Pruning your social network is the hardest part. How do you exclude someone who’s not valuable enough? When I get excluded, people never tell me; they just ignore my messages and don’t send any of their own. And I’ve done just the same.
But if that was good practice, HR wouldn’t bother to send rejection letters, right?
It is easy with people you have clear reason not to associate with, say a drinking problem. But if the matter is just that my time is limited and I’d rather spend it elsewhere—is there something better than silence?
Well, there is the possibility of telling them you’re busy. Even my best friends who I see frequently have to tell me they are busy at times. And from the sounds of it (specifically, ‘my time is limited and I’d rather spend it elsewhere’) you ARE busy. From your description, these people seem like the kind of people who would be vaguely useful to know and talk with if you had near infinite time (if not, then let me know that I’m misreading it), it’s just you have other priorities. I have an old friend I haven’t talked to in about a year or so. I think the last time we talked, the conversation essentially was “We should meet and catch up some time.” and so far we haven’t. (Scheduling, work, etc.) He didn’t ever officially stop being my friend, and he’s a great guy, but we’re both married and he lives an hour away, so the connection just slowly faded out. There’s no reason to simply not return his calls or to make an official pronouncement of “Sorry, this friendship is over.” But neither of us have the time to maintain that particular link.
That being said, the type of social connections you are establishing or maintaining can affect whether this works. so it may not work for you specifically.
To say “I’m busy” is essentially to say “I’d rather do something else”, but doesn’t make the value comparison so explicit. I guess you’re right, so I’ll try that. Thanks.
Do you mean to say you will, or have tried, explicitly stating to friend x that you’d rather do something other than spend time with friend x? If you don’t mind appeasing my curiosity, how well did the measure work?
Pruning your social network is the hardest part. How do you exclude someone who’s not valuable enough? When I get excluded, people never tell me; they just ignore my messages and don’t send any of their own. And I’ve done just the same.
But if that was good practice, HR wouldn’t bother to send rejection letters, right?
It is easy with people you have clear reason not to associate with, say a drinking problem. But if the matter is just that my time is limited and I’d rather spend it elsewhere—is there something better than silence?
Well, there is the possibility of telling them you’re busy. Even my best friends who I see frequently have to tell me they are busy at times. And from the sounds of it (specifically, ‘my time is limited and I’d rather spend it elsewhere’) you ARE busy. From your description, these people seem like the kind of people who would be vaguely useful to know and talk with if you had near infinite time (if not, then let me know that I’m misreading it), it’s just you have other priorities. I have an old friend I haven’t talked to in about a year or so. I think the last time we talked, the conversation essentially was “We should meet and catch up some time.” and so far we haven’t. (Scheduling, work, etc.) He didn’t ever officially stop being my friend, and he’s a great guy, but we’re both married and he lives an hour away, so the connection just slowly faded out. There’s no reason to simply not return his calls or to make an official pronouncement of “Sorry, this friendship is over.” But neither of us have the time to maintain that particular link.
That being said, the type of social connections you are establishing or maintaining can affect whether this works. so it may not work for you specifically.
To say “I’m busy” is essentially to say “I’d rather do something else”, but doesn’t make the value comparison so explicit. I guess you’re right, so I’ll try that. Thanks.
Do you mean to say you will, or have tried, explicitly stating to friend x that you’d rather do something other than spend time with friend x? If you don’t mind appeasing my curiosity, how well did the measure work?
When I applied for positions and got interviewed, I got rejection letters only about 30-40% of the time. Maybe law is different than your field?