3 ms·

> A) the number of degrees of discomfort between, "I can talk about this any time with no effort", and "I literally can't talk about this". I don't think I'm u

> A) the number of degrees of discomfort between, "I can talk about this any time with no effort", and "I literally can't talk about this". I don't think I'm underestimating it, I just don't see any of these degrees of discomfort as justification for my friends not telling me their preferences when they're relevant to me. > B) how normal it is for certain types of people to struggle with this kind of interaction in general. I think you're making some pretty big assumptions about my experience in an attempt to explain our differences in worldview. Social anxiety is normal/common. But being "normal" is not a goal I have, nor is it a goal I think other people should have. The fact that it's normal/common has turned it from a personal problem some people have, to a social problem that most people have to deal with even if they don't have social anxiety themselves. The fact that it's normal/common doesn't mean we should just accept it as inevitable. This is a fixable problem. To be clear, I myself have struggled with social anxiety a lot. I'm not saying people are bad people because they have social anxiety--I'm saying they should address their social anxiety. This isn't some moral/ethical "should", it's something they should do because it would benefit them and everyone they come in contact with. For what it's worth, I wish I had addressed my social anxiety sooner. Working on my social anxiety has been some of the most beneficial work I've ever done on myself, and I've seen similar trends with my friends who have worked through their social anxiety. > I realize this is somewhat blunt and a little uncharitable, and I don't mean it as an attack or as a character flaw -- but in the general spirit of being confrontational and open: when I hear this, my immediate thought is, "this person probably doesn't have many introverted friends, and they probably don't have many deep, honest relationships with the few introverted friends they do have." On the contrary: 1. I'm an extrovert, but I tend to make friends with introverts, and I tend to have <10 deep friendships and almost no acquaintances. 2. I think you're equating introversion with social anxiety, and they are not equivalent. There are introverts without social anxiety, and and extroverts with social anxiety (I am in the latter camp, though my social anxiety is probably 90% fixed at this point). Extroversion/introversion is just a statement about how much social interaction you prefer, it doesn't inherently mean you'll have any anxiety about stating those preferences.

danShumway 7y ago
You're right to call me out on the fact that both introverts and extroverts are not a unified category. Very few people are purely introverted or purely extroverted, and there is no singular set of traits that anyone in that category shares. You're completely right. I use 'introvert' and 'extrovert' out of lack of a better word, because the connotations you have around 'anxiety' are also not representative of everyone who might want to use this app. But again, you're correct to point out that this is a very broad, kind of incorrect generalization. However, I do still believe that if you genuinely can't imagine being friends with someone who would want this app, you are in a bubble. If you genuinely can't imagine friends with deep, meaningful relationships using something like this, you are in a bubble. To take that a step further, while it's completely feasible that none of your friends fall into this category, I would very cautiously advise asking them -- because it's also feasible that some of them do relate and just haven't ever talked to you about it. On that note, if this app idea creeps you out, please allow me to creep you out a lot more. ;) When I was in college, a friend and I came very close to setting up a system I could use to ask them for favors. The plan was, I would send an email asking for the favor, and based on how much I needed it, a system would be given a 0-50% chance of not delivering the email. That way, if the email was delivered and the friend didn't want to do the favor, they could delete it without worrying quite as much about my reaction. And if I didn't hear a reply, I would be less tempted to read into that. I don't think we ultimately followed through (the payoff wasn't worth the technical work it would have taken to build), but there were a lot of policies like this -- there were a lot of systems that allowed us to gel, and that allowed us to cut through issues that would have made it more difficult for us to connect. Now, you could reasonably assume that the dynamics I describe above would contribute to a pretty messed up, fragile relationship, but to this day, I would consider that person to be the closest friend I've ever had, and I think they understand me as a person on a different level than almost anyone else I know. Far from being unable to communicate, there were a number of topics and conversations that (at the time) I felt like I could only have with that friend. I can't speak to your experiences, I can't speak to your personal needs as an individual, I can't tell you what's healthy for you. I can just say that when you imagine that people working around anxiety can't have deep friendships, you're wrong. There's a dimension to these relationships that you don't understand.

danShumway 7y ago

You're right to call me out on the fact that both introverts and extroverts are not a unified category. Very few people are purely introverted or purely extroverted, and there is no singular set of traits that anyone in that category shares. You're completely right. I use 'introvert' and 'extrovert' out of lack of a better word, because the connotations you have around 'anxiety' are also not representative of everyone who might want to use this app. But again, you're correct to point out that this is a very broad, kind of incorrect generalization. However, I do still believe that if you genuinely can't imagine being friends with someone who would want this app, you are in a bubble. If you genuinely can't imagine friends with deep, meaningful relationships using something like this, you are in a bubble. To take that a step further, while it's completely feasible that none of your friends fall into this category, I would very cautiously advise asking them -- because it's also feasible that some of them do relate and just haven't ever talked to you about it. On that note, if this app idea creeps you out, please allow me to creep you out a lot more. ;) When I was in college, a friend and I came very close to setting up a system I could use to ask them for favors. The plan was, I would send an email asking for the favor, and based on how much I needed it, a system would be given a 0-50% chance of not delivering the email. That way, if the email was delivered and the friend didn't want to do the favor, they could delete it without worrying quite as much about my reaction. And if I didn't hear a reply, I would be less tempted to read into that. I don't think we ultimately followed through (the payoff wasn't worth the technical work it would have taken to build), but there were a lot of policies like this -- there were a lot of systems that allowed us to gel, and that allowed us to cut through issues that would have made it more difficult for us to connect. Now, you could reasonably assume that the dynamics I describe above would contribute to a pretty messed up, fragile relationship, but to this day, I would consider that person to be the closest friend I've ever had, and I think they understand me as a person on a different level than almost anyone else I know. Far from being unable to communicate, there were a number of topics and conversations that (at the time) I felt like I could only have with that friend. I can't speak to your experiences, I can't speak to your personal needs as an individual, I can't tell you what's healthy for you. I can just say that when you imagine that people working around anxiety can't have deep friendships, you're wrong. There's a dimension to these relationships that you don't understand.