Recently I had someone who was scheduled to come to an event with me and they ditched at the last minute. It wasn't a big deal, but I mentioned it to The Flautist and we had a really interesting conversation about it. She asked first off if the person who had ditched had given me a good reason. They hadn't, but I also wasn't looking for one. I don't even care if I get one or not - it just doesn't matter.
The Flautist, along with most people, seem to want reasons for things like this. It can be as simple as someone not showing up for a dinner party or as big as giving reasons for a breakup. In my head though reasons really don't matter; the only important thing is results. For example, if someone skips an event because their car broke down that would normally be considered a good reason, but skipping an event because you just wanted a night alone would not be one.
But I think both are perfectly fine reasons. If all the reason someone has is "I wanted to do something else more" then I have no problem with that. They should do the thing they want to do! The numbers are what matters. If I invite someone to 100 events and they skip 5 of them because they felt like having a long bath instead then they are still a 95% attendee, which is good. If they skip 95% of them because of alien abductions then they are a 5% attendee, and the fact that they had excellent probe related reasons for missing the events simply doesn't matter. I am going to invite the 95% person to events and not bother with the 5% person.
Since the reasons aren't going to affect my behaviour I don't really care what the reasons are, any more than I would care about that person's choice of activities on any other night.
Same goes for breakup reasons. If a person breaks up with me then it really doesn't matter much why. They don't want to see me anymore, so we won't see each other anymore. I don't mind if they want to tell me their reasons but I certainly don't have any great need to know. Especially in breakups there is the problem that the reasons given often don't reflect what is actually going on anyway. Sometimes people lie, sometimes they just say stuff that they believe but which isn't true or useful. Between confusion, self-deception, and lying the reasons you get during a breakup are not particularly reliable and since I am not going to try to overcome their reasons I don't mind if no reasons are forthcoming.
I wonder how many people are like me in this regard, and why I am like this. I think some people want reasons because they are afraid that the reason is "You are worthless and unlovable" and getting some other concrete thing is important. Having something else to blame, something concrete and exterior, can be useful. But this can't be the only thing because I know people who have a lot of self confidence who still want reasons for things.
Always I try to resolve these sorts of things by looking at my decision tree. No matter the reason, I am going to invite people to stuff a few times. If they mostly show up, great, keep inviting. If they rarely or never show up, then stop inviting. The reasons for their showing up don't factor in. If they never or rarely showed up but really want to see me, they will do something about it themselves!
I am curious if there are things I am missing here, so if you have information to share or opinions on why people give reasons, demand reasons, or how they think about them, please do share.
A reason to ask for a reason is to get to know the person better. Knowing that they need the night to be alone, or that they had to take a friend to the hospital, or that they went to a different kind of event...tells you more about them. It also lets them know you are interested in them, and gives you a chance to practice empathy.
ReplyDeleteAnother is to get a sense if the reason is changeable, an obstacle to hanging out that can be overcome and they need help to figure it out.
I would happily talk about the reasons if the person wants to. If they bring it up, conversation can ensue. My point was more about what to do if the person simply says "I can't make it". I don't like to pry in that instance, because them not providing a reason often means they don't want to talk about it, and they might feel uncomfortable saying "I just want to watch TV".
DeleteIf they want help, or provide details, I will engage. I just don't bother pressing for details or getting mad at them if no reasons are forthcoming.
I'm not sure of what I think of your primary point. I certainly like to have reasons, and maybe it's just to understand the other person's priorities so I can better plan invites in future (i.e. there's a difference between COULDN'T make vs DECIDED not to make it).
ReplyDeleteBut what caught me was how this would play with a friend who had social anxiety. If you don't allow for reasons, you may just stop inviting them and it could have a negative impact on them. It's a lot of meme tripe (I think), but there's a lot out there that suggests for introverts it is important to them to be included on invites even if they can only make it 5% of the time because of whatever reason. Maybe that's not a thing at all, but I think dismissing things without reasons for some people will lead you to cut people off that you might have just needed a little more patience with.
Not sure how coherent that was, apologies if it rambled.
I see what you mean re: social anxiety or just introversion. But I think the key is this: It doesn't matter to me if the reason is social anxiety, introversion, car trouble, or aliens. I will treat them the same way.
DeleteBut here is how I will treat them! (Which may alleviate your concerns). If I am organizing a party at a bar, I will happily invite those 5% people. If they show up, great! If not, still fine. But what I won't do is organize four people for bridge if one of the four ditches last minute 95% of the time. That would be crappy for the other three. The reasons don't matter, the logistics do. That is my core point.
I also feel like people with social anxiety would feel more pressure and discomfort at social invites where their presence is *required*, like a bridge foursome or a menage a trois. They are more likely to be happy with invites they can avoid or shorten as necessary, which is exactly the sort of stuff I would invite them to more liberally anyway.
Does that make sense?
My concern with your last paragraph there is that the big open flexible events are much worse for anxiety in a lot of ways. Sure, it might be easier to leave early 'as necessary' but the chances of it becoming necessary are going to be significantly higher. Something like a bridge night or a menage a trois is more concrete. One knows what to expect from such an invitation and can turn it down if that's not something they're interested in. The party at the bar? Who knows what's going to happen there? Who knows who is going to BE there? How much is it going to cost? SO MANY UNKNOWNS! SO MANY THINGS TO WORRY ABOUT!
DeleteIf I invite 100 people to a party, I don't need their reasons, I just need to know if they're coming or not so I can plan.
ReplyDeleteIf I have arranged a specific set of people to do something, and someone bails at the last second, then I want a good reason. If they have a bad reason, they are an asshole and shouldn't have committed in the first place. I don't want someone there who is reluctant, but I'm saying that you need to tell me ahead of time what the probability is that you're going to show up if it's less than the expected "100% barring some really good reason" which for me (and most people?) is the baseline.
I, and my other guests, have invested time/effort in the expectation that everyone is going to show up. If someone casually dismisses that effort on a whim, then they are free to value their time more than mine and the other guests, but that still makes them an asshole.
That being said, I also note the attendance history of people, as you do, and if people aren't reliable, I don't invite them as often, or don't invite them to events where a specific number of people are critical.
With regards to break-ups...that's a long time ago. I like reasons because I like to understand things and see if there was a misunderstanding or I've made some egregious error in some way. But I also acknowledge that people aren't always entirely truthful in those situations (or even when they skip out on an event at the last minute).
Historically, I've had people give me random reasons for breaking up, but either I could sense the waning interest anyway, or I didn't care about the relationship that much. It feels weird to me that you'd dismiss it so easily and I wonder if you're focusing too much on the "I don't want to convince/compel people to keep dating me if they don't want to" aspect. What if a friend stopped wanting to see you for some reason, wouldn't you be curious why?
I think that knowing the reason someone didn't show up is helpful in estimating the chance that someone won't show up in the future. You rarely have sufficient data to conclude with any degree of confidence "this person will show up 95% of the time" on pure Bayesian grounds. If I invite you twice, and you show up once, and I know nothing about reasons, I can only estimate that you show up 50% of the time. If you tell me "I'm really sorry I couldn't make it, but I had to take my brother to the ER", my estimate of your future showup rate will be substantially greater than 50%, while if the reason is "I noticed there was something good on TV, so I didn't show up", my estimate will be 50%.
ReplyDeleteBreakups are a different situation, because the reason doesn't tell you whether they are likely to break up with you in the future. I think people want to know the reason for two reasons. One is if they are sad that if the breakup occurred because of something they did, they may think they can avoid future breakups by not doing that thing. The other is that people don't generally break up with someone if they are happy with the relationship. If you're breaking up with me, there's a good chance I've done something that has made you unhappy, and since I care about you, I might want to know about it so I can apologize and make amends. This especially applies to the sort of breakup where you remain good friends, or become good friends again after a period of time.
I think the importance for reasons is that reliability is not accessed after 100 invites. But rather after 1-4 invites. Someone that bails last minute for 1 our of 2 invites to a bridge foursome; might be seen a too unreliable to invite to the next evening. Eventhough, this may simply be unlucky for someone who would attend 98 out of 100 reliably. The reason can make it clear if it was an exceptional circumstance or not. This should affect your determiniation of people's reliability.
ReplyDelete