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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
I'm in my 40s now, but when I was very young I had quite a rough time living in shared accommodation. It was people reaching out and asking me if I wanted to go out, whether or not I could, that in the same way stuck with me as helping to deal with being lonely. I still have the memory of peoples kindness and this story reminded me of those kindnesses. It's kind of a beautiful memory to have, even when the times were dark.
My interpretation is that Alexei might well have understood that Anna felt lonely / homesick. The reaching out could well have been simply sympathetic and well thought through to help include someone. That's what people did for me when I was young and out of my depth. Those people probably helped steer me into a good place when it could've gone bad.
It's always nice to reflect on the kindness of others. :)
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.
This is also good advice if you're sensing people aren't as part of the group or team anymore, you...make them part of it again. Putting forth the effort (which may not be returned) of coordinating and including people is often the price of keeping a group together that you're leading or invested in.
It's a beautiful story, but honestly If Alexei really wanted to help Anna, he could've tried to ease her in their group, for example, by inviting her to a less stressful setting: a library, a friendly coffee date, etc.
Anna's behaviour indicates social anxiety grown into general avoidance (speaking from my own experience), and what's described in this story is the worst possible way to help a person with this condition. Alexei felt good about himself though, I suppose.
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 scheduling a call with me before" or getting a text 3 days later "hey what's up, I don't want to hang out".
He's a workaholic and believes his work is the most important thing (he switches jobs every 6-9 months) so the whole friend group has now just stopped trying.
For context, this has been going on for 10 years and about a year ago everyone stopped trying.
I think there is a difference between making it clear to a person they'll always have the option to join - and pushing that person to join.
Anna in the story did not express regret that she never joined. And as far as we know, Alexei wasn't expecting her to take his invitations either - because it wasn't about actually getting her to go to the party, it was just about communicating to her that the "we've stopped inviting you to our group events because you always say no" moment never happened and she was still a part of the group. That was what she had appreciated in the end.
On the other hand, what your group attempted seems more like a concerted push to change the person's behavior. Most people would probably reject that if they want to stay in control of their own plans.
> 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.
>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.
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.
Making demands about how you want to be contacted when the group has been trying to include you for years is a dick move at minimum. You can say sorry I'll call you back in 10 if you are busy.
Trying to dress this up as adhd/age/head of household (what is that even??) is just expecting the world to revolve around you
Everybody, who thinks this is OK, should think again - what if Anna genuinely didn't like parties, you at parties, music at parties or whatever else. Re-invating in that case is disrespectful, intrusive and even rude as all interactions need to be feedback controlled. Sure, any generalization will lack the subtle cues of context but its safe to say that this was an exceptional situation rather than representative.
People who seem to like this story for the feeling of warmth seem to me to be the similar ones as those who "save food" for the children of Africa - disconnection from the reality is huge.
I'm inclined to agree, this was a weird read. after the first few no's, there was definitely an opportunity for alexei to make it clear to anna that she was always welcome, but he was going to stop inviting her every single time.
this kinda ties into a more general blind spot for nerds on the internet. there's no obligation for people to include you in their personal lives (or vice versa) just because you vaguely know them. if someone chooses to do so and you want it to continue, you gotta reciprocate somehow.
Why is it safe to say that would be exceptional rather than representative? (Couldn't I just as easily claim it's safe to say it's representative rather than exceptional?)
Along a similar vein, I was working at a company. I was pretty much the gang leader for lunch.
One day a guy shows up at a desk. I dropped by and invited him to lunch, but thinking he’d say no. There was a considerable difference in our ages. But I thought I’d be polite and social.
He thought for a few seconds and said … sure.
He had the best stories. I have good stories. He had better. He’d been a dresser for Nureyev and traveled the world. He’d taught celestial navigation at RIT. He’d raced the Bermuda race and had a lifetime winning record against Buckley.
And he was dead three months later from the cancer he had that day. I can’t remember any of the lunch gang but I can remember him.
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.
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.
Also consider that maybe people do not want to party and the kind thing is not persistently inviting them, but rather actually find something to spend time with that person.
Not wanting to go out "to party" is not a moral failing, a problem, a fault, something which someone needs to overcome. If you like that person you can find something to do on a Friday night you both enjoy, if you don't then I doubt that you really care for that person at all.
We need more kind acts. It feels like these days are only focused on useless platitudes and complaints about useless platitudes, with all action taking a back seat.
Hell is full of good intentions, Heaven is full of good works.
Maybe she was just being polite, after several years.
"Friends" always invite us to their house. They have two large poorly behaved dogs, with no boundaries, and terrible hygiene. There is no way to explain, they love their dogs! So we always politely decline.
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 was last weekend", he said.
"Oh, I didn't get an invite"
"That's because you never come"
She looked shocked, I think she genuinely didn't know what to say. After an awkward silence she said, "but I liked to be invited"
"I'll happily invite you next year if you promise to come"
She smiled politely and walked away.
It was memorable to me because it was such a foreign interaction on both sides from my perspective.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
What does that mean?
My interpretation is that Alexei might well have understood that Anna felt lonely / homesick. The reaching out could well have been simply sympathetic and well thought through to help include someone. That's what people did for me when I was young and out of my depth. Those people probably helped steer me into a good place when it could've gone bad.
It's always nice to reflect on the kindness of others. :)
Maybe? Perhaps Alexei was just one of those rare people who treated everybody with kindness?
Either way, respect to Alexei - and everybody like him.
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.
Mind telling more about that?
Anna's behaviour indicates social anxiety grown into general avoidance (speaking from my own experience), and what's described in this story is the worst possible way to help a person with this condition. Alexei felt good about himself though, I suppose.
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 scheduling a call with me before" or getting a text 3 days later "hey what's up, I don't want to hang out".
He's a workaholic and believes his work is the most important thing (he switches jobs every 6-9 months) so the whole friend group has now just stopped trying.
For context, this has been going on for 10 years and about a year ago everyone stopped trying.
Anna in the story did not express regret that she never joined. And as far as we know, Alexei wasn't expecting her to take his invitations either - because it wasn't about actually getting her to go to the party, it was just about communicating to her that the "we've stopped inviting you to our group events because you always say no" moment never happened and she was still a part of the group. That was what she had appreciated in the end.
On the other hand, what your group attempted seems more like a concerted push to change the person's behavior. Most people would probably reject that if they want to stay in control of their own plans.
But yeah, might have misunderstood.
In any case, the guy made clear he didn't really want to be part of that group, so then I wouldn't keep asking him either.
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.
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.
All advice has limits. In this case, "telling your friends to schedule their calls with you" is that limit... and then some.
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.
Trying to dress this up as adhd/age/head of household (what is that even??) is just expecting the world to revolve around you
No, learn to be a decent person.
I feel bad because in a few years that person might get laid off and realize they don't have any friends anymore.
The group of friends is saying "you are invited" to someone probably disinterested - polite and inclusive to some, bothersome spam to others.
The 'workaholic' is saying "no thanks, and please stop bothering me"
The group of friends is stopping bothering him
Good clear adult communication, clearly expressing boundaries and gladly respecting them.
The author of this should extend his LibGen browser to consult Anna’s Archive and z-lib:
https://github.com/Samin100/Alexandria
No you don't, though. The conclusion is not logically justified, any more than the concept of a lucky streak at the casino.
People who seem to like this story for the feeling of warmth seem to me to be the similar ones as those who "save food" for the children of Africa - disconnection from the reality is huge.
this kinda ties into a more general blind spot for nerds on the internet. there's no obligation for people to include you in their personal lives (or vice versa) just because you vaguely know them. if someone chooses to do so and you want it to continue, you gotta reciprocate somehow.
It is very odd to read a one dimensional take like this, but this is hn, so I am not surprised.
It appears its not my take that is one dimensional.
I think you just have coined a new saying - "Always invite Anna" sounds intriguing, and yet at the same time very descriptive.
One day a guy shows up at a desk. I dropped by and invited him to lunch, but thinking he’d say no. There was a considerable difference in our ages. But I thought I’d be polite and social.
He thought for a few seconds and said … sure.
He had the best stories. I have good stories. He had better. He’d been a dresser for Nureyev and traveled the world. He’d taught celestial navigation at RIT. He’d raced the Bermuda race and had a lifetime winning record against Buckley.
And he was dead three months later from the cancer he had that day. I can’t remember any of the lunch gang but I can remember him.
If you can approach them and get rejected each time, then surely they can approach you for advice on how to approach a problem.
Which has an interesting scene the x-ray machines I think were flying overhead on these rails going between rooms
Not wanting to go out "to party" is not a moral failing, a problem, a fault, something which someone needs to overcome. If you like that person you can find something to do on a Friday night you both enjoy, if you don't then I doubt that you really care for that person at all.
Hell is full of good intentions, Heaven is full of good works.
"Friends" always invite us to their house. They have two large poorly behaved dogs, with no boundaries, and terrible hygiene. There is no way to explain, they love their dogs! So we always politely decline.
I think the moral is for everyone to be individually a bit nicer, not one friend group to support an entire community.