I see how it might look like that, but you are missing a critical point.

Everyone is different. What comes naturally to some doesn't come naturally to others.

For a lot of people (me included) keeping in touch with others doesn't come "naturally". We miss contact, and yet we sheldom establish it. There are many reasons for this: poor time management skills, low self-esteem, simple lack of practice, etc. In any case, it takes effort to break out of it.

Try to think about something that others do, and that you would like to do, but is difficult for you. Exercise, learn a new language, go to bed earlier, eat more healthily... whatever. This might give you a perspective of what it is like to have this "friction".

I see what this person is doing as a way to remove the friction and create a new habit. I have no doubt that when "they gets the thing rolling" with someone it will gradually easy to keep engaged without the machine "dictating" anything.

> We miss contact, and yet we sheldom establish it.

That's me.

that's why my friends are the ones who contact me.

they are my reminder.

if I start contacting them now, they would think I am going to die soon.

> I see what this person is doing as a way to remove the friction and create a new habit

It doesn't work like that though.

It's not like using an alarm to wake up at a certain hour and suddenly you realize your sleep cycle has adapted, what this person is doing is more like a grocery list, you'll never stop needing one, if you needed one in the first place.

Moreover, the simple fact that people are in different lists and lists have to be maintained and updated, it makes it more like a job than a habit.

I have a friend like that. Whenever we meet we have fun, but she never contacts me. She tells me that's just how she is with everyone, and that she really likes hanging out, she just doesn't initiate, which is fair, but it still feels like she doesn't value me, no matter how much I logically know otherwise.

These days I try to override the feeling and initiate first, because I know that she really does want to hang out, but the feeling is deeply ingrained and hard to shake.

What I'm basically saying is that maybe you should try a bit more, because this way has certainly lost you a few friends over the years. Maybe it works for you, though, no judgment.

I called my best friend this January, because I hadn't spoken to him in months or years.

I decided to do it. It didn't come naturally.

He was happy I called.

I don't know next time we'll call because none of us are the kind who does call for no good reason (maybe a reason why we like each other ; - )

The reality check is that people who do proactively contact others need to put effort into it. And if you are not willing to reciprocate, eventually they figure out it is not fair to them. They tend to eventually gravitate toward those that do put effort into it too.

You are rationalizing your selfishness and laziness. Relationships are a two-way street.

I think you deserve an answer, even if people are downvoting you:

I guess you are not completely aware that you just said that my friends are stupid because they accept to be mistreated by someone who's selfish an lazy.

But guess what, friendship in not only a two way street, it's also usually a non overlapping set of different personalities.

A friend is that person that has those qualities you miss, that kinda completes you, and vice versa.

And is that person that accepts you for being you, exactly you, not some imaginary version of you.

What I miss in something, I compensate with something else that my friends miss.

Easy as that.

Rest assured that if they wanted me to call them more, they'd tell me.

p.s. If you don't accept as a friend someone who doesn't call you as often as you do, you have a simple choice: find people like you.

My friends don't mind and after almost 30 years, I don't think they will suddenly start.

Then why do they frame connection in terms of a habit that yields "unlimited upside" and prevents you from missing out on opportunities?

You are absolutely right that people are different, but this person comes across a little transactional and an exemplar of the Zuckerborg meme.

The kind of person who needs a process like that would most likely also need a very strong push to follow through with it. Chances are cosplaying entrepreneur lingo is the nth iteration in a long line of attempts to convince themselves, new year's resolutions and the like, with all of the more dignified approaches having utterly failed.

I'm in the same boats, both of them: the author's, failing to keep in touch and being aware of it, and yours, being intuitively revulsed by the systematic approach. I even refuse taking part in that weird ritual of Facebook birthday wishes, because I consider it somewhat dishonest to congratulate when I didn't remember myself.

> and miss out on a ton of fun and opportunities.

This is the actual sentence you are referring to and it seems omitting the "ton of fun" part is a bit disingenuous as it clearly stands against this perceived technocratic and opportunistic use of people. The word "opportunity" is not used any other time in the article, by the way.

I think you might be overblowing things. The quotes are:

> Staying in touch [...] require[s] little effort, time and resources but has an unlimited upside

In this case the "unlimited upside" is set in contraposition to the amount of effort it requires. It might not exactly true (it's not "unlimited") but it's "big".

> Unfortunately, for most people (me included) this isn’t something that happens naturally. So unless you have a solid system, chances are high that you won’t reach out to people regularly and miss out on a ton of fun and opportunities.

What puts it in context for me is that first one in the second quote: this article is addressing people with difficulties keeping in touch. If you're not that, the article is not for you, and at's ok.

Once that's clear, the other phrases read to me like motivational speech - for others and for the author themselves.

If the article was about weight lifting, it would start by talking about the health benefits it can bring.

A lot of friendships are (mutually) beneficial. Others are more neutral, and yes, some are pernicious. But you are not going to get people motivated to maintain them or make new ones if you lead with that. That'd be starting the weight lifting article by listing all the different injuries you can get.

> Zuckerborg meme.

I think you might be showing a lack of empathy here.

Why is it wrong to see a good friendship as very valuable?

Because valuing close friends through the lens of what personal gain they may yield is more than a little sociopathic?

Why? Happiness and valuable shared experiences are also gains.

What about my alcoholic friend I've known for 20 years that is destroying his life and lashing out at me right now because he is sick? Or my heavily depressed friend of 30 years who I sat with on the weekend? Not everything is about extracting maximum personal happiness. Friendship can also be about service.

If you care about these people then presumably it does make you happier in the long term to let them know that you care about them. Especially if it's not that pleasant in the moment I imagine having a system to remind you could be helpful.

So we should become friends with people we don't value? Like random people on the street? It's a good idea, but would be exhausting.

At no point does he talk about making everyone into a deep friend. I guess english language is just incapable of explaining it due to not enough words to express the spectrum?

Do note that he has different "frequency" categories (which don't have to map to "type of friendship" same way even in that one database!).

Some are just people he is interested in meeting, maybe keeping in light contact over time. Some more often. Some so often that he actually pushes his schedule to ensure regular time for meetings, something that can be ridiculously hard even without crippling anxiety.

Oh actually I really agree with you and the OP. I was responding more to the parent post.

I think it's ok to just partition our lives into friends we value -- and largely ignore others. We'd be insane otherwise. So long as we remember to keep a general humanistic value for the man (or woman or trans or define-it-yourself) on the street...

As I get older I find it hard to even KEEP UP with normal friends flung far away and separated by the distance of time. Not everyone will agree with the OP, but I'm always impressed with old friends from 20 years ago that still keep contact.

Something to consider.

Considering my own issues, this system makes me envious, specifically because of how hard it is to ensure to call and talk or message etc.

That said, the system I guess shows dual-use case of CRM technology ;)

A CRM for long lost friends would be handy...

I've seen a comedian interview saying that friendship wasn't a natural sense, and with age he had to train himself a bit too maintain things. We all have various levels and have to find our ways to improve.

He didn’t talk about friends you are. Still you can safely assume most of the people in the three weeks category are close contacts.

Unless you are in college and have little to no obligations, it gets hard to stay in touch with all your friends and keep track of what is happening to them. It’s not treating people like assets. He is putting efforts on his side towards keeping connections and to do that he needs tools to help.

What does it change that he uses reminder to think about reaching out? In the end he is still the one doing work towards fostering relationships.

I think there are two sides to this: scheduling the contact and triggering the thought to contact. The first one is ok, we schedule things we care about all the time. The second one is the weird one, and to me the OP is more about the second part.

If your problem is that you're busy doing things, an email in the morning (probably not the only one you have) is not going to help too much. Contacts will still get delayed in favor of other things. To me, the OP system reads like a system that doesn't help with scheduling, but with triggering the thoughts.

For example, say that a friend tells me they're going through a rough time and I want to spend some time talking to them, but I'm busy and don't have that much time. The system doesn't have a "contact NOW" trigger, for example.

I also find it weird that there's a "three week contact" category. I'd guess that for close contacts, something reminds you of them every once in a while, you probably don't need anything more than "hey what's up" in a message so you can send it whenever, and they probably also contact you frequently. I don't think the system would be helpful in those cases (mainly because the DB and the actual contacts would quickly desync and the reminders would not be on time and appropriate) so I'm left wondering what's happening there.

The author explicitly says the goal of this work is for opportunities

From the article:

> Most importantly, I always send the kind of messages I’d like to receive. They’re short, genuine, and (ideally) helpful. I never try to sell anything and there’s no agenda other than to keep in touch.

You might've read that:

> So unless you have a solid system, chances are high that you won’t reach out to people regularly and miss out on a ton of fun and opportunities.

but intentionally miss the fun part and treat "opportunities" only in thebusiness context and do not allow for alternative interpretations like intellectual or personal development.

The author says it’s the easiest and most effective way to make your life more serendipitous and that if you don’t you will miss on fun and opportunities which is very true. I never go have coffee or enjoy unforeseen activities with people I don’t speak to. Having a large network of lively relationship is indeed a sure way to have more things happening in your life. Also people enjoy other people reaching out to them. Once again there is nothing unusable in what OP is doing. Having tools to help you keep in touch with people is a necessity in any position where you need to maintain good relationships with a large number of people. It takes effort and is a good thing.

Yes - opportunities for house parties, for new flatmates. For joining a D&D group, or a sports team. Maybe for a new job, or a new hire. Or even a future partner.

I don't read it as being the goal. More like one of his motivations.

"if you cared, you'd remember"

glad you have this experience, i dont think all of us do. i care deeply but seem to forget people exist and that makes me sad and dislike myself. i wish i could just remember. id still have so many friends if i did.

Similarly I often think of my friends plus wider circle, but I‘m terribly unorganized except I make a conscious effort. That means writing things down, set reminders and so on. Love and organization of social life are orthogonal.

>but I‘m terribly unorganized

I really should call XY is such a common thought that fades away a second later. Even if it's someone I am really fond of. If they're not in my immediate circle, it's going to be additional work to keep that relationship alive.

Putting it on my calendar or as a reminder actually makes me reach out to that person. Win-win. If anything, this shows me _caring_ about someone. Many of these conversations with the people I have in mind often start where we left off too - no matter how many weeks or months in between - which makes me think this all is not about a lack of connection.

This reminds me of anecdotes from... Time Management for System Administrators, by Tom Limoncelli. He talks exactly about "Won't people think I don't care if I have to write it down in a diary?" and mentions how, at least in his experience when reaching for diary for everything, people actually reacted positively - the extra effort of ensuring a note was made, calendar appointment created, schedule arranged made them feel that he was willing to spend some effort on them, instead of just doing the minimum.

> I really should call XY is such a common thought that fades away a second later.

This is exactly right. I am constantly thinking of people that I should get in touch with, but never at a time that would actually be appropriate to do so. It'll be the random work-day thought that disappears by the time I'm done, or it will be sometime unreasonably late.

You're not the only one bro. I am pretty sure its not just us two either. Dont feel too hard on your self, but use that energy towards staying in contact. Write a list of people to talk to, etc.

Well, then ... why did you forget, when you (believe you've) actually cared?

There's poor memory, depression, ADHD, low-level addiction, social anxiety, poor memory and a great number of other things that can keep one from contacting friends.

There are many people in this thread who clearly do care and have trouble doing/remembering, so I'm not sure why you'd choose to respond this way to someone you're more likely to hurt.

Yeah, it's seems like poor empathy or a lack of imagination or life experience to not be able to conceive how people can forget things they care about. We'd all do well to remember that any given thing that's easy for us might be difficult for someone else, and not necessarily through some personal failing on their part.

Also, I see what you did there. :)

Do you know that Time Management Matrix with urgent/non-urgent on one side and important/not-important on the other?

Most of the time, life pushes us towards the urgent & important, and even urgent & not-important. When you have a busy life (full time job building a side business with a family with kids), it's just very hard to put the non-urgent & important on the agenda.

Not all things that are important are urgent.

This reads a bit like asking a depressed person why they don't just stop being sad.

Well, life?

Just managing your own home requires a lot of organisation, and even if you do care, you will have a hard time to cope for long without some tools to help you (calendars, notes, schedules, only to name those). Unless someone does it for you. Or unless you live a very simple life that can fit in your head all the time, of course.

Likewise, seeing your friends fading away, not responding to you might be because they've just forgotten you, or don't want to see you anymore, or they are just drowning in their own life. And maybe with time they will cope/react differently, maybe not.

Considering that friendship/care only can be spontaneous and not prepared/provisional, this is disingenuous and borderline toxic (to both you and others).

You think you're promoting care but you come off as extremely obnoxious and the kind of person I certainly wouldn't want as a friend.

why does anyone forget?

> If there were friends, he'd not need to be reminded of contacting them.

No, things just slip your mind, especially if there are a lot of other things going on in life.

People forget to take medications that when not taken lead to psychotic breaks. It isn't because they don't care about being sane.

People forget their kids in cars. They didn't casually want them dead of overheating.

I have friends that when time allows, we speak to each other for hours every day. When time allows. Plenty of times one or the other has forgotten that the other existed for a few weeks.

Things get forgotten.

I don't think the comparison is apt.

I think this is something that's being glossed over completely: friendships are two-way, and also flexible. It's not a medication that needs to be taken on a schedule, and it's not a kid that completely depends on you to do things. I don't think a relationship that's only alive because of scheduled contacts can be called a friendship.

I'm not sure I agree with your take here, it's rather uncharitable.

I've lost touch with friends because I failed to do this sort of thing, it's easy to not keep up with people when there is no immediate driver or common interest (perhaps I'm atypical or neurodivergent) this is multiplied when you leave a country and no longer see some people on a regular basis.

A system like this would ensure my forgetful nature doesn't kick in and give me that reason I need just to check in on someone I actually care about but haven't had the opportunity to speak to in a while.

How do you manage to lose touch with friends? Did you not miss them?

If you did, why didn't you contact them?

If you didn't, why do you care?

One can not forget about friends, one can only stop caring.

I grew up moving a lot before email was ubiquitous.

Also all my family is overseas.

As a kid I would try so hard to stay in touch and it never worked. The harder I tried the more it hurt for those attempts to fail.

But I'd see family once a year or so and we'd catch up and it was always wonderful.

I think about people all the time, but it doesn't trigger my reaching out.

It's like a really deeply ingrained learned helplessness or generalized relational despair.

Some people for a variety of reasons, some cognitive, some environmental, don't have their internal desires intrinsically tied to the psychological pressure to take action.

Due to surgeries and anesthesia I also developed aphantasia, so anything short of in person interactions feels quite hollow.

Be glad your experience in life is healthy and normative, for some of us it takes effort.

It’s not about forgetting. I don’t forget my friends, but at the same time life happens. Kids, work obligations, relationships. It’s easy to forget to reach out to friends or acquaintances. Easy to underestimate when the last time you made contact. That’s just life.

Agreed. Sometimes life just gets in the way and if something isn't urgent or can be put off for a few days in order to handle the immediate and now it is easy to forgot what isn't right in front of you.

I'm sure most have the best of intentions that they will reach out to friends and keep in touch, but the best laid plans of mice and men...I don't see why having a system to do this so bad?

> One can not forget about friends, one can only stop caring.

You seem to use forgetting in a sense that is akin to erasing a person from your past, as if they never existed. That’s very drastic. People do forget to reach out not necessarily because they don’t care but because things slip their mind. Life happens. Stress happens. The proximity isn’t that close anymore. And so on. Isn’t setting up a system like this not a good effort on their part? An example of them caring enough to make sure their relationship stays alive? “Don’t be a stranger” sometimes takes a bit of work. So why not use tools that can help with that?

Question 1 I think is packaged in your follow-up questions:

- Did you not miss them? 'Missing' someone is an interesting way of thinking about it. When should you 'start' missing someone? I find that often I miss people intensely soon after we meet. This can be difficult, because it may not be possible or practical to meet or communicate with someone immediately, but then that 'missing' starts to wane. By the time it starts to become stronger again, a significant period of time might have passed.

- If you did, why didn't you contact them? Missing someone is fairly subjective as mentioned above, but for me, contact alone is not enough to stop me missing someone. Meeting in person is. If I contact someone, it does not stop me missing them we are unable to meet in person, and in fact in some cases, makes me miss them more. Many of my friends don't live in the same city (or even the same country) as me.

- If you didn't, why do you care? Because friendships take work, like any other type of human relationship. Someone who currently is an 'acquaintance', who I wouldn't really be too upset about not seeing frequently could develop into a friend.

> 'One can not forget about friends, one can only stop caring.' - I think here you're using a very literal definition of forgetting. I think most people don't actually forget about friends, they just use the word forget as a shorthand for 'not actively thinking about all the time'.

Of course I miss them and I do contact them when I do so -- though sometimes it's too late and their phone number has changed or their social media account has been de-activiated.

I'm just saying I could make MORE effort, and I don't see a prompt to do so as being harmful.

I do miss some people. I do not contact them, because I do not think they feel the same way about me, and I do not want to bother them. Social anxiety is a thing.

Or just in your mind you still have that bundle of memories which make you underestimate the time passed since last contact because you've been busy with life.

When I miss people, I often don't have time to reach out. When I have time, I often don't remember that I wanted to reach out to people. Sometimes life keeps us too busy.

> How do you manage to lose touch with friends? Did you not miss them?

Well yes you can not miss your friend for long period of time because they are far away and a large enough social circle keeps you so busy locally that your mind do not get the opportunity to feel it.

Anyone who has been living in different areas/countries lost track to some real friends. There is always a moment when you feel you might want to reach out to them again but sometimes it is too late.

For some people memory is event-driven not interrupt-driven. They can remember all the steps in a complex task, or when with friends, all their shared history but forget to take out the trash, or birthdays, or to call their friends.

This reminds me. I am about to go to bed and have not brushed my teeth.

I think the alternative to having a social life "dictated by a machine" (a machine which, in this case, encodes the intentions of its programmer) is to have a social life dictated by chance and by other's intentions - coincidences on public transport, social media posts ranked by a black box, the noisy patterns of our recollection, etc... what is so 'authentic' about sacrificing one's attention to these forces, which may only align accidentally with our priorities?

I've kept a spreadsheet for about 5 years of people I know from my hometown, from uni, past jobs, in other countries, family of friends, etc... ranked roughly by how frequently to contact them, and it has been so helpful and fun for me (and them!) to use it. This might not be helpful for everyone, depending on what you care about and the size of your network, but it seems more "sad" to me that people let chance and social media control their patterns of interaction.

> If there [sic] were friends... He'd miss contacting them.

Interesting! It looks like you are indirectly articulating something about your personal value system and how you express and/or receive caring. Are you familiar with the Five Love Languages [0] idea? The bosic concept (and book) are tailored for couples and couples counseling, but it generalizes in obvious ways to platonic relationships.

Essentially, it posits that everyone expresses caring and seeks expressions of caring in specific ways, so called "languages". It's entirely possible---probable in fact!---that the ways in which you personally express caring don't match up with the kinds of expressions that make your friend (or lover) feel most cared for.

YMMV, but I've personally found this idea to difuse a lot of "judgemental" feelings towards others, especially in close relationships.

[0]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Love_Languages

I didn’t read this as asset management at all, nor as someone managing their actual friends in a list. It seems more like these are various people who they’ve crossed paths with at some point but who aren’t overly close anymore. It’s a system set in place to actively keep in touch with people. I understand that there is a component to this that feels very artificial and maybe therefore quite cold. But consider the other side too: someone is not the best at keeping a contact alive but still values the relationship very much so they put in the effort to create an external structure to help them out. Isn’t that a pretty warm thought after all?

I have lost several friends, even good friends by failing to contact each other. If you have many friends who move around the world a lot it's very easy to happen. I miss them very much.

I don't miss them as assets as you say. I believe that if I suddenly needed their help and asked for it, they would help me - and it goes the other way as well ofc. I'm not concerned by that.

But how do you start talking to someone after years and years of radio silence? Even more importantly, how do you make sure you won't slip out of touch again, other than using a system?

Hard disagree here.

My days are long and full. And as a somewhat introverted person it takes additional energy to remember to keep in touch with people. Even those that I like very, very much.

So it helps to have a reminder and something that actively pushes one to do so. Not every person in the world is wired the way you are.

Jakobs approach is basically a more automated calendar. Plus, he is actively making an effort to keep in touch with people he deems important enough to be in his life. Its not as if he is sending automated messages to them.

Similar here. There are a number of people that regularly pop into my head and I'll wonder how they're doing or miss talking to them that I still rarely contact because it takes a lot of energy and I need to be in the right mindset for it even though I enjoy the contact when it happens. If I think about them at a time I don't feel up to being social (often), I end up pushing it aside.

This comment comes across as arrogant. It's a privilege to have the spare time and energy to act on all of your intentions. You could apply the same argument to keeping to-do lists, storing people's phone numbers in your phone book, using facebook or having a birthday calendar etc.

Try having a child and see how close your ability to execute is with your principles!

Who is arrogant there? It's not an issue not to keep in touch every 3 weeks with someone. When you have a child, you just meet new people, parents of your child's friends for example. Relationships don't disappear, they pause, when you get back to them, it's like riding a bike, and if you don't get back to them, it's ok. It's what you do with your life which dictates who you meet, and who you have relationships with. Just live your life, you don't have to try and hack everything... If you really need a system like this, why not, but even I who suck at keeping in touch feel this is overkill and unnatural.

Not everyone is good at socializing. Just live your life is a terrible advice for someone who is struggling with people.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. This system is terrible advice for someone who isn't really struggling with people, to such a point that it's detrimental to his wellbeing.

People with ADHD sometimes forget people even exist when they're out of sight.

Just because your built-in OS lacks a scheduler and notifications to remind you to keep a connection with friends doesn't mean you don't care about them.

Sometimes the person might even receive the notification but fails to act on it because of poor social conditioning.

Look, it's great you can handle your friends with ease.

It's really great your life didn't mess you up to a point where contacting people you would normally call friends induces anxiety.

Really, congratulations to your great and happy life.

Others have to rely on shitty tricks like these.

What are YOUR weaknesses then? What can YOU not handle without the help of technology? Please share so somebody can make fun of you too :D

OP: thanks for posting.

That's not always so easy. For many people, such as people with ADHD, the concept of "out of sight, out of mind" affects their life to a significant level, to the point where they really enjoy contact with their friends, however reaching out to them never comes to mine.

Some people legitimately can't remember to contact friends without any external prompting.

With respect, I feel like this reaction is a bit luddite. OP is using technology to help maintain and build relationships. It's not technology that's dictating anything, it's technology as it should be used: to make our lives better.

I'd be absolutely fine with someone I appreciated reaching out to me and asking how things are going, even knowing they are using a prompt, as long as the contact was sincere.

I'm wondering what the difference here is compared to these: a close family member / friend who is really good at keeping in touch with people, and prompts you as well; a birthday calendar; a rolodex [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolodex]; Facebook / Instagram as a primary way of keeping in touch with people

For me, the difference is only in the specific technology being used, but the intent and effect is indistinguishable.

It is not much different than having birthday of your family members in the calendar. It is just a tool to remind you to make contact, what contact will be like is entirely up to you.

> So instead he needs a tool to remind him of that "friend" he needs to contact, because pretending to care is beneficial. One might some day need them.

Regardless whether Dunbar's number is real or not, one cannot have "hundreds" of actual friends. So we're not really talking about friendships here, but about maintaining a network of contacts - or acquaintances at best - and that type of relationship is usually mutually based on the premise that "One might some day need them", there's nothing wrong about approaching it that way. And even though you're not super close, keeping in touch regularly is very important aspect of keeping your social ring alive. I'm too lazy and disorganized to approach it the way the author describes, but I totally see how it can be a beneficial socializing strategy in long terms.

You're wrong.

Just because your brain is able to keep track of your friends and actively remember to interact with them, doesn't mean everyone is like you. People who are not neurotypical can have very close friends and family and not realize that 3 months have passed since they last called home or checked in with a friend. It's so easy to forget that other people's brains don't work exactly like ours; remembering that is an extremely important habit to exercise.

Well I am not find of his method, especially about doing a classification of people you would call friends. This is something I would hate to do and would hate feeling others put me in a drawer.

On the other hand while local friends can be easy to reach, invite or bump into randomly maintaining long distance friendship is a lot harder to do and require actively looking for that relation to not die. It is ok not to talk to friends every month when they are living far away nor does it diminish your feeling towards them and the pleasure you would have to meet them even if it takes 10y to do so. However if you are not actively maintaining a relation, and that requires some additionnal efforts as it is not natural to reach for people you aren't bumping into every other week/month, you might simply lose trail. It is relatively easy to reach to someone who has social media accounts under his own name and never changed phone number. It requires a lot more of detective work to reach out to people who aren't active on social medias. I have lived in several countries and I had to resort to use linkedin to get back in touch with some of my friends and it can took months for them to reply as most people don't even log on linkedin on a regular basis unless they are actually looking for a job. Some of them I lost complete trail as I couldn't find any social media account either.

So automatising your own reminders and force yourself to talk to people you might not reach out on a regular basis, because your local social circle already keeps you busy a lot, is not necessarily a bad thing, even if it feels forced.

There are a lot of people I care about, but sometimes you just _forget_. Or you remember, but it's too late to call them, or they're in a bad time zone, or they mostly use FB and you hate FB. After two kids, rebuilding a derelict house, etc. I found I had to be more intentional about keeping any friendships alive, and this basically seems like a more involved version of keeping friends' birthdays in a calendar to drop them a line.

That seems like a very neurotypical view point. Of course people miss people, however, some people (especially people with for instance ADHD) often forget stuff and get distracted, so having an extra layer of organisation can be extremely helpful.

I think describing other people as "friends" or "assets" are just labels you've made up. I think it's unnecessary to be condescending by saying someone else's interpretation is "incredibly sad".

> He'd miss contacting them.

No, you would miss contacting them. But he is not you.

Your comment can be read in two ways. Perhaps you think everyone should be like you and those who are different are "sad". I hope I don't need to explain why this is wrong. Or perhaps you think someone who isn't like you doesn't deserve to have any human contact and should be alone. What a horrible thing to think.

This comment is far more cynical than his life.

My grandmother knew hundreds of people. Her little black book was massive. She had a system as well for reaching out.

Your emotions are good for regulating your relationships with 5-10 people, that's about it.

>So instead he needs a tool to remind him of that "friend" he needs to contact, because pretending to care is beneficial. One might some day need them.

You've basically described every single family relationship ever.

You don't like catching up with them, and they don't like catching up with you, but you do it anyway because one day you might need a kidney or a ticket out of Warsaw.

What’s the alternative here? Stop contacting his friends unless he misses them? Also, why are you such a judgmental dick about it?

> He'd miss contacting them.

I keep fond memories of nearly all people I know. I'd help them on the spot and have a pleasent conversarion if they contacted me.

Yet I never miss contacting people I know.

I don't like this method much either but in fairness to the author, as you get older and our social circle inevitably widens with friends from old sports clubs, old neighbors, friends from school, colleague, university, old jobs, friends who are kids friends parents from school, et al, and thus it gets harder and harder to keep track of everyone given much effort it often takes to keep our head above water in our own busy lives. How many people say "we only catch up once every couple of years?" At least this method allows the author to keep those connections open for people he wants to stay in contact with. Even if it might seem a little impersonal from a superficial standpoint.

> If there were friends, he'd not need to be reminded of contacting them. He'd miss contacting them.

As someone who needs a separate text file for remembering important dates (from where i stand, calendars are just weird, the months names arbitrary, the amounts of days in each also an example of some odd legacy system), i disagree.

If my brain refuses to work well for dates for a few dozen people, why would someone else remember to contact more people, especially given how busy the lives of many are? Is it a bit nonconventional to develop an automation system for that? Maybe, but then again, people don't even bat an eye when putting down events in their Google Calendar or whatever.

"If those events mattered, you wouldn't need to be reminded of them." doesn't sound like a reasonable argument to my brain, even though it might to someone else's.

> It's incredibly sad that his social life, or rather: the illusion of a social life, is being dictated by a machine.

It's not sad (to me and probably others), please don't downplay someone putting in the effort to address what would otherwise be a shortcoming. Even though a bit odd, if it works for them, props to that person!

For further reading, have a look at Dunbar's number: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number

Why wouldn't we expand past the limitations of our brains, if that is beneficial to both ourselves and others, especially when extending that reasoning to a professional setting?

"I should send a Christmas greeting to that cool boss i had years ago." probably doesn't occur to people that often, but is still a nice thing to do!

Personally, without that text file of mine (or reminders from Facebook or whatever for others), i wouldn't remember most birthdays (of friends or acquaintances) or other celebration days, which would be bad for everyone - to me, because of feeling bad after forgetting about those days, and for others because of not receiving greetings or gifts.

If I write my friend's birthdays on a calendar, prompting me to contact them on their birthdays, do you think that's treating them as assets not friends? If not, what is the relevant difference?

I guess you must be pretty young and havent experimented yet how easy it is to get swallowed by life.

Some people can’t express and maintain relationships like other people but still like their friends. Having a system which can make my friends feel that I value them (which I do, but find difficult expressing) helps some people maintain a semblance of a social life.

> If there were friends, he'd not need to be reminded of contacting them.

That sounds rather strong. It's not unusual to keep a Christmas card list, which is pretty much the same idea.

Personally I don't see a problem unless it's automatically sending messages giving the impression they're not automated. The blog post makes it clear that all the messages he sends are written by him, the system only prompts him to write+send them. I don't see an issue in using a system to send reminders.

Incidentally this topic has been discussed before in a thread 7 months back. [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27643328

How did you conclude he’s talking about friends? In the whole article word "friend" doesn’t appear even once. Also, a person can hardly have hundreds of friends. Three, sure. Seven, very probably. Twelve, maybe. But hundreds? Impossible.

He's delegating his humanity and friendships into a spreadsheet! Next stop, do the interactions themselves in the cloud!!

Makes sense for networking though. Which I think is what he's actually getting at.

>>the illusion of a social life,

Yep, that summed it up for me in 6 words.

That would also apply to most social media as well.

No he doesn't, you reach the wrong conclusion.

It is more similar to a birthday calendar reminder.

He also pretty much screws up the whole system by announcing it like this. There's no way I'd feel anything but manipulation coming my way if I was his friend and a message from this guy popped up in my notifications.

Yep. The author is a legit sociopath. This should in no way be considered acceptable human behaviour.

Wow. Awareness of the lived experience of others: nil points.

If I'm more charitable than you have been, I'll grant that you simply haven't carried the burden that I have, and that is unfair for me to expect everyone to have moderate levels of empathy, or to actively try to understand their fellow humans.

A fair proportion of the people who pushed OP to the top of HN are probably just looking to live a life in accordance with healthy social values. Try not to be a cunt, would you?

While I don't attempt to solve life problems by creating a database and writing a bunch of code, I think you're going a bit overboard.

A sociopath is someone who recklessly and remorselessly harms others to get what they want.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorde...

This guy is probably at most ADHD or Aspergers, and simply forgets to contact people he doesn't physically come across on a regular basis.

For so long we were (and still are) called a human resource, whole departments and studies devoted for human resource management. Treating people like assest fits here.

Doesn't make it okay. At all.

"Human resources" is dehumanizing.

Treating people like assets is dehumanizing.

If I told my friends that I had software reminding me of contacting them, they'd consider that we're not actually friends, because friends don't need to be reminded of friends.

When there's no bond reminding me, then they're not friends. One cares about friends. When you forget about them, then you're not actually caring.

It appears that you feel strongly about this and that is ok.

I would only ask you to please be kind to people who do not share your experiences, social skills or background, e.g. introverts, people suffering from social anxiety, people who are on the spectrum or have ADHD... Hundreds of millions of people, who are fully cable of caring, loving and having close friends, yet have trouble maintaining friendships not because they are bad friends, but because their brains and emotions work differently through no choice or fault of their own.

If such a tool can help someone maintain a close friendship that would otherwise have fizzled, then that tool has made the world a slightly better place.

I don't expect this to change your opinion, but it might be useful to hear a different perspective.

This lame take is like claiming a birthday gift is meaningless because someone used a calendar reminder.

Some people have busy lives but still have many friends (especially ones spread around geographically as you get older). It’s normal adult behavior to forget to contact them for months.

> When there's no bond reminding me, then they're not friends.

This sounds like some obsessive behavior. I think you may have a much higher bar for friendship than most people do.

I have 20-30 people I would consider strong enough friends to have them stay in my house for a weekend on short notice (to give you an idea of trust level here). I contact many of them no more than once every couple of months only when a shared interest reminds me of them.

> One cares about friends. When you forget about them, then you're not actually caring.

That’s not how that works. At least it doesn’t match the definition of “caring”. It sounds more like “obsessing”.