve really jumped the shark as a society (certain groups, anyway). It’s like watching a group of domesticated cats debate which characteristics makes them a tiger.
[+] [-] achou|3 years ago|reply
Invariably when I choose to behave like an adult I feel empowered and ultimately at peace with myself and others in the end. If I choose avoidance, resentment builds, and further avoidance follows.
The idea that avoidance behaviors can be selfish or agreeable cuts through much self-deception. This can be helpful when I tell myself "I'm just being nice" because it adds the proviso: "yeah, but I'm not being an adult." Which I could see being a really helpful inner monologue in those situations.
This is also intimately connected to the concept of "taking responsibility", which begins with not avoiding something which "someone else" might deal with so you don't have to.
[+] [-] bumby|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] h0l0cube|3 years ago|reply
There is a distinction between being 'nice' and kind. e.g., avoiding giving feedback because it's hard to do vs actually giving constructive feedback
[+] [-] yobbo|3 years ago|reply
This is as much a test of whether you are surrounded by adults.
In many situations, asserting yourself can lead to disaster socially. In these cases avoidance is in fact the adult thing.
[+] [-] jsnodlin|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jonnycomputer|3 years ago|reply
When I moved back to rural California, people thought I'd become a jerk. Took me a while to shift back.
[+] [-] mtalantikite|3 years ago|reply
In NYC people might show up late, but generally I find New Yorkers to be good at keeping plans and the city lends itself to spontaneity. In LA if the restaurant in the strip mall you tried to go to is full, it means driving to another strip mall and interrupting the flow of the night. In the city you can just walk down the block and change your plans on the fly. In LA I've had friends cancel plans to later find out they got an invite to some famous person's house. In New York, you'll likely end up getting invited along because who cares if you were in a movie.
[+] [-] schrectacular|3 years ago|reply
I went through a phase of tongue-in-cheek "quantum planning", wherin I would give my friends a percentage on any plan I was invited to. So if I was asked to dinner I might just say "60%". Needless to say this didn't go down very well with people.
There is a value to your word, and yes, it is more prevalent in closer-knit communities than in bigger cities, but I think that's because the cost of ditching a "friend" in a big city is much lower - after all there a plenty more potential friends to be had. But in my opinion someone who habitually breaks plans is giving a clear indication that they don't value their word and don't value the person they break plans with.
[+] [-] allturtles|3 years ago|reply
e.g. I had someone cancel plans made weeks ahead to meet up with me and my family at the last minute because they got invited to go skiing (this is in an area near many ski resorts, it was not a once in a lifetime opportunity). I just lost interest in meeting up with that person again.
I similarly dislike dealing with people who "keep their options open" by refusing to commit to plans until the last minute (e.g. RSVP-ing to a birthday party invite the night before).
[+] [-] deckard1|3 years ago|reply
Traffic. It's because of traffic and sprawl.
LA is massive[1]. If you lived in Manhattan and made plans with people living in Queens or Brooklyn or East Rutherford, you would expect them to flake just as much as people living in LA. If I only make plans with people in Santa Monica and I live in Santa Monica, they will probably show up.
The reality is that in LA you do not have subways that go everywhere. You also do not walk. So you interact with people that mostly got to that location via freeway and probably live at least 30 minutes away. Plans sound nice and people like to be agreeable, so they will say "sure, I might make it." And usually you do not get a strong yes. It's always a maybe. Because when the event rolls around, you're stuck deciding whether you feel like getting into the car and driving a good hour in heavy traffic or not. It's not because people are dicks, like everyone is claiming. It's because the city wears on you. Distance is measured in time, not miles in LA.
Also, parking. If you live in WeHo, KTown, DTLA, or Santa Monica and you're asking people to find parking, be prepared for lots of canceled plans. No one likes circling the streets for 20 minutes to find parking.
[1] https://www.welikela.com/how-big-is-los-angeles/
[+] [-] simoneau|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gernb|3 years ago|reply
Common experience for me, rural stores closing 15 to 30mins early (so from my pov as a customer, flaky, by not being where they said they'd be)
[+] [-] nlh|3 years ago|reply
I don't think the fact that lots of people do it makes it OK in any way whatsoever. If the culture is to be rude and flakey, you don't have to conform to that, and you don't have to accept that from others. I'm friends with some people in LA and we all know that flaking on plans is a no-no regardless of what city we're in / from.
[+] [-] mdoms|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mhb|3 years ago|reply
Nah. They're assholes.
[+] [-] erdos4d|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robertlagrant|3 years ago|reply
In this case the right people are those who don't think "plan" and "current best option" are synonyms.
[+] [-] j7ake|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ZephyrBlu|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] milleramp|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] langsoul-com|3 years ago|reply
Would be better to find like minded friends instead.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] ajkjk|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dymk|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gotaquestion|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mdoms|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] willhinsa|3 years ago|reply
> “It was a long day, we were playing live, and he was really calm and patient with me. He helped me to make sure that I told the story the right way. Less was more for him. I’m dramatic, so I have the urge to go over the top.
> “I was taking liberties, and he didn’t like that. He had to make a long walk from the control room to come down and put me right a few times.” When Bublé sang the line “I’m waiting on a sign”, McCartney called a halt and arrived in the booth.
> “Can you explain to me what you’re waiting on?” he asked. “Yes. I’m waiting on a sign,” trilled Bublé enthusiastically. “So are you actually on the sign, waiting?” asked McCartney, “or are you waiting for a sign?”
> Recounting the tale, Bublé hangs his head like a defeated schoolboy. “I’m waiting for a sign, Sir Paul.” He laughs. Bublé’s revived love for his craft is endearing.
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20220404134753/https://www.teleg...
[+] [-] playpause|3 years ago|reply
“Are you being a baby?” - Are you temporarily being a bit of a baby, like, at the moment? Could you maybe be a teeny bit braver to get through this current bit of anxiety you're feeling, and then we'll worry about the next bit tomorrow eh?
“Are you a baby?” - Is it possible you have always been a baby? Is it time to grow up, ie, make a real, permanent change to how you think? To start taking responsibility for managing your own emotional responses to the all the inevitable sources of potential anxiety that life will continue to throw at you forever? To break the cycle of weak/passive/burdensome social behaviour once and for all?
[+] [-] omginternets|3 years ago|reply
My advice to 20-somethings is to be gentle with themselves. The "boot-strapping, we-can-do-hard-things motivational speaker" talk isn't so much wrong as it is ascetic. As it turns out, you can be a responsible, virtuous and respectable adult without being so damn hard on yourself. In fact, I think I became an adult the moment I recognized that the child in me needed some care, and that I alone could provide it.
EDIT: on second thought, my wife provides a fair bit of that too, and I for her.
[+] [-] thrwy_ywrht|3 years ago|reply
People sometimes seem to imply that if we could just select the most appropriate types of language, and only express our true, heartfelt feelings, then our language will never cause pain.
But that's just not true. Sometimes your friend may also secretly want to cancel, but other times your friend will be hurt by knowing you want to cancel the plans you made together that they have, for whatever reason, been really looking forward to. And sometimes there doesn't exist a way to communicate your true feelings without potentially causing pain. Being mature and communicating truthfully cannot solve this problem. Often times the solution is to suck it up and stick to the plans -- but that has nothing to do with communication.
[+] [-] glitchc|3 years ago|reply
For the dinner party, it’s perfectly okay to be late if the lateness is communicated ahead of time to the host and the reason is a valid one. “Afraid to meet you on my own” is not a valid reason.
Canceling or ghosting is not a valid reason period.
[+] [-] allenu|3 years ago|reply
I've found that it helps to ask if the thing that I'm avoiding is something that is reasonable for me to accomplish and something that will help me grow, such that perhaps if I encounter it again I can handle it better. If so, I should take action instead of avoiding it.
In the case of the mosh pit example, staying in the pit even if you didn't want to didn't really give you any growth opportunities, unless you were really eager to "learn" how to mosh.
Going to the party when you didn't want to, although possibly awkward, was such a growth opportunity. It afforded a chance to flex social skills, and the downside was likely overstated. In the future, should such a scenario arise, the author can now deal with it much more easily.
I think we have deep feeling of "I didn't do what I should've" (and a sense of personal failure) when we choose to avoid action and we recognize that we've denied ourselves a growth opportunity. Our analytical brain may not pick up on it to form the thought, but I think we still know it.
[+] [-] divs1210|3 years ago|reply
Owning a Doink-it [0] is the only proof you're not a baby.
Why we are even discussing this is beyond me.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eb5sNjhItw
[+] [-] TameAntelope|3 years ago|reply
You may not even be wrong, but people have a right to choose how they feel about something, how something affects them, and the only way to know is to talk to them about it.
Attributing to someone a feeling or thought they themselves did not actually have is among the worst things you can reasonably do to someone on a daily basis without interacting with them at all.
I worry people don't quite realize how harmful this behavior is, or how often people do it.
The solution, as always, is to communicate. Just speak, using words, to the person you're inventing thoughts and feelings for. Often you've successfully detected something (we are social creatures, after all), but rarely are you right on the specifics.
[+] [-] fullstackchris|3 years ago|reply
My buddies are still working and living in US but I've been living in europe for the past 6 years... and I gotta say, the US has become so weird to me, especially super "liberal" culture, if you can even call it that. People simply don't know how to talk to one another anymore. It's fucked.
[+] [-] neuroma|3 years ago|reply
Makes me wonder though about how we inevitably generalise people's personal stories into rules of thumb. I'm acutely aware how one person's journey for an antidote to their personality dysfunctions isn't always medicine for another person.
If Hayley has dominantly anxious-avoidant attachment style it'd explain her ambivalence. The antidote is engage executive regulation (to supress the anxiety and flight response), and downplay emotional resonance.
Common a formula as it is, could be a muddle for you or I if we don't have her underlying predispositions.
What does it say about me that I wrote this.
[+] [-] irrational|3 years ago|reply
That you read a lot of self help books?
I have zero idea what “The antidote is engage executive regulation (to supress the anxiety and flight response), and downplay emotional resonance.” even means.
[+] [-] anarticle|3 years ago|reply
If you are going to anything: BE ON TIME. We have more reasons than ever to be on time or even early, live directions, maps, scheduling. Things happen and some times can be non-exact, that's totally fine. But if you're showing up 2h late to a show, or event on the regular there are issues you need to fix in your life. How did people without smart phones manage!?
If you cancel/try to reschedule a group event the same day, more than once, it is unlikely I will ever give you a concession on time or place in the future because you're a pain in the ass.
I've had these kinds of main character friends who will cancel on an event the morning before, then offer a reschedule that same day to a later or earlier time. Repeatedly.
This signals to me: "I am more important than the other people that are coming, so they should change their schedule for me." No thanks. I'll drop you a note when everything is happening but until you hit the mark I'm gonna disregard everything you say. It has driven my other friends crazy to their point they have asked me: "Hey what's up with your friend Emily?"
Other people have lives, just like yours!
Don't offer to come in the first place if you can't make it. There are times when you can't make it due to an emergency, and that's fine, car breaks down, relationship issues, work explosions, w/e.
You can be busy, or whatever I don't give a shit, it's your life sort it out. You can't do everything. You made too many plans: I don't care. You decided something else was more important at the last minute: This one is a guarantee I'm inviting you to less things. This seems harsh, but do this rodeo more than a few times and it will make YOU crazy. Also, "neurotic freak" is a weird way to write "jerk".
Probably there is a huge selection bias here as I have two friends that are now less good friends due to whatever this cancel algorithm is. I've lived it and fixed it! :D Save yourself a click, read Nonviolent Communication, and improve your life.
[+] [-] charles_f|3 years ago|reply
I think this is a legitimate social behavior where for various reasons you don't want to divest from a commitment (don't want to be an outlier, FOMO, don't want to hurt people, ...). Ideally you would fix that through communication, but we're also human after all, and have to deal with reality of social constructs and culture. You don't always have the emotional capital with people to just bail. Sometimes you're in a situation where you know that, were you to bring up that you'd prefer not to do something, the other person would immediately cancel to accommodate, even though the cost (emotional, not $$) for you to do it is lower than the cost for them no to do.
And then sometimes you enter a loop about something scary that you only do because your friends are in. A year ago I did my first major multi-day ski touring traverse. A physically and psychologically taxing thing, where once you're committed in it, you don't have a choice but complete (you can't ski down, you have to finish the loop, no matter how hard it is). I was scared AF, trying to find a good excuse to skip. It didn't and we did it, and it was the best thing I've done in all 2021. Talking about it afterwards, turns out we were all in that mental space, scared and only motivated by the fact that we'd do it together. If 1 person had emitted doubts, we would have all bailed. In the end, luckily no-one did.
So I don't think the idea behind it is necessarily bad, and I don't think you're a baby for not telling someone you're not ecstatic about something.
[+] [-] librish|3 years ago|reply
It's usually juggling:
- As a rule I usually end up happy I went to things in hindsight, even if I don't want to in the moment
- Empirically, canceling even once on someone significantly reduced the odds of plans being remade
- I want to see myself as the type of person who doesn't cancel plans
[+] [-] slibhb|3 years ago|reply
Extend the logic to tinder: is tinder just a mechanism to childishly avoid social discomfort (expressing romantic interest, risking rejection)?
[+] [-] mikkergp|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chestervonwinch|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DantesKite|3 years ago|reply
I can't tell you how many couples met because they drank a little alcohol to loosen things up.
[+] [-] jsnodlin|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] TheRealDunkirk|3 years ago|reply
Technology is a symptom; not the disease. We wallow in narcissism and convenience because of the relatively enormous wealth we, and our country in general, enjoy. Being able to buy just about anything that we want (at least some version of it), and being able to insulate ourselves in a tiny bubble of like minded people and thought has infantilized us. Technology -- enabled by the wealth of the Western world -- has enabled it, but wealth is at the core. We can AFFORD to be babies. So we are. Boy, howdy! We are.
[+] [-] douglee650|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] muzani|3 years ago|reply
Pity is a spectator activity - you observe someone from the outside, you sort of judge them, make a token action, and then feel good about it. Pity is the agreeable option. You go into the party alone because it's something you can do. You stay with your friends on the dance floor because you don't want to leave them there.
The feel-good is not necessarily the right metric, though. It's more of a local maxima.
The adult mode would be compassion. Compassion is active participation. You are concerned enough to change someone's situation. Going to the party alone is an act of compassion. It's uncomfortable but you're doing it because you think the host should also have a good time. You're not going alone to avoid the bad feeling, you're going alone because you want the host to have a better evening.
There's also the compassionate option of leaving the dance floor with your friends. If you really think your friends are being babies, then the compassionate option might be to all leave together and enjoy it from a distance. But it sounded in this situation that they might actually be having fun in the crowd (it's hard to tell). So the compassionate option would be asking them if they're fine there and want to step out a bit. If they are comfortable, then excuse yourself in a manner that doesn't guilt them into following.
The quadrants make it seem a little black and white, but I think the axes are off. I would put one side to being passive and the other to being compassionate. Selfish might also be a misleading term, because in this case, it's being compassionate towards yourself, where you're experiencing a lot of discomfort but your friends aren't.
[+] [-] fullstackchris|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drnonsense42|3 years ago|reply