Sounds like she is removing herself from the group. they are all chatting together, and she has removed herself from the room.
This.
I do most of my social organizing by email. It’s really a pain for me to coordinate with people who don’t do email. If they aren’t someone I am extremely close to, sorry, I’m not going to bother. I arrange group events that are advertised by email and on a google calendar. I had one guy ask me if I could send him a letter every time one would happen. I have trouble dealing with letters to pay bills – such a pita. I said “no”. A friend said “yes”, and he gave her a stack of stamped, self-address envelopes. All I can say is, wow, that was nice of her. There’s absolutely no way I would have bothered.
I don’t really do texting, but my phone gets texts, and when one of my friends texts me I get it, and I respond if relevant. (And I’m trying to move more to texting for my friends who think it’s more convenient than email, although I don’t always carry my phone, and usually do have a computer around, so I prefer emails.) Some of my friends organize stuff on Facebook, and while I’ve asked to be invited other ways, I understand if they don’t want to bother, and I know that means I miss some stuff. If I cared enough, I guess I would be on Facebook more often.
Phone service isn’t free. Neither is internet service to get emails. Unless I happen to see someone pretty much every day, we are both going to be paying something for the privilege of communicating. And texts are pretty cheap.
When I say “texts”, most of my friends actually use Google Hangouts, which is free if you have data service of any sort.
jz78817 said this person* can’t* receive texts; how is that removing herself? Jeez, you run with a tough crowd.
[QUOTE=puzzlegal]
I do most of my social organizing by email. It’s really a pain for me to coordinate with people who don’t do email. If they aren’t someone I am extremely close to, sorry, I’m not going to bother. I arrange group events that are advertised by email and on a google calendar. I had one guy ask me if I could send him a letter every time one would happen. I have trouble dealing with letters to pay bills – such a pita. I said “no”. A friend said “yes”, and he gave her a stack of stamped, self-address envelopes. All I can say is, wow, that was nice of her. There’s absolutely no way I would have bothered.
[/QUOTE]
That is obviously off the charts ridiculous (unless it was your 90 year old nana or something) but I don’t think it’s typical, so kind of not relevant to what we’re talking about. Also, you have to write letters to pay bills? What, like thank you notes for keeping the electricity on?
Perhaps (well, probably) you all have larger social circles than I and / or we have a different definition of the word “friend”. I’m seeing a continuing theme here which is “if it’s not easy for me, fuck 'em”.
I don’t know about iPhones, but on Android you can turn off even the minimal notification mentioned, and see/hear nothing at all until you choose to open your messaging app.
whether or not you can receive texts is a choice. None of my friends is so impoverished that they can’t afford to get texts. I doubt that person is, either. You don’t need an expensive phone with an expensive phone plan to get texts – you really don’t.
Why is it off-the-charts ridiculous to not use email, but it’s perfectly normal to not use texts? Serious question. Both are somewhat generational, of course. This guy is probably in his 60s. I think he must use email now, because he sent me an email-based holiday card this year.
But yes, I have a couple of social circles, some large, and different sub-circles communicate in different ways. If I wanted to set up a lunch date with a particular person, I would, of course, contact that one person in a way he was comfortable communicating. But if I’m just throwing a party for “which ever friends want to come over” or I want to see a movie and it would be fun to go with others, I’m not going to go out of my way to individually contact every person who might possibly be interested. I will send out a mass email (and some of my friends will send out a Facebook invite) and that’s pretty much it.
As for writing letters to pay bill, sure. Didn’t you send checks in the mail to pay each bill at one time? We pay a lot of bills on-line now, but at the time, I was mostly sending checks in the mail.
Why would you not want to make things easy as possible for your friends? I tend to stay away from people who are difficult. Especially people who need me to prove to them that their friendship is worth it by making me jump through ridiculous hurdles.
Seriously, texting is not a slight, and it is not lazy. It’s just practical.
Why can’t? Unlimited texts are not expensive. Absolute bare minimum prepaid plans have generous texting, and even low-end phones will switch to using wi-fi to send SMS if it’s available, which it generally is.
Outside of truly dire poverty, “can’t” is “won’t”. Imagine a situation where there is a big, friendly office with lots of social stuff going on. People generally post stuff–pregnancies and kid pictures and parties and happy hours and all sorts of announcements–on a particular bulletin board in a particular break room. One person never goes in there because it’s a long walk from her office and she doesn’t want to be tempted to eat the doughnuts.
Do you see how other people–even people who really like her and would like to see more of her–would forget that she’s not reading the same stuff as everyone else, and needs to be explicitly told the stuff that everyone else just knows without being told, because they read it on the group board? This is exactly that. It’s not that people can’t be bothered to include her, it’s that they are including her but she can’t be bothered to participate unless they make it easy for her. And even if they want to bother, really and sincerely, they forget. Because when literally everyone else is monitoring that board, it’s just hard to remember that she isn’t.
How is that not exactly the same going the other way? “Texting isn’t easy for me, fuck 'em”?
And it takes time for acquaintances to become friends. Early on, convenience does matter. And I have a lot of old friends I don’t see often, but whom I really enjoy. We have a lot of other priorities in our lives, so we are only going to see each other when and if it is easy–otherwise, we’d drift apart because families and jobs and BFFs come first. I’m delighted that there exists ways that we can be friends at all–I don’t see it as a sign that I value friendship less.
I can’t say under normal circumstances that this happens. In the times that I don’t want my phone going off, I adjust the notifications so they’re less disruptive or silence my phone during certain hours. I’ll glance and get back to the person when I need to or feel like it, which is again, a large part of the convenience.
Aside from this, there exist a bit of implied etiquette that’s carried over from other means of communication. When I was younger and we used telephones, I wouldn’t bombard my parents or friends at work or after a certain hour, for example. The same mostly holds true, now. I mostly text people I know and we generally know when we’re being disruptive or obnoxious when messaging. If the other person takes a while to respond, I assume they’re occupied and I’ll hold off on further communication. It’s more intuitive than it seems, for the most part, but the entire concept is that you don’t always have to be available right now. Assuming their sense is common, the other person will notice when you tend to respond and adjust their behavior.
I think this is totally natural and hasn’t changed, but there is also some added context. As I said above, most people text others they know, so they already practice similar (and acceptable) habits. Conversely, if they’re looking for relationships, it’s been my experience that people tend to make themselves available, and so they sort of make exceptions for behavior out of the ordinary, until things cool down and become normalized. Manda Jo touched on this, above.
I think both types of people (that you describe) exist and they each build networks and relationships which accommodate them well enough to function. If you absolutely require constant social interaction, you’re going to seek out the means and naturally gravitate towards others who feel the same. The opposite is also true.
Thought of another example. I have a friend who is in college. Within the first couple weeks of his freshman year, he ended up on a group text of 15 casual friends. 90% of the group text was people texting “Going to caf in 5 min if anyone wants to join me”. They all eat in the caf 2-3 times a day, and this let people who were maybe thinking about heading over know that if they went then, they had someone to sit with. Very low pressure, very easy.
Now, let’s say there was someone who refused to participate. Would it really be a “fuck 'em” from the other 14 if they did not each call that one person each time they went to eat? Of course not. But over the course of the year, that person would get left out of a lot of opportunities to talk to those people, would end up at the cafeteria right as small groups were leaving, or be finishing up right as their friends showed up. They’d be left out of a lot of conversations. As those 15 people developed smaller and tighter sub-circles and friendships, they’d be left out. And is that really the fault of the 14 who refused to go out of their way to draw this relative stranger in, when they refused to communicate the way everyone else did?
Lord. If someone doesn’t want to spend their money on any sort of entertainment, not even a cup of coffee to justify the starbucks table, does that mean I’m obligated to pay for them if we hang out? And that me not being willing to only sit in public parks to talk makes me the bitch?
In an example such as this, I take it as more of a “this is what I’m doing” or “this is happening” informational type of thing, where there is no expectation or preference for who shows up or not. And I think it’s perfectly fine, and very nice of the first person to let everyone else know. It’s not exactly what I’m talking about though. I don’t know, I don’t want to beat it into to the ground more than I already have. I can see what everyone’s saying to a point, but it feels like there’s a certain . . . rigidity in place. I started this thread stating “texts . . aint gonna happen”. That’s not *exactly *what I meant, but in any event, this has all moved me to work on being more conscious of my phone checking and texting skills, which is all good. It does not, however, sound like some people would be willing to meet me (not “me” specifically) half way. Which is all good also; as has been stated, like minded people find one another and all that.
Spend your money on whatever you want. But when you chose not to spend your money on services that facilitate communication, you can’t be surprise of that affects your social life.
It’s so strange how in the US you have to pay for incoming SMS messages.
I get it for phone calls. In the rest of the world, calling a cell number is more expensive than calling a landline. But in the US cell phones don’t have their own number ranges so calls to them cost the same as to landlines. But someone has to pay for the airtime, so you pay for incoming cell phone calls. If you don’t want to pay, don’t answer the call.
But this doesn’t apply to SMS. Those were cell-only from the start. And you don’t get to refuse incoming messages, so you don’t have any control over the amount you end up paying.
So having to pay for incoming text messages is completely unacceptable. I don’t understand why you guys stand for it.
What is “half-way”? If it’s “I will read texts sent to me, but probably honestly maybe three times a day–lunch, after work, maybe again after dinner. If someone asks me out/tries to set up logistics, I’m likely to follow up with a phone call to hammer out the details. If they text me random comments or links, I’ll read them and, if they are interesting, bring them up next time we talk, but I’m unlikely to ever respond with more than a smiley face or a ‘thanks.’ I am willing to use/respond to really practical texts, like ‘text me when you get here, I will be out working in the back yard and may not hear the doorbell’ or ‘I have a table in the back already.’” I think you are fine. I think lots of people use texts like that and no more, and even people who do text more can interact with that.
But if half-way is “I won’t check texts more than 3 times a week. If you include me on a group text about a happy hour you are going to, and I see it too late to attend, I am going to be upset that you didn’t respect me enough to call. I don’t want you to text me stupid inane stuff or funny pictures, and if you persist I’ll see that as incompatible and break up with you”, then yeah, that’s going to limit your options pretty significantly.
My point is that you seem to see texting as this new-fangled novelty thing that it’s not reasonable to expect people to participate in, and I think that changed 10 years ago. It’s as basic a part of being in society as having a phone line and an email address
