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.
It's probably just ego on the one side. That person likes to be invited to feel like they are the more valuable person in the relationship. If I were the other person I would make sure that invitation is never extended.
Who cares if they feel like they are the more valuable person in the relationship? Do you decide your framework based on mental games other people might play? Decide if extending an invite that is declined will cost you something (food, space, etc.) and whether you want the person there.
It's understandable, but in no way nice. One side is going to bring their authentic shy and antisocial self, and stonewall the invitations, while the other side needs to keep smiling and send invitations no matter what. This sounds slightly lopsided, doesn't it?
If you would like the other side to do you a small favor every time, it's worth considering to do the same. At least respond to the invitation with gratitude and a hope to maybe do it next time.
You can overcome shyness to some extend. Not getting invited anymore can also be a sign that the shy person has to change something about their behavior, instead of all others just accepting that.
Oh wow that is foreign to me, but I’m sure you’re right - Collecting invites you never intend to answer just sounds like… I don’t know, some sort of weird social hoarding.
If somebody I don’t want to hang out with keeps inviting me that doesn’t make me feel good about myself, that makes me feel anxious, like I haven’t properly clarified our relationship with them.
> That person likes to be invited to feel like they are the more valuable person in the relationship.
For me, I would expect the opposite - if you get invited all the time but never come, it’s because you’re not actually involved in their life, you’re not actually all that valuable. In order to be valuable you’d have to be making the effort to be present, or at the very least, communicating your availability so the other person would better understand when it’s appropriate to expect you.
I believe they were implying they don’t get social cues due to neurodivergence, likely autism. Hilariously you’re also not picking up on their social cues and implications, which is likewise telling.
Not reading such motives is not a sign of neurodivergence. If people are jumping to these types of conclusions, it's their deficiency. Plenty of normal, non-neurodivergent people refuse to read much into these things.
I've read a number of books on effective communications, and they all emphasize not to read into these signals, and when you do, to go and have a conversation about it to confirm them. I found, as many have, that the error rate is about 50% (i.e. half the time you read the signals wrong).
These books are for normal people - not neurodivergent folks.
It’s perhaps even more maddening than that. Even if all these factors are at play, it doesn’t mean they actually matter all that much to anyone involved. These two coworkers might otherwise really get along and respect each other, but this is one of the games that they are playing with each other.
On the surface, implicitly negotiating over who is more important sounds horribly dramatic, but it’s a game that’s happening constantly among everyone. Usually folks push and pull over some equilibrium point, one person making concessions, then the other, in turns, with the actual hierarchy determining roughly how many turns each person should concede before making a demand of the other. This is where you get dynamics like “he’s a very demanding boss but he cares a lot about his employees” (high amplitude of switching between demand and concession) or “she’s very sharp but also hard to get along with” (doesn’t concede enough to make others feel important).
Concession in this game can be anything, small to large, from being the one who opens the door to let the other through, to offering help during personal problems, to letting someone take more credit on a collaboration.
But, again, these are all played in the implicit layer. They can be raised to the explicit layer by having a “heart to heart”, like “you’re always so kind. I appreciated when you did XYZ”, or “I’d really like if sometimes you did ABC”.
Here's some advice: There will be literally never, ever, be a situation in your life when it is okay or even remotely appropriate to tell somebody else that "they're autistic".
If you figure that someone is autistic just make the accommodation you notice they need, because if you don't you are in fact the one being demanding of them to do the work to make the social thing happen on account of two people.
I had the same opinion and I am surprised by the amount of feelgood responses in this thread.
Anna needs to realize that the amount of people who have the time and willingness to invite someone out for _years_ while receicing no is very low. These friends need to be treasured and appreciated, and Anna needs to make an effort by saying yes sometimes, or at least expressing what she's going through. The friends are making an effort by keeping her in the group, she needs to do the same.
I came here to make a feelgood response and I’m shocked by the highly upvoted grumpiness!
“It costs nothing to be kind.”
Whenever I go anywhere or make plans to do something social, I try to invite everyone I can. You’re sending the invite already, the marginal extra keystrokes it takes to add someone is trivial. And even if you know they’re not interested, the invitation might bring them some joy, so why not?
Life is not a game where people build up points with you and you start to be kind to them only if they maintain themselves above a threshold.
You’d think that a crowd like nerds, with our famously awkward aspect, and the way so many of us were treated, would be empathetic, but it seems that the treatment has actually had the opposite effect. I suspect many of us have had “nerdy” bosses that were walking nightmares.
It didn’t happen to me, but that’s through no fault of my own. I had a lot of stuff happen to me, that forced me to become empathetic. If that hadn’t happened, I suspect I would have been a real demon.
> You’d think that a crowd like nerds, with our famously awkward aspect, and the way so many of us were treated, would be empathetic, but it seems that the treatment has actually had the opposite effect. I suspect many of us have had “nerdy” bosses that were walking nightmares.
The amount of nerds in tech is overstated and so is the absurd assumption that everyone here was bullied.
And second, a lot of what we call "not having social skills" is frequently an euphemism for "being mean and then wondering why people avoid me" situation. It may be unintentional in some case, it may be they dont see relationship between other peoples behavior and their own. But it is a real thing.
I think that the composition of “technical” people has changed, over the years.
When I was getting my start, it was almost exclusively nerdy white males.
That is no longer the case. Tech now looks a lot more like any other community.
Misanthropy is often a self-fulfilling prophecy. That’s different from social awkwardness or fear.
For myself, I’m “on the spectrum,” so high-stimulus environments are exhausting. That describes most social gatherings; especially amongst neurotypicals. It’s unfair for me to insist that they cater to my proclivities, and it’s also unfair for me to insist that they understand why I am the way I am.
One of the things that I learned, early on, is that I am the variable. It’s not something to be self-pitying about, but understanding myself, helps me to interact better with others. I appreciate it when others understand, but I don’t expect it.
> I think that the composition of “technical” people has changed, over the years.
I am old enough. It is not about changed composition. It simply never was true that everyone would be a "nerd" or bullied. Or even majority of us. Or that majority of the people in tech would ever be neurotypical. There might be more neuroatypical people then in teaching, but not enough to make it reasonable default assumption.
Some people were nerds and some people were bullied. There was overlap between those groups, but not perfect circle and it was far from majority of people in tech.
> Misanthropy is often a self-fulfilling prophecy. That’s different from social awkwardness or fear.
Yes. And what I had in mind was something kind of third. When I said "mean I meant literally "being mean": being condescending, telling people they are idiots, mocking them or their interests.
There is being awkward, which is socially punished. And then there is something else that is euphemized away as "awkward" so that we avoid saying something negative.
Well, I started in 1983, so things have, indeed, changed, since then. In the field I was in (defense electronics, then, financial hosting, etc.), it was definitely "nerdy white males." Probably for the first eight years or so of my career.
We also had a lot of ties, back then. Sucked. I did learn to tie a Windsor, though, so I guess it's not a total loss.
>a lot of what we call "not having social skills" is frequently an euphemism for "being mean and then wondering why people avoid me" situation.
Nah, Dunning-Kruger is in effect here. People are frequently far less emotionally-intelligent than they believe themselves to be, and will misinterpret the actions and intentions of others, often projecting onto them their own hang-ups, insecurities, and vices. There is also an erroneous conflation of comfort and prosociality, where someone who merely makes another individual (or, more likely, someone of the social group that individual is a part of with large amounts of social capital) uncomfortable is branded as "mean" or "an asshole", while another person - who is charismatic, but actively harming the people around them - is accepted, or even admired.
IME, "nerds" (frequently neurodivergent) tend to be observant, but have difficulty wearing social masks. This is where the above comes in: they actually have above average emotional intelligence, but because their attempts to be prosocial are considered rather than instinctual, they come off as "unnatural", their efforts are misinterpreted as malice, arrogance, apathy, etc., and they themselves begin to believe that they're socially-inept. Meanwhile, they are, unfortunately, surrounded by people who are often incapable of identifying or acknowledging this dynamic.
The irony is that this comment is meant to elucidate and inspire empathy, but it will itself likely be misinterpreted as condescending.
> who merely makes another individual (or, more likely, someone of the social group that individual is a part of with large amounts of social capital) uncomfortable is branded as "mean" or "an asshole"
I am talking about people who are insult others, mean, condescending, refuse to consider very real and practical needs of others as valid. These absolutely exist and they get euphemized away, just like you do it now, as "just being awkward and misunderstood".
You basically refuse to consider such situation, unless the person in question is also charismatic. If someone is not highly charismatic, they can not be jerk, basically.
> The irony is that this comment is meant to elucidate and inspire empathy, but it will itself likely be misinterpreted as condescending.
You are refusing to listen and read what I said, projecting some kind of completely different situations onto the one I described. That wont elucidate empathy, because you are simply not considering what I said in the first place.
> they actually have above average emotional intelligence, but because their attempts to be prosocial are [...] their efforts are misinterpreted as malice, arrogance, apathy
I will stop at "malice". If on ended up doing harm to others unintentionally, his/her emotional and social intelligence is not high. And if it was not unintentional or result of not caring about others, then it is what it is.
Same goes with arrogance. Someone is being overbearing manner to others or operates on the assumption that others are dumb so much, that it is noticeable. When others notice, their conclusion that he is arrogant is correct and valid. It is not awkwardness nor fear nor anything like that.
>I am talking about people who are insult others, mean, condescending, refuse to consider very real and practical needs of others as valid. These absolutely exist and they get euphemized away, just like you do it now, as "just being awkward and misunderstood".
I didn't say that it doesn't happen. I said that people are very bad at distinguishing when it does from when it isn't happening. The crux of this discussion is regarding when one should make assumptions about someone's possibly antisocial behavior, and I'm saying that most people aren't able to do this in a way that isn't itself antisocial.
>You are refusing to listen and read what I said, projecting some kind of completely different situations onto the one I described. That wont elucidate empathy, because you are simply not considering what I said in the first place.
Please consider the implications of the fact that I said "elucidate and inspire empathy," not "elucidate empathy".
>If on ended up doing harm to others unintentionally
Discomfort is not necessarily harm. You are likely to feel discomfort when you're wrong. That should be okay, as correcting that since of discomfort should shepherd you to a more correct stance.
If not, then there's an element of hypocrisy involved, as "nerds" (often neurodivergent) are frequently made to feel uncomfortable. They are told that this discomfort is natural and simply a part of socialization, even while they're the only ones made to feel this way (and often because of misinterpretations of their behavior or intent). This reservation of a right to comfort to a default group is an ACTUAL harm, as it's a tenet of many social ills, including classism, white supremacy, and caste.
Extending an invitation is indeed a kindness. But repeatedly declining them signals that the invitations are unwelcome and unvalued. It's really that simple. Relationships aren't one-sided.
Coincidentally, I just had a conversation with my wife about this. She likes doing girls-night with her friends, but she gets frustrated that nobody else prompts it. They always say yes, and they always have a good time, but she complains that it’s always her doing the inviting, and that it’s one-sided.
To me, a relationship doesn’t need two people to maintain and keep it going: it only really needs one, so be that one person!
I realize people are busy and have their own lives, but I still call, I still ask how they are, I still ask what they’ve been up to. Gestures like these are tiny, tiny investments that pay off in the form of a rich, robust social life.
Nobody has ever told me stop reaching out, stop trying, but if they did, of course I would.
In my experience, it takes two people, but they're not necessarily playing the same role. Social circles are maintained amongst pretty much any group that has at least one person who is willing to take the initiative to invite people to things, and at least one person who almost always says "yes" to invitations.
I tend to take a relatively Stirnerite view of it: As long as I'm getting more enjoyment out of hanging out with someone than the effort of inviting them, I'll keep inviting them even if they never proactively invite me to do stuff, because it's still in my self-interest. If someone always says "Hell yeah", or at least "Can't do it that day, how about this other day", then the negatives of slight inconvenience of planning are wildly dwarfed by the positive of hanging out with this person I like to hang out with. If they say no frequently, then I'm experiencing far more negatives (beyond the linear scaling of energy to invite per frequency of meetups, rejection is a big demotivator).
We're talking about different things here. In the linked article, Anna never accepts the invitation, nor does she propose alternatives. It's OK for someone to intiate contact more often than others, as long as the counterparty actually accepts the invitation every so often (or picks up the phone or chats or responds positively). That's not the case with Anna, who repeatedly says "nah" in the face of consistent kindness and consideration.
> as long as the counterparty actually accepts the invitation every so often
Per the article, the collegiate counterparty did accept other invitations:
We ended up hanging out quite a bit during those early months.
The social ritual in the article's title was specifically about party invitations:
“Why do you keep inviting Anna out when she’ll just say no?”
“I know she’s always going to say no, but that’s not the point. I invite her out so she’ll always feel included in the group.”
If it's indeed specifically about party invites and not other things, then you're right and I misread it. I wish the author were more explicit about that beyond just a fleeting line at the beginning "We ended up hanging out quite a bit during those early months."
My read was that Anna never acted like she's actually part the group because she's only ever shown repeatedly declining invitations.
> Life is not a game where people build up points with you and you start to be kind to them only if they maintain themselves above a threshold.
Be careful. It is trivial for others to take advantage of such selfless kindness. Ingratitude is common, as is sociopathy. Altruists often discover that the world does not reciprocate.
Is there any data on this? Ingratitude and sociopathy are not at all common in my experience. Differences in character, defensiveness, insecurity are more common already (and sometimes they look like ingratitude when you don't understand the other person's point of view), but the vast majority of people I meet are just nice...
And yet, at the end of the day, I always sleep better knowing that I put the effort in to be a good person, even if it didn’t work out the way I’d hoped.
I get the cynicism; it’s easy to feel like the world is just full of uncaring people sometimes. But, does adding one more help?
You aren't a good person for being subservient. You are a bad person, because you are enabling bad people.
Evil is in most cases a Yin/Yang system of abuser and willing victim. Both are dependent on each other for their common goal of creating evil in this world.
The abuser from primitive motives: "I have to do it to them, because if I'm not an abuser, somebody will make me a victim."
The willing victim because he thinks it's an easy path to be a good person: "I don't have to engage my heart and soul, just take abuse and each "point" of abuse turns into good boy points for me."
There is nothing to be admired about victims and the victim cult is a mistake. They deserve empathy and help, they don't deserve admiration.
Not at all. It's a reflection on human behaviour, in the content that the other commenter said that you shouldn't concern yourself with bad actors as long as you can later say that "you did the right thing". That can bring you to bad situations, as another poster warned about above.
Taking care to not be an abuser and to not be a victim is rather the best path, even if it demands more from the person. It's easy to just do what others tell you, but it will soon bring misery.
It's that hope that things will work out that causes suffering and disappointment.
"I'll be nice, and others will be nice in turn" is magical thinking. There is no such deal in place.
It's perfectly possible for others to soak up all that niceness and then suddenly leave without being equally nice in return. If pressed, they might even say they didn't ask for the goodness that befell them, they were just happy to accept when it was offered, thereby absolving themselves of any obligation.
> Be careful. It is trivial for others to take advantage of such selfless kindness.
What harm does is do? Altruistic kindness is not affected by the response. That's the point. Being "exploited" for kindness is not possible, it's not a currency.
> Ingratitude is common, as is sociopathy.
Source? If anything, most anecdotes point to the opposite, gratitude and kindness is extremely common.
My comment was not meant as a judgment on Anna, and if she's depressed, I would not put this kind of onus on her.
I was merely pointing out that most people who don't respond or always say "no" are not like the Anna in this submission. If I know someone who is in similar shoes as Anna, then I have no problem continuing to invite.
100% agree.
You'd start to think "Anna doesn't like us" and just move on. Despite what they're going through, some level of responsibility falls on them to express a sense of "it's not you it's me", if they legitimately do want to remain part of the friend group. Not engaging with the friend group is effectively the same as not being a part of it. If the "pleasant feeling of being included in the group" is the entirety of your involvement, it's actually a somewhat selfish and shallow position after a while. That's not to say that the group has to ban her, but at a certain point there is no valid reason to engage with someone (in a group context) who doesn't engage back.
If you have friends you think are depressed or have something else going on, by all means reach out, but thats not the same thing.
I knew a guy who had a clear "three strikes rule". If you turned down invitations three times in a row, you were told clearly that you weren't getting any more invites until you had extended one yourself. It's pretty fair.
These days I know a lot of busy people, so my softer version is, if I invite you to a thing and three times in a row you don't even reply, I'll probably just quietly stop inviting you altogether. I'm ok to keep you on the list if you make the effort to reply and explain why you can't come.
You bringing in the "three strikes rule", I'm reminded of game theory.
They have the famous (repeat) prisoner's game, where two parties decide to either collaborate or to screw the other party. People ran software simulations of various strategies, and the winner is: Tit for tat. In other words, you start positive (invite), and stay like that until the other person screws you. They you screw them once next time and turn collaborative again immediately after (no hard feelings).
I'm not advocating you play the prisoner's game on people, but it's interesting that people worked formally on something relating to this.
AFAIK the strategy was slightly different: You start collaborative, and then simply repeat the other person's last action. This means that, if they screw you, you keep screwing them until they turn collaborative, at which point you collaborate in the next iteration.
Yup. In real situations, one element is that sometimes things are misunderstood, and in particular sometimes collaborating is mistaken for defecting, so if all sides are playing pure tit-for-tat, then one can end up in a defect-defect loop forever (or, I guess, until the opposite misinterpretation occurs). Therefore, an element of forgiveness (some percent chance that you'll respond to a defect with a cooperate) can be helpful.
First year in collage is probably a rare case. Everyone is in a new environment and everyone's social group is quite limited. They probably know that they're Anna's only social connnection at the campus so the effort can be worthwhile.
I don't think you always have to invite every Anna to everything. Usually, there are somewhat natural groups that are relevant to invite, and you invite the Anna's that are part of that. So if I'm having drinks with colleagues, I'll also invite my colleague Anna, but not my former college classmate Anna.
Nowadays this happens even more naturally, as my different groups will also be organised in their own Signal groups. So I'll just send a group message to my colleagues group, and there will always be people in there that never go - but they're welcome to.
> your list of potential Anna's will be in the high dozens
Yes. The strategy outlined in the article works for college, but really afterwards. It's really creepy to constantly invite someone who has clearly stated intentions of never joining.
> 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.
By the time facebook has been used to plan events, your list of potential Anna's will be in the high dozens, because Anna doesn't use fb and it's too difficult to send sms's. You simply cannot keep this up with all the Anna's.
I have no idea what you're trying to say, but FWIW I never used social networks - at least not the ones you can use to plan events (LinkedIn doesn't count).
Alice and Bob are planning a party, they might invite Anna but don't want Mallory to show up and ruin everything so they turn to Facebook and create a closed group for party planning. Anna, being privacy conscious, doesn't use fb and expects to receive an invite on Signal. But Alice and Bob decide not to invite Anna because they're Danish politicians and Anna is against Chat Control.
To further the analogy, Alice and Bob decide on potentially emailing Anna instead but Zuckerberg is such a megalomaniac that he's overriden everybody's email addresses https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4151433
("But that's on Facebook, which Anna doesn't have" - true, but apparently syncing contacts with Facebook - something FB presumably often does automatically - will wipe out email addresses of your contacts)
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.