13 ms·

We all suck at maintaining relationships

2 points by bajibs 4y ago

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bajibs 4y ago
I struggle with maintaining relationships, I sometimes feel like I'm not doing enough, or I'm doing too much. This applies to relationships with my friends and family. Especially my friends, we play this game sometimes, where it feels like they've reached out more often than I have, and it's my turn to reach out, or vice versa. Do you have suggestions on how I can maintain relationships and feel good about it? Things that have worked for you? Can you share your story?
marymkearney 4y ago
Re the website: I checked this out, I love the concept, it's super cute and relatable! I love the idea of de-guiltifying relationship maintenance. It's a thing we all struggle with. Gamifying it, and making it fun, is a wonderful idea. (Sadly I'm not the person to test this iteration. Houseplants are my personal guilt-and-torture machines. I realized this early, and haven't had any in decades.) But the plant metaphor seems sticky and attractive, especially for plant lovers who struggle with IRL relationships. A couple of meta observations. One, relationship maintenance is hard for everyone. We feel like "it's just me, I'm so anti-social." But it's not us! Everyone feels that way. Online social maintenance is overwhelming. Two, our self-criticisms can be distorted. I recently apologized to a friend for not following up on an email exchange. They didn't even notice, and certainly weren't offended. Three, the best strategy by far that I've found, for tackling social overwhelm, is ruthlessly pruning out guilt-trippers and passive-aggressive needlers. Seriously, 80% of my guilt was generated by 20% of my contacts. The mental peace from doing this, is many multiples of the small social loss. HTH. Carry on. It's a great concept.
- bajibs 4y ago
  Thank you for the kind comments and taking the time to respond. I'm just trying to get into house plants too, I hear there's an automatic water dispenser for plants, I'm hoping it makes it easier to care for them. Golden statement: "Online social maintenance is overwhelming", I've never heard it put that way before. I'm guessing my 80 year old father didn't have it as difficult as I do now, he does use Whatsapp a lot now though :) I guess being close to a smaller number of people and knowing what's going on in their lives, leads to more peace than being vaguely connected with a large number of people. Thanks again!

2 points by bajibs 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

I struggle with maintaining relationships, I sometimes feel like I'm not doing enough, or I'm doing too much. This applies to relationships with my friends and family. Especially my friends, we play this game sometimes, where it feels like they've reached out more often than I have, and it's my turn to reach out, or vice versa. Do you have suggestions on how I can maintain relationships and feel good about it? Things that have worked for you? Can you share your story?

marymkearney 4y ago

Re the website: I checked this out, I love the concept, it's super cute and relatable! I love the idea of de-guiltifying relationship maintenance. It's a thing we all struggle with. Gamifying it, and making it fun, is a wonderful idea. (Sadly I'm not the person to test this iteration. Houseplants are my personal guilt-and-torture machines. I realized this early, and haven't had any in decades.) But the plant metaphor seems sticky and attractive, especially for plant lovers who struggle with IRL relationships. A couple of meta observations. One, relationship maintenance is hard for everyone. We feel like "it's just me, I'm so anti-social." But it's not us! Everyone feels that way. Online social maintenance is overwhelming. Two, our self-criticisms can be distorted. I recently apologized to a friend for not following up on an email exchange. They didn't even notice, and certainly weren't offended. Three, the best strategy by far that I've found, for tackling social overwhelm, is ruthlessly pruning out guilt-trippers and passive-aggressive needlers. Seriously, 80% of my guilt was generated by 20% of my contacts. The mental peace from doing this, is many multiples of the small social loss. HTH. Carry on. It's a great concept.

bajibs 4y ago
Thank you for the kind comments and taking the time to respond. I'm just trying to get into house plants too, I hear there's an automatic water dispenser for plants, I'm hoping it makes it easier to care for them. Golden statement: "Online social maintenance is overwhelming", I've never heard it put that way before. I'm guessing my 80 year old father didn't have it as difficult as I do now, he does use Whatsapp a lot now though :) I guess being close to a smaller number of people and knowing what's going on in their lives, leads to more peace than being vaguely connected with a large number of people. Thanks again!