Hey, wanna be friends? Keep in mind that I don’t want to be friends unless you honestly want the same. I’ll be happy if you say ‘no’ if you mean it, since that will have helped us both avoid wasting time on something we didn’t want. :)
This is a weird example. Do you actually ask people to clearly label themselves as your-friend or not-your-friend? I never do. Even if it were very clear that it is just an invitation, I would still be a bit annoyed to receive such a question. There’s no way I could answer “no” without being hit by a lingering sense of “being-a bad-person-who-doesn’t-want-friends”.
Yeah, that approach replaces “I want you to be my friend” with “I want you to want to be my friend”. That doesn’t assuage any meta-fears in me.
The way it works for me is to give them an easy way out. “Hey wanna do X on monday? Or are you still too busy with Y? In that case we’ll just do X another time, when it’s more convenient for you.”
Then they can pick up the excuse I provided for them and if they really want to do X someday they now know that I’m interested. And of course the ball is in their court if they do say no. I certainly wont bother them again.
This is a weird example. Do you actually ask people to clearly label themselves as your-friend or not-your-friend? I never do. Even if it were very clear that it is just an invitation, I would still be a bit annoyed to receive such a question. There’s no way I could answer “no” without being hit by a lingering sense of “being-a bad-person-who-doesn’t-want-friends”.
(is this a different type of meta-fear?)
Yeah, that approach replaces “I want you to be my friend” with “I want you to want to be my friend”. That doesn’t assuage any meta-fears in me.
The way it works for me is to give them an easy way out. “Hey wanna do X on monday? Or are you still too busy with Y? In that case we’ll just do X another time, when it’s more convenient for you.”
Then they can pick up the excuse I provided for them and if they really want to do X someday they now know that I’m interested. And of course the ball is in their court if they do say no. I certainly wont bother them again.
OK, granted. It was a silly example. Replace with “Hey, wanna hang out?” or some other invitation.