When you phrase it like that, it sounds ridiculous. But for me, social events are a lot like going to the gym. It makes me anxious, I don't want to do it, I find reasons to avoid it, and then I'm glad I did it.
It's hard working up the motivation. It's easy to make excuses. Ultimately, it's good for my physical and mental well-being to get out of the house and see people. Having another way to weasel out of it guilt-free would be a net negative on my life for sure.
ADHD is a hell of an impulsivity multiplier. Everything sounds amazing at the time…when it comes to doing the actual thing, it can seem like climbing Mt. Everest. Time also works differently for some of us (Time Blindness fucks up much more than just this one area of our lives). As a result, when we make plans, those plans are “out there” or “some other time in the future” or “not now”. So when it comes time to do the thing, you forgot it was ever going to happen. Dates and days are hard to keep track of, too. Things have either already happened, are happening now, or are some nebulous blob of “will happen at some point”…which doesn’t quantify anything at all.
As a result, when things go from “future” to “now”, we’re often caught by surprise and haven’t been anticipating it, so we don’t prepare. Maybe we planned to sleep in that day, etc, and when you get a reminder the night before, it can be very jarring.
I hope I’m not making this sound stupid, it’s hard to explain but it is a real thing. And no amount of reminders or calendars or alerts will “cure” it…they help, but you can’t plan for every occurrence and some apps won’t let you set multiple alarms a week out, a few days out, 1 day, hours, etc. It’s limited to 1 or 2 that are pre-programmed, and if you want more you have to manually input them all them every time. Not easy to do when you’re in the middle of paying your bill after a doctor’s visit with other people waiting behind you.
Thanks for the reply. It was informative and helpful.
I really struggle to imagine what that's like. It's like you're telling me sometimes you forget to swallow and you end up with a lot of mystery food in your mouth. Scheduling is trivial for me, and it often feels like when people screw it up it's from negligence or apathy. Even if it's not.
And as the person who's getting flaked on or ghosted, it sucks. We made plans. I set aside time on Saturday for this thing together, and then you bail at the last minute because you forgot you had other stuff? Fucking hell, now my Saturday is fucked up.
Even if the flakiness is a medical problem, the pain and frustration is causes other people is real.
The future is always some nebulous thing where some stuff is going to happen, but it’s not Right Now. Who knows when those future things will jump out of Future Land and become Right Now? Like, I literally got a C in pre calculus even though I Aced every exam, because I forgot to do my homework. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. 🤦🏻♀️
Thankfully smartphones with calendars and alarms now exist!
But navigation? I can find my way back to a place I visited just once. I never get lost, so at least I have that superpower 😅 🗺️
Yeah, I'm in a management role and manage people with ADHD. Everyone is different, but what seems to work is getting into a routine. When every day follows a pattern, whatever planning tool you like can work since you can include it in the routine. For example, this could be your day:
Check schedule
Have breakfast
Go to work
Check schedule
Attend any morning meetings
Do work
Morning break
Check schedule
Do work
Have lunch
Check schedule
Do work
Afternoon break
Check schedule
Do work
And so on. Basically, check that schedule throughout the day and have fixed points during the day where you can reset if you get off track.
People are conditioned to pretend to agree and to pretend to care. Much of school is about teaching students to pretend to listen or pretend to agree. When someone asks "How are you?" usually they are pretending to care.
It can be annoying when someone pretends to want do something to instead of being honest, but it can also be annoying for to the event planner to plan an event only for no one to want to participate.
When the people around you are routinely dishonest(in subtle ways), as is common in school, work or society, it feels necessary to adapt the same behavior to conform to the norm.
There's a bit in Bob's Burgers I think about a lot where Teddy is like "hey Bobby you coming to my party?" and ends with Teddy being like "I've got forty two maybes WHO CAN PLAN FOR THAT?"
No, because trying to explain to someone that you need them to install and register on the "I'm a flaky fuck" app is just going to get people to never make plans with you.
I don't think that's always the case. If you're going to straight up tell someone to install it, you might as well tell them directly that you're out. The app is for people who secretly would rather not go but still would honor the agreement. If both people use the app, it discreetly forms a new agreement.
I would consider this app but would never flake on plans. If something were to happen to prevent an event then great but otherwise I still go.
You could still drop hints to install the app like "haha look at this crazy app" and leave it at that.
Anyway, I just woke up so hopefully that made sense.
I've just started being honest with people. That can make people upset too but at least the awkwardness comes to an end sooner. I hated being non-comittal and waiting for the other person to get the hint. It leads to having an incredibly small social circle but that's what I prefer.
Same. I quit drinking so when I started getting invited to the bar I’d be like, “nah I don’t want to go there, want to go ride bikes to the river for a doobie or something?” And of course not. So I have far fewer friends. Although, the few that did want to ride bikes to the river are healthier now too!
Only introverted people who dont want to do stuff anyways would download this app. If I had this app I would get insane levels of anxiety waiting for extroverted people to change their minds but if I assume the other person has this app then I will assume they dont want to regardless.
Exactly. I'm quite introverted, and I have no problem reaching out to people to cancel plans. It's easy, just send a message like, "Hey, I've got a conflict, can we reschedule?" That's it, and 95% of the time they respond with something like, "Sure, the time wasn't good for me either" and it gets rescheduled at some point, or not at all.
Introversion has little to do with social anxiety. Introversion is about comfort and energy. When I go to a party or other large social event, I come home drained and often spend an hour or two reading or playing video games (single player; MP feels social) just to wind down. I may have enjoyed myself, but interacting with other people takes effort. My cousin is an extrovert, so after a big social event, she wants to go to an after party.
You can be extroverted and have social anxiety, and you can be introverted and have no social anxiety. They're orthogonal concepts.
You could still reasonably assume that the other person cancelled first when the confirmation comes through. People may be able to figure out how long it takes, or they'll just imagine that's what happened and that'll be enough for them to get upset.
Alternative: pick up the phone, say "I don't really feel like coming"
Done.
True friends will still want you to come but understand if you bail out.
If you have friends that get upset over this kind of shit, they're not worth having as friends.
True friends will still want you to come but understand if you bail out.
True friendship is a two-way give and take. For some things, friendship means giving up some level of autonomy and self interest to provide something that your friend wants. In some contexts, showing up is important to the friend and a few repeated snubs/cancellations ends up communicating to the friend that they're not important to you. At that point they can start revisiting whether this is a "true friendship" or not and protect themselves by pushing away.
And it's not just not coming out. It's also the implied precursor here, that two people have made plans together. There's some level of reliance on the other, and bailing at the last minute is often seen as much ruder than just not agreeing to hang out in the first place.
Or, alternatively, the other person starts to understand that you have a preference against hanging out, like it's a chore or a favor. They're your friend, and they want to do right by you, so they just stop inviting you out and asking that favor of you, and then you drift apart and wonder why.
Friendship is about understanding other people, and empathizing even when their personalities and thought process are different. Friendships are hard enough to maintain past 30, and keeping them requires some level of conscious effort, especially for introverts.
I actually love this. So often I have a plan where I'm like "if you actually want to do this thing, then I'm here and happy to be there with you. But if you're not really interested but just sticking to the commitment because you're afraid my feelings will be hurt if you cancel...I promise they won't let's just cancel." But if I say this to someone, they could interpret it as "I don't want to go", which isn't true! If you want to go, I want to go. I just want to gauge your level of wanting-to-go.
I prefer the backup plan. I schedule secondary commitments a few hours after the first one, so I have a reason to bail if it's not going well. If it's going great, I cancel the (less important) backup.
Lmao, I can promise you the people in your life you do this to know about it, and think you're a dick. It's not subtle if someone always has 'another appointment' after an hour they have to go to.
it would still feel weird and bad knowing the other person also wanted to, even though it's never personal and i just hate being places and doing things