But in the same way that there are gradients of anxiety, there are also gradients of friendship. I do not need to be comfortable having difficult conversations with my coworkers. I can have difficult conversations with my coworkers if it's important, but there is no inherent virtue in forcing myself to go through that unpleasantness just so we can plan a board-game night.
Your view also discounts the extent that relationships develop over time. You do understand that immediate, radical honesty isn't how relationships work:
> Well yeah, if you lead in with that, that's pretty intense.
But you don't follow through with that thought to its natural conclusion. If I'm not going to lead with something like this, what you're essentially saying to me is, "you should be uncomfortable around our calendar until I feel comfortable having this conversation with you."
My understanding of your position is that if I don't force myself to feel safe talking about small things, I won't ever feel safe talking about big things. Frankly, I don't think that's a realistic or practical view of relationships, and I guarantee if you applied that standard equally to all of the other social graces you extend to everyone around you, you would not have many friends (deep or otherwise). I disagree that accommodating some behaviors necessarily means that relationships can't deepen over time.
Of course practicing vulnerability is important for relationships, but it is equally important to practice grace and care. If you show people you care about making them feel safe rather than pressing every issue, then they might eventually feel safe enough to trust you to be gentle when they're really insecure about something serious.
I've mentioned this elsewhere, but I deal with people who will get incredibly lonely or feel incredibly disliked if they're left alone for a long period of time. I'm curious, if I built a calendar app for my friends that reminded us every 3 or 4 days to call that person and catch up with them, would you say that's an unhealthy technological solution that's stunting the relationship?
My take on this kind of 'dishonesty' is that sometimes friends agree to handle each other's quirks and work around their specific issues rather than barreling through them head-on, and that doesn't mean they're avoiding responsibility or undermining the friendship. It just means they care about each other and want to meet each other's personalities halfway.
> Tolerating things is not the same as leaning into them so hard that you build an app around them.
I don't want to get too off-topic or dismissive, but I think this is a somewhat uncritical view of how modern relationships work among most 'normal' friends. We've built Tinder and designed blind dating apps to help people get around their social anxiety asking strangers for dates. People go to bars and drink substances designed specifically to bypass the restraint parts of their brain so they'll be less guarded with their friends. We've built apps like Facetime so that people who lack the ability to emotionally connect to written messages can get the visual and auditory signifiers they need to feel connected to other people. We build games that are designed to let people avoid boredom. We use online polls among friends to avoid conflicts around small decisions. We build bar-room trivia apps for people who have problems interacting with each other or picking conversation topics without 3rd-party intervention.
I pretty regularly go out of my way to build systems, use systems, and structure my life to accommodate behaviors that do not make sense to me, and I still manage to avoid thinking that every person with those behaviors is broken and needs to be fixed.
> But you don't follow through with that thought to its natural conclusion. If I'm not going to lead with something like this, what you're essentially saying to me is, "you should be uncomfortable around our calendar until I feel comfortable having this conversation with you."
No, I'm saying that your uncomfortable-ness around this is irrational until you see some reason to believe the person will lie to you, and if you're close enough to recognize that someone is lying about wanting to hang out, then you're close enough to have that conversation.
Making this about concern for other people is just a foil to avoid looking at yourself. This isn't about them: it's about your social anxiety, not theirs.
> I'm curious, if I built a calendar app for my friends that reminded us every 3 or 4 days to call that person and catch up with them, would you say that's an unhealthy technological solution that's stunting the relationship?
No. I think that's a great way for you to deal with forgetfulness to achieve a kind goal.
The problem isn't technical solutions. The problem is that this technical solution doesn't solve the real problem, which is solvable, and instead enables it.
> I don't want to get too off-topic or dismissive, but I think this is a somewhat uncritical view of how modern relationships work among most 'normal' friends.
Again, "normal" isn't my goal.
> We've built Tinder and designed blind dating apps to help people get around their social anxiety asking strangers for dates.
And while that has worked out for some people, I think you'd have a hard time arguing that it has actually empowered people to ask strangers for dates, or more importantly, to create meaningful connections.
> People go to bars and drink substances designed specifically to bypass the restraint parts of their brain so they'll be less guarded with their friends.
And while that works for some people, I think you'd have a hard time arguing that it actually results in positive, deep relationships. While deep relationships might involve some alcohol, the reasons they are deep aren't based in drinking together from my experience.
> We've built apps like Facetime so that people who lack the ability to emotionally connect to written messages can get the visual and auditory signifiers they need to feel connected to other people.
Yes, and that helps bridge the gap when face to face interactions are not possible--I'd view this as a positive thing. But it also can't fully close the gap with relationships where touch is important.
> We use online polls among friends to avoid conflicts around small decisions.
Do we? I've never even seen this, and probably just wouldn't respond if a friend spammed me with a link to some poll site. If people do this, I'm pretty sure it would be ineffective for that goal.
> We build bar-room trivia apps for people who have problems interacting with each other or picking conversation topics without 3rd-party intervention.
Trivia games are a way more complicated topic that fulfills a lot of human needs. I don't think (after doing a lot of work) that I have a hard time interacting or picking conversations, but I'd still be down for trivia for a lot of reasons unrelated to this.
I'm going to reiterate that a lot of the things you're attributing as solutions to social anxiety, would be better addressed by actually seeking help for social anxiety.
Surely, a much kinder goal would be to help that person deal with their anxiety around being abandoned? /s
> that helps bridge the gap when face to face interactions are not possible
Wouldn't those people be better served by seeking help for their inability to emotionally connect to others without visual cues? /s
> But it also can't fully close the gap with relationships where touch is important.
In a global society where you will almost definitely be required to maintain long-distance relationships at some point, isn't the reliance on touch for emotional connection the actual problem to solve? /s
With the examples I brought up, I wasn't trying to get your opinion on specific technological solutions; I was trying to point out that many interpersonal needs are not, strictly speaking, rational. Human beings aren't rational, and in many cases we're both fine with building systems to accommodate that.
> I'm going to reiterate that a lot of the things you're attributing as solutions to social anxiety, would be better addressed by actually seeking help for social anxiety.
You can say this about literally any irrational human behavior. Some of the behaviors I describe above are weird to me. It is weird to me that people feel like they're abandoned if they haven't spoken to anyone else for 3 days. I don't see how that person's insecurity is fundamentally different than anyone else's insecurity about overburdening friends. And while I admit some anxieties are so severe that they can become a real problem, in general when I meet people with anxieties that are weird to me, I just try to accommodate them. I don't usually refer them to specialists.
A bias towards normalcy means treating common insecurities as fundamental and essential parts of being human, while simultaneously treating less socially acceptable insecurities as problems to be solved.
> Surely, a much kinder goal would be to help that person deal with their anxiety around being abandoned? /s
Sure, it would be nice, but their anxiety is their responsibility: you're not obligated to.
> Wouldn't those people be better served by seeking help for their inability to emotionally connect to others without visual cues? /s
Well, these people are already emotionally connected, or they wouldn't care that they can't see the person. They'd be best served probably by being colocated with the people they care about, but that's not always possible realistically.
> In a global society where you will almost definitely be required to maintain long-distance relationships at some point, isn't the reliance on touch for emotional connection the actual problem to solve? /s
Perhaps, but good luck rewriting a few million years of evolution. It would be better to focus on solutions that are actually possible.
> With the examples I brought up, I wasn't trying to get your opinion on specific technological solutions; I was trying to point out that many interpersonal needs are not, strictly speaking, rational. Human beings aren't rational, and in many cases we're both fine with building systems to accommodate that.
Sure. But we should build systems that actually try to fix the problem, instead of enabling it.
If you want to fix people's social anxiety, a good solution would be to educate people on social anxiety, create better educational materials, fund research, and make help available to people.
What you're arguing for is essentially like giving a wheelchair for a person who is paralyzed by a curable, reversible disease. Sure, we have the technology and it would improve one small aspect of their life, but why would we not just encourage them to seek treatment?
> > I'm going to reiterate that a lot of the things you're attributing as solutions to social anxiety, would be better addressed by actually seeking help for social anxiety.
> You can say this about literally any irrational human behavior.
No, you can't. That's nonsense. We don't have tools to address every irrational human behavior. We do have tools to address social anxiety for individuals who decide to work on it.
> Some of the behaviors I describe above are weird to me. It is weird to me that people feel like they're abandoned if they haven't spoken to anyone else for 3 days.
I don't think it's weird. I also don't care about things being weird/normal, and I'm really not sure why you're bringing it up.
> I don't see how that person's insecurity is fundamentally different than anyone else's insecurity about overburdening friends.
I don't see how it's fundamentally different either. It seems like both people could benefit from working on their social anxiety.
> And while I admit some anxieties are so severe that they can become a real problem, in general when I meet people with anxieties that are weird to me, I just try to accommodate them. I don't usually refer them to specialists.
Sure, you're not obligated to help people.
> A bias towards normalcy means treating common insecurities as fundamental and essential parts of being human, while simultaneously treating less socially acceptable insecurities as problems to be solved.
No, this is not what I'm saying: if anything I'm biased against normalcy because it's boring.
I AM NOT saying people with social anxiety should seek help for their social anxiety because it's weird: I don't really think it's weird.
I AM saying people with social anxiety should seek help for their social anxiety because it would improve their own enjoyment of their lives.
You're assuming that I don't understand this: I do understand it, I'm saying that this does not increase honesty in your relationship, it just enables social anxiety. Even if people are really honest through the app (and I'm not sure why you're assuming they will be), this is enabling the overall behavior of not communicating their preferences and needs. You're fixing one symptom but exacerbating a larger problem.
> If I tell a casual acquaintance that I'm not feeling great about an event, 99% of the time they will say it's not big deal and cancel. They will almost never tell me honestly whether or not they were excited about it and really wanted me to come anyway.
a) That may be true, but that's their choice, not yours.
b) That doesn't justify you not communicating your needs.
> That tendency is not an introverted vs extroverted thing, it's just a thing everybody does.
I agree that this isn't an introverted/extroverted thing, but it's absolutely not a thing I do, or that my close friends do. I've met people who do this, but failure to effectively communicate is going to be a major hindrance to our relationship becoming close.
> The affordance here for me is being able to skip an awkward conversation where I try to convince someone else that I don't want the polite answer, I want to know whether or not they're disappointed.
I understand that, and I'm saying this is not a desirable outcome. That sort of awkward conversation is absolutely fundamental to relationships becoming closer. If you can't say, "Hey, I'm not feeling psyched about hanging out today" or "Hey, just so you know, I won't be offended if you don't want to hang out, and I'd prefer to only hang out if you're feeling excited about it", those are the easy conversations. If you can't say those things, how are you going to say, "Hey, I'm really feeling insecure about what that girl said to me yesterday," or "Hey, what you just said kind of hurt my feelings". The answer is: you won't. Becoming close enough to have a deeply vulnerable conversation like that doesn't just happen ex nihilo, it grows out of having less important conversations that require just a little vulnerability.
> It's not so I can lie to friends, its so I can express my preferences without worrying that I'm being lied to.
But you're not expressing your preference to your friends. On the contrary, you're avoiding expressing your preferences to your friends, out of fear that they'll lie to you if you express your preferences.
> Would it be better if no one, introverted or extroverted, ever hid what they wanted? Maybe, but I'm not convinced that's true. Could I sit down with all of my friends, one on one, and say, "you need to promise me that if I ask if it's OK to cancel, you will always tell me whether or not you're disappointed in me." I've done that with a few very close friends, but in general, I've found that kind of a conversation is a good way to creep out casual acquaintances.
Well yeah, if you lead in with that, that's pretty intense.
It's also a pretty big assumption that everyone needs to be told to be honest with you.
> Or maybe I should just change my personality to not care at all if I'm disappointing those people?
No--I'm saying change your behavior to get the results you want. If you want close relationships where you can be open, honest, and vulnerable with each other, then starting off hiding something minor like this is not the way to get there.
> Again, I cycle back to this idea that everyone hides preferences and insecurities all the time, that everyone has quirks, and that we all tolerate mild social lubricants that make friendships easier.
Tolerating things is not the same as leaning into them so hard that you build an app around them.
Yes, people make mistakes, and we should allow for humans to be humans.
> Except when those lubricants are designed for introverts, in which case suddenly they're problematic.
Wait, I thought you said this wasn't an introvert/extrovert thing?
> The problem people have here is not that they think politeness is the same as lying -- otherwise all of these commenters would have already joined the radical honesty movement.
I try my best to be radically honest. :)
Whether I succeed, I dunno. I'm certainly more honest since I started trying.