I don’t expect anything of my friends that I don’t expect of myself. But lately, I’ve found myself disproportionately annoyed by tiny breaches of friendship etiquette. If I ask a friend to dinner and they say they’re busy without suggesting another date, I feel slighted.
If I introduce two friends and they start hanging out without me, I wonder why neither thought to include me. Then I wonder: am I holding my friends to an outdated social code? Today, it is common to say “let’s catch up soon” without making plans, leave invitations unanswered, and allow one person to become the permanent initiator.
My theory: Technology lets us remain constantly in touch while making the obligations of friendship increasingly ambiguous. When you think about it, an invitation is more than a logistical question, says Dr. Jeff Katzman, a psychiatrist at Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, Conn., who extensively studies human relationships.
It’s a small relational bid: something close to, “I’d like to spend time with you. Would you like to spend time with me?” When that second part is missing, we’re left with ambiguity, and we fill in the blanks. We also bring our own histories to these moments.” Someone who has experienced rejection or exclusion may experience the same unanswered invitation quite differently from someone who has generally experienced other people as reliable.
Katzman points out that we do our best to infer other people’s minds from very small pieces of behavior. He doesn’t want to see me. I’m always the one who tries,’” he explains.
I have lost a lot of sleep about the idea of social hygiene and the small acts of reciprocity that keep friendships healthy. I was quite surprised when two of my friends in Lisbon reached out to me on the exact same day when I had said to them separately a few months ago that I might be visiting Lisbon for work on that date. The fact that both of them remembered the exact date and reached out to check if I’m in Portugal is a great example of good social hygiene.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
