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#Post#: 50876--------------------------------------------------
Communicating: individual priorities / oddities and accommodatin
g them -- drawing of lines
By: Limmershin Date: April 24, 2020, 11:29 am
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This is prompted by the thread "Do you answer calls when...?" .
I remember from the old Etiquette Hell board, on which I spent
some time back then; an issue which a poster there had, to do
with a particular quirk of hers about her communicating by
modern means. I forget the details of the situation, and what
exact mix it was of phone, text, e-mail, other things, or "some
thereof"; but there were factors in her life which meant that it
was in her view difficult / inconvenient for her to communicate
with friends / contacts via the whole of the same process which
most of her circle routinely used. There were circumstances
which quite frequently obtained, in which she desired her
contacts to, with her, depart from their normal communication
routine and do things her way. She felt somewhat peeved that
often, they forgot to observe this special deal for her; or just
simply did not observe it: whereby she repeatedly missed out on
information about things in which she would have liked to take
part.
A thread of some length, grew out of this; with varying degrees
of sympathy or otherwise, for the then OP. It was generally
agreed that her source of difficulty as explained, was a real
one; but IIRC, something of a majority of posters considered
that she was not being totally reasonable or considerate, in
having these expectations of a whole bunch of people. It was
felt that folk have anyway, a lot to keep track of in their
lives: seen as less-than-reasonable of the "odd person out" to
think that she should, as a matter of course, be remembered and
accommodated in this fashion; plus the possibility of there
being in the circle, more than one such "odd person out", each
with their different way of needing to be accommodated. There
was a certain sentiment that in her expectations and attitude
over this, the OP was being a bit special-snowflaky.
There comes to my mind a matter spoken of to me years ago, by a
friend of mine. It concerned friends or relations of his
wife's, who lived some distance away: his wife and these folks
quite often communicated by phone, to chat and catch up. These
phone conversations were generally in the evening. My friend
and wife habitually had their evening meal quite late; the other
people habitually ate early, and always seemed to choose to
phone friend-and-wife, just when they were about to have supper.
What happened for a while, was that wife would tell them that
she and husband were about to eat, and she'd call them back when
they'd finished eating; this was duly done.
My friend is a great guy in many ways -- but he is extremely
averse to parting with money; and is not the most charitable
person on the planet. It irked him that this routine which
there had come to be -- the people called, were told "we're
about to eat", phone was hung up, wife phoned them later: meant,
what with the usual great length of the phone conversation -- an
hour at the very least -- that friend-and-wife's phone bill was
significantly swelled by these calls; and the sequence of things
meant that it was always friend-and-wife who took the financial
"hit" for the calls. He came to insist on, and enforce, the
following: when these people called thus, just before supper --
they put the food to keep warm in the oven, and wife and her
friends had their phone chat, nor matter how long it took;
friend-and-wife postponed eating until the phone call was done
-- so that now it was the "early-eaters" who were paying for the
call. My friend opined to me, that the "early-eaters" were
being at the least thoughtlessly selfish, in making their phone
call at a time convenient for them -- after their early supper
-- ignoring the inconvenience in one way or another, which by
doing thus, they were visiting on friend-and-wife. (It's not
clear whether, or to what extent, the "early-eaters" were aware
of the late-eaters' habitual feeding time.)
I just find it something to ponder over: in life's many
situations where such things come into play -- where do the
shadings fall, as regards "rude / inconsiderate / entitled"; or
"considerate"; or having reasonable expectations of people; or
unreasonable or outright absurd ones? Probably, it will often
be situational; but there are maybe a basic two sides to the
coin -- should people be willing to inform themselves
attentively about others' routines / logistics, and adjust their
behaviour to accommodate those, case by case; or are human life
and society just basically rather messy -- with those who would
require from others, much accommodation and remembering of
procedures: being as selfish as the heedlessly inconsiderate
are, in their different way; plus being thoroughly unrealistic
in what they wish and expect to happen?
#Post#: 50889--------------------------------------------------
Re: Communicating: individual priorities / oddities and accommod
ating them -- drawing of lines
By: sandisadie Date: April 24, 2020, 12:51 pm
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I think one thing is for sure - if a person doesn't convey to
another person what their expectations are regarding a certain
situation involving them both then that person will just have to
accept whatever happens and live with it. I, too, think that
life is messy and relationships are messy in their way. If you
want a situation to resolve in your favor then you must speak up
and, maybe, be prepared to compromise in the end. I think that
it is far too easy to look up one day and find that you have
become a doormat.
#Post#: 50897--------------------------------------------------
Re: Communicating: individual priorities / oddities and accommod
ating them -- drawing of lines
By: pierrotlunaire0 Date: April 24, 2020, 2:16 pm
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I guess what I take away from that situation is that:
(1) Everyone has different routines and ways of doing things.
(2) Assigning what sounds like malice to people who have a
different way of doing things is asking for aggravation.
Just because people eat earlier than you is no reason that they
are trying to stick you with the phone bill. But I have known
people like that. Not necessarily with with meal times and phone
calls, but ascribing some underlying machinations for what was
most likely just chance. Is that how you see life? Not for me.
#Post#: 50902--------------------------------------------------
Re: Communicating: individual priorities / oddities and accommod
ating them -- drawing of lines
By: Pattycake Date: April 24, 2020, 2:33 pm
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I would have suggested that they talk about it, and alternate
who originated the phone call so they were equally paying for
it. And they could have pre-planned their calls so that early
couple maybe ate a little earlier, and late couple a little
later, with the phone call coming in between. Why are we
(generally) so reluctant to discuss things and come to a
compromise? It's not the dirty word that so many people seem to
think it is!
#Post#: 50906--------------------------------------------------
Re: Communicating: individual priorities / oddities and accommod
ating them -- drawing of lines
By: jpcher Date: April 24, 2020, 3:18 pm
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I'm agreeing with the previous posters. It wouldn't have been
difficult for the late diners to say "I'd love to chat with you
but in the future please don't call between X-Xhours because
that's our dinner time."
#Post#: 50912--------------------------------------------------
Re: Communicating: individual priorities / oddities and accommod
ating them -- drawing of lines
By: lakey Date: April 24, 2020, 4:11 pm
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I don't think this is an issue of rudeness or entitlement, but
an issue of poor communication. Often we can solve a problem
like this by speaking up. If you tell them that you eat at 7
o'clock and to please not call at that time, and they still do
it, then don't answer the phone. If it's important, they'll call
later.
#Post#: 50920--------------------------------------------------
Re: Communicating: individual priorities / oddities and accommod
ating them -- drawing of lines
By: Winterlight Date: April 24, 2020, 5:38 pm
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I know not to call my dad before noon my time. This is because
he is 4 hours behind me and if I called at 9am my time it would
be 5am for him. Since I don't want to deal with a crabby,
justifiably cranky dad, I don't call him early. I think there
have been two occasions in the last 20 years when I called
before noon- one was because we'd had a swath of tornadoes rip
through the area and I wanted them to know I was OK, and the
other was when I'd been rushed to the hospital at 6am and might
need surgery, and both of those times I still waited till 11am
my time.
All this is to say that if you set boundaries, then you can
expect that people will either respond appropriately or prove to
be pushy. It doesn't sound like any kind of boundary had ever
been set, so I think your friend was pretty unreasonable to get
mad over this.
#Post#: 50946--------------------------------------------------
Re: Communicating: individual priorities / oddities and accommod
ating them -- drawing of lines
By: Limmershin Date: April 26, 2020, 5:27 am
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Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts. They've helped me to see
that on reflection, my phone-communicating friends' situation is
perhaps not all that relevant to the kind of issues which this
board addresses. It's just that this particular matter was
brought to my mind especially by one poster's mention on the "Do
you answer..?" thread, of how one way of doing things, resulted
in the phone conversations being paid for by her, not the other
party; though in that case, the poster was perfectly happy with
that outcome.
With another set of people -- I'm tempted to say, "with sensible
people" -- raising and discussing the matter, and -- all being
well -- reaching a compromise; would likely be perfectly
feasible, and the way to go. However, folk are sometimes a
variety of things -- "cross-grained", and "pig-headed" come to
mind -- whereby in matters of this sort, they just don't "do
sensible". Those concerned in the situation which I describe,
are in that category. My friend and his wife differ from each
other in many ways -- some of them, polar-opposite ways; plus,
they come from different cultures; and both are highly stubborn
and extremely determined not to be doormats. Their marriage is
full of mutual dissension; it's a source of some amazement to me
that after half a lifetime of marriage, they are still together
-- and in their way, it seems, fond of each other.
Plus, the friends on the other end of the phone convos are,
essentially, the wife's friends; and of the same culture as her
-- a culture which tends toward behaviour which is highly
spontaneous and spur-of-the-moment, and very "not-into" planning
/ logistical stuff. Trying here to bring the situation into the
open with these people, and discuss in search of a compromise,
simply would not work -- my friend, the husband, would be
regarded by the others as though he were some alien from outer
space. Thus -- as told of in my OP -- he found he had to, to
some extent, play the controlling and authoritarian spouse. I
was, just, prompted to muse a bit, on the general "spectrum"
between the extremes of people catering to the logistics of how
others do things; and being of the opinion that it's selfish and
unrealistic to expect from others, any of that kind of
"catering" whatever.
[quote author=pierrotlunaire0 link=topic=1692.msg50897#msg50897
date=1587755797]
I guess what I take away from that situation is that:
(1) Everyone has different routines and ways of doing things.
(2) Assigning what sounds like malice to people who have a
different way of doing things is asking for aggravation.
Just because people eat earlier than you is no reason that they
are trying to stick you with the phone bill. But I have known
people like that. Not necessarily with with meal times and phone
calls, but ascribing some underlying machinations for what was
most likely just chance. Is that how you see life? Not for me.
[/quote]
I'd seek to exculpate myself by saying that I don't see life
that way (hope I don't, at least :-\) -- it's my friend who
does, I fear, have that tendency. In many ways he is, believe
it or not, a terrific guy; but in all matters to do with money,
he's Scrooge reincarnated; and he's a walking example of the
thing by which "just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean that
everyone isn't out to get you".
#Post#: 50995--------------------------------------------------
Re: Communicating: individual priorities / oddities and accommod
ating them -- drawing of lines
By: lowspark Date: April 27, 2020, 3:20 pm
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I remember that thread. I understand both points of view. For
example, many people do a lot of communicating on Facebook and
conversely, many people refuse to have a presence there. So...
they miss out on stuff. I think that you have to decide what's
more important to you. If you find that boycotting the platform
is more important than connecting with those friends, well,
then, that's your decision. But you can't blame your friends for
that decision, nor can you compel them to conform to your way of
thinking, any more than they can compel you to conform to
theirs.
Same thing in this situation. Your friends had to decide what
was more important, eating dinner at their set time and calling
back or putting dinner aside to take the call. It's not the
calling friend's responsibility to conform to the others' time
tables. I'm curious. Did your friends ever initiate a call on
their own, IOW, not just after having dinner time interrupted? I
suspect the answer to that is no. And if it is no, then they
ought to be thankful that the other friends continued to keep in
touch when that effort was not reciprocated.
A lot depends on how close your friendship is, or how often you
connect. If it's weekly, well then you get to know each other's
routines and preferences. If it's every 6 months, then maybe not
so much.
In the end, there has to be give and take in any relationship.
If you always expect someone to conform to your needs, or if you
always seem to be expected to conform to their needs, the
relationship is not likely to succeed long term.
#Post#: 51125--------------------------------------------------
Re: Communicating: individual priorities / oddities and accommod
ating them -- drawing of lines
By: Limmershin Date: April 30, 2020, 12:07 am
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I recall that that poster on the old board came across as a
sweet person; but her life appeared to be beset with quite a lot
of dilemmas and rather painful situations, some of which did
seem to be of her own making.
I'm coming around to reckoning that it is on the whole a trait
of humans (with individual exceptions, of course) that they
don't do well with adjusting themselves to accommodating other
people's procedures / schedules when those are different from
their own; especially when such procedures / schedules can be
perceived as pettily complicated and finicking. This trait may
make folk liable to appear to set at naught, aspects of life
such as consideration and politeness, which should get a look-in
-- but maybe, for better or worse, that's how people are.
lowspark, I agree, it comes down to priorities; and to
compromising, or not -- re the latter, often it's "not", and
friendships suffer accordingly.
As per my most recent post: my friends' phoning issues maybe
don't really belong on a board concerned with etiquette -- with
their situation there being an "irresistible force and
immovable object" one; and both of them stubborn so-and-so's.
(Just, things about "who pays for the call?" brought them to
mind.) So far as I know, the dynamic didn't include phone calls
being initiated by my friends, to those whom I'll call the
"dinner-interrupters". They were, as mentioned, essentially the
wife's chums -- my friend, the husband, really just kind-of
"suffered" them. With his loathing of disbursing a single penny
which he doesn't have to: I see him not being in favour of "his
household" being the ones to pick up the phone and call them, in
any circumstances.
My here-mentioned friend has, honestly -- believe it or not --
many good qualities. It has to be admitted, though, that he is
in the American expression (we're British), the ultimate
"tightwad" -- sometimes to the point that one has disquieting
thoughts about his sanity, or otherwise...
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