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I think more than 0.15% of people feel guilt/anxiety about wanting to cancel plans last minute. I don't have any data to back that up, but it is a fairly common

I think more than 0.15% of people feel guilt/anxiety about wanting to cancel plans last minute. I don't have any data to back that up, but it is a fairly common emotion. 999/1000 people feel nothing when they have to renege on a social engagement?

derision 7y ago
No those people just know how to communicate like a normal human and say hey I'm really not up for it tonight let's reschedule. If anyone replies negatively or aggressively to that they then should find new friends. This is ridiculous
- bigiain 7y ago
  "communicate like a normal human" is a bit unnecessarily negative/aggressive there. Some people genuinely do have trouble with that. belittling them isn't gonna help any...
  - derision 7y ago
    Normal is a perfectly fine adjective. If you struggle with something like social anxiety by definition that's not normal. Not normal doesn't imply bad, it means not normal
    - ketzo 7y ago
      "Not normal doesn't imply bad" From a purely pedantic standpoint: sure. But, uh, I wouldn't suggest going around dropping that one in conversation with people you'd like to have conversations with in the future.
    - munificent 7y ago
      > Not normal doesn't imply bad, it means not normal "Normal" is derived from "norm" which does indeed carry a strong moral connotation. Someone who is not normal ("abnormal") is failing to live up to society's norms. There's a reason why people have been pushing against using this word for years — it has a negative connotation. If you're trying to simply say "statistically uncommon", then "atypical" or "unusual" are better neutral words.
- ericmcer 7y ago
  I agree you should be able to communicate with friends/others, especially if it makes you uncomfortable. You shouldn't be able to flee any situation that causes some anxiety. At the same time it is surprising that you can't even a little bit relate to the anxiety of trying to figure out how to get out of a social engagement. It is very reductive to recommend that you just 'find new friends'.
bigiain 7y ago
It's not just feeling guilt/anxiety though. It's that combined with wanting to avoid regular calling/texting/emailing type communication saying you want to cancel, and even then only in situations where the reason for cancelling is trivial enough that the other person actively looking forward to it is good enough grounds to go anyway. Could easily be significantly less than 1/1000 who feel guilt/anxiety and also don't have the communication skills to deal with it in ways an app like this would help?
- wyattpeak 7y ago
  What you seem to propose - calling/etc to establish that you want to cancel only if they do too - isn't a real mode of communication though. People are generally sufficiently polite that if you tell them that, they will cancel the plans even if they were looking forward to it. I agree that an app to solve this seems a bit overblown, but it does address a real thing which regular communication cannot. Communication skills aren't the issue, base human politeness is.
  - bigiain 7y ago
    I guess it depends on how direct you want/need to be. I reckon I send a "hey, we still on for tonight?" message to sound the other person out about how keen they are approximately once or twice a month maybe? (Also, I feel there's possibly an unstated thing going on here. If the only decider about whether or not you are going to go out tonight is being able to identify with reasonable certainty that the other person is (or is not) considering "bailing" on you, there could well be stuff going on that means going out tonight is 100% the right thing for you to do. Depression is a sneaky bastard, the way it makes you think sitting on your couch and arguing on the internet is a better way to spend your evening that grabbing drinks/movie/dinner/walk/shooting-pool with a friend. Even your friend _was_ vaguely considering bailing on you, it's super likely that spending time with them is a way better way to be happy than ditching them... Possibly for both of you.)
    - wyattpeak 7y ago
      No, you're probably right. "Are we on for tonight" is within a rounding error of what I was talking about. I think the depression is a reasonable call. I think a lot of people also feel altogether too concerned about others' wants at the expense of their own. Both of those probably don't need an app to encourage them.

derision 7y ago

No those people just know how to communicate like a normal human and say hey I'm really not up for it tonight let's reschedule. If anyone replies negatively or aggressively to that they then should find new friends. This is ridiculous

bigiain 7y ago
"communicate like a normal human" is a bit unnecessarily negative/aggressive there. Some people genuinely do have trouble with that. belittling them isn't gonna help any...
- derision 7y ago
  Normal is a perfectly fine adjective. If you struggle with something like social anxiety by definition that's not normal. Not normal doesn't imply bad, it means not normal
  - ketzo 7y ago
    "Not normal doesn't imply bad" From a purely pedantic standpoint: sure. But, uh, I wouldn't suggest going around dropping that one in conversation with people you'd like to have conversations with in the future.
  - munificent 7y ago
    > Not normal doesn't imply bad, it means not normal "Normal" is derived from "norm" which does indeed carry a strong moral connotation. Someone who is not normal ("abnormal") is failing to live up to society's norms. There's a reason why people have been pushing against using this word for years — it has a negative connotation. If you're trying to simply say "statistically uncommon", then "atypical" or "unusual" are better neutral words.
ericmcer 7y ago
I agree you should be able to communicate with friends/others, especially if it makes you uncomfortable. You shouldn't be able to flee any situation that causes some anxiety. At the same time it is surprising that you can't even a little bit relate to the anxiety of trying to figure out how to get out of a social engagement. It is very reductive to recommend that you just 'find new friends'.

bigiain 7y ago

It's not just feeling guilt/anxiety though. It's that combined with wanting to avoid regular calling/texting/emailing type communication saying you want to cancel, and even then only in situations where the reason for cancelling is trivial enough that the other person actively looking forward to it is good enough grounds to go anyway. Could easily be significantly less than 1/1000 who feel guilt/anxiety and also don't have the communication skills to deal with it in ways an app like this would help?

wyattpeak 7y ago
What you seem to propose - calling/etc to establish that you want to cancel only if they do too - isn't a real mode of communication though. People are generally sufficiently polite that if you tell them that, they will cancel the plans even if they were looking forward to it. I agree that an app to solve this seems a bit overblown, but it does address a real thing which regular communication cannot. Communication skills aren't the issue, base human politeness is.
- bigiain 7y ago
  I guess it depends on how direct you want/need to be. I reckon I send a "hey, we still on for tonight?" message to sound the other person out about how keen they are approximately once or twice a month maybe? (Also, I feel there's possibly an unstated thing going on here. If the only decider about whether or not you are going to go out tonight is being able to identify with reasonable certainty that the other person is (or is not) considering "bailing" on you, there could well be stuff going on that means going out tonight is 100% the right thing for you to do. Depression is a sneaky bastard, the way it makes you think sitting on your couch and arguing on the internet is a better way to spend your evening that grabbing drinks/movie/dinner/walk/shooting-pool with a friend. Even your friend _was_ vaguely considering bailing on you, it's super likely that spending time with them is a way better way to be happy than ditching them... Possibly for both of you.)
  - wyattpeak 7y ago
    No, you're probably right. "Are we on for tonight" is within a rounding error of what I was talking about. I think the depression is a reasonable call. I think a lot of people also feel altogether too concerned about others' wants at the expense of their own. Both of those probably don't need an app to encourage them.