He'd miss contacting them.
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.
It's incredibly sad that his social life, or rather: the illusion of a social life, is being dictated by a machine.
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.
You are absolutely right that people are different, but this person comes across a little transactional and an exemplar of the Zuckerborg meme.
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.
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.
That said, the system I guess shows dual-use case of CRM technology ;)
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'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.
> 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.
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.
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 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.
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 ; - )
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
Also, I see what you did there. :)
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.
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 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.
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 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'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.
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'm just saying I could make MORE effort, and I don't see a prompt to do so as being harmful.
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?
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?
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.
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.
- 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'.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Try having a child and see how close your ability to execute is with your principles!
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.
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.
Some people legitimately can't remember to contact friends without any external prompting.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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]
Makes sense for networking though. Which I think is what he's actually getting at.
Yep, that summed it up for me in 6 words.
That would also apply to most social media as well.
It is more similar to a birthday calendar reminder.
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.
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?
"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.
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.
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”.