For what it’s worth, my own experience interacting with Duncan is that, when he made a commitment and then couldn’t meet it and apologized about it, the way he did it really helped me trust him and trust that he was trying to be a good friend.
I agree that you shouldn’t talk about it using points and tit-for-tat language (and I think Duncan agrees too? At least he’s better at being informal than the article suggests).
But overall, yeah, I agree with the article. The “illusion that friendship is unconditional” works until it doesn’t. Or to put it in nerdy terms, it doesn’t degrade gracefully. Apologizing when you miss a commitment and saying “I’ll owe you a drink next time” does wonder to help maintain a sense that commitments should be held, even if you usually don’t keep track of who pays for drinks.
For what it’s worth, my own experience interacting with Duncan is that, when he made a commitment and then couldn’t meet it and apologized about it, the way he did it really helped me trust him and trust that he was trying to be a good friend.
I agree that you shouldn’t talk about it using points and tit-for-tat language (and I think Duncan agrees too? At least he’s better at being informal than the article suggests).
But overall, yeah, I agree with the article. The “illusion that friendship is unconditional” works until it doesn’t. Or to put it in nerdy terms, it doesn’t degrade gracefully. Apologizing when you miss a commitment and saying “I’ll owe you a drink next time” does wonder to help maintain a sense that commitments should be held, even if you usually don’t keep track of who pays for drinks.