> 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 interaction" to "they didn't reply last time" seems to be an excuse to cut contact.
According to (probably dubious) tests, I'm not especially extroverted or introverted. But I make conscious effort to keep contacts alive, because I just like the human contact and keeping updated on people's stories.
It's also the case that people like to help, and will do so readily if you reach out to them, which is another weird hold-up in people's minds (can I ask this person that I kinda know about this thing? 90% of the time, yes). Just this week I reached out to people who were my primary school teachers for some advice, I kid you not. Now do I talk much to these ladies that I knew 30 years ago? No. Now and again I'll send out a short piece about how my family is doing, and that's it. But even if they read it and don't reply, chances are they appreciate it. Kinda like TCP, you can have an open connection even though nothing is sent over it.
Another case is that friend who sucks at staying in touch. I have a number of friends who are super warm and chummy when I'm near them, but they never take it upon themselves to initiate anything. Think about when you were a kid, how many people did you hang out with, vs how many people bothered to organize parties? It's like 50 and 4. So a lot of people will just wait for an invite, and they'll get enough that they don't need to do anything.
As for the logistics, I don't have a custom program to do it for me, it's just a Trello, plus FB and LinkedIn that I scan from time to time. FB tells me birthdays, so that is a good time to write a DM. LinkedIn tells me when they changed jobs, which is also a good time to update. And then Trello because not everyone is active on the other two. I'll also do a quick scan if I'm travelling, in case someone I know is at the destination, and I'll send out some emails at Christmas/NY.
> 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 even accounting for some relationships where contact is one-sided, maintaining the "last contact" column is going to be a real hassle, and I find it weird it's not even mentioned.
> Kinda like TCP, you can have an open connection even though nothing is sent over it.
I honestly don't think so. A consistent lack of response usually indicates the other person doesn't care.
> I have a number of friends who are super warm and chummy when I'm near them, but they never take it upon themselves to initiate anything.
And I do think that the best thing to do in that case is to tell them that they should make an effort to initiate contact. I don't need them to be on a schedule, but I'd like to think that my friends won't forget about me completely if I stop contacting them.
Again, I get that some relationships can be one-sided. But not all. That's why I find it weird that the system doesn't really plan for that.
> maintaining the "last contact" column is going to be a real hassle, and I find it weird it's not even mentioned.
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.
> 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 know, but if the tool stops being synced with reality, it loses value and in the end you can end up ignoring it because it's not up to date and then because it's not up to date it has even less value.
> 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.
But that's not a consistent lack of response, it's just someone missing one interaction. I imagine that if you write someone on new years and they never answer, at some point you stop sending them messages, right?
> They won't forget you but they also won't contact you. A lot of people just feel weird about it.
I do not agree, people might get used to the other person contacting and not think about sending a message, but I don't think feeling weird is common. Of course this is personal experience, so I can't know the universal experience.
> They won't forget you but they also won't contact you. A lot of people just feel weird about it.
Or lazy, or forgetful, or they never thought this was a "thing" (basically 0 initiative). All three apply to me, and I need to change it. IMO, the system outlined by the author seems worth trying (or any other systems that I'm picking up in the comments).
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 interaction" to "they didn't reply last time" seems to be an excuse to cut contact.
According to (probably dubious) tests, I'm not especially extroverted or introverted. But I make conscious effort to keep contacts alive, because I just like the human contact and keeping updated on people's stories.
It's also the case that people like to help, and will do so readily if you reach out to them, which is another weird hold-up in people's minds (can I ask this person that I kinda know about this thing? 90% of the time, yes). Just this week I reached out to people who were my primary school teachers for some advice, I kid you not. Now do I talk much to these ladies that I knew 30 years ago? No. Now and again I'll send out a short piece about how my family is doing, and that's it. But even if they read it and don't reply, chances are they appreciate it. Kinda like TCP, you can have an open connection even though nothing is sent over it.
Another case is that friend who sucks at staying in touch. I have a number of friends who are super warm and chummy when I'm near them, but they never take it upon themselves to initiate anything. Think about when you were a kid, how many people did you hang out with, vs how many people bothered to organize parties? It's like 50 and 4. So a lot of people will just wait for an invite, and they'll get enough that they don't need to do anything.
As for the logistics, I don't have a custom program to do it for me, it's just a Trello, plus FB and LinkedIn that I scan from time to time. FB tells me birthdays, so that is a good time to write a DM. LinkedIn tells me when they changed jobs, which is also a good time to update. And then Trello because not everyone is active on the other two. I'll also do a quick scan if I'm travelling, in case someone I know is at the destination, and I'll send out some emails at Christmas/NY.