| > sometimes you need to stay in touch with friends who are still arriving etc. Do we need to? We are way too communicative now days. Back before everyone had cell phones, you said on Monday to friends and/or co-workers, "Let's get drinks on Friday at 7pm at BarClub" - Everyone put it in their diary, and on Friday at 6:55-7:30, people showed up where they were supposed to. We now have this anxiety around not being in constant contact with people, when just a couple decades ago, we wouldn't talk to a person for days/weeks at a time, but still manage to get together without (m)any issues. |
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| ▲ | wussboy 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Humans used to get on ships and sail away, perhaps never to be heard from again. We can absolutely survive several minutes of confusion around eating arrangements. "Text me when you get there." Let's all just calm down and live with a little uncertainty | | |
| ▲ | wolvoleo 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Go for it but don't force it on me. | | |
| ▲ | borski 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | There will always be other places that don’t care. But I think it’s okay to appreciate the world around you and spend time being present while waiting for someone. We used to do this all the time. People watching is fun. | | |
| ▲ | wolvoleo 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yeah there'll be others sure. There's another aspect: these days most people don't like being told what to do. When it infringes on other people's lives like making photos I understand but anything else nope. I couldn't imagine working in an army either. I'd never let them get away with barking at me. | | |
| ▲ | borski 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | People have never liked being told what to do. Even in the military, it's rare that anyone likes being told what to do. The point is that you do it anyway, because you are disciplined and believe in the chain of command, provided you aren't being asked to do something illegal. If you don't trust your chain of command, then there are issues. But militaries are decidedly not democracies, because the military often requires swift action, and democracies move slowly by design. | | |
| ▲ | wolvoleo 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | I am absolutely not disciplined and don't believe in a chain of command though. And I never will. There's talk of bringing military service back in my country but I would honestly prefer fighting my own country than the enemy. I hope more people are going to be like that when they implement it. | | |
| ▲ | borski 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | That's fine, I wasn't trying to convince you. :) I was just clarifying that there isn't a human alive who actually likes being told what to do. There is usually a reason they do it anyway, but it is rarely because they like it. (I am exaggerating, and in the sense of pleasure there are obviously submissive people, etc., but you get my point, I think) |
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| ▲ | frollogaston an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Should be forced |
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| ▲ | downut 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | In 1989 I wrote and posted a paper letter to a college friend of ours in Northern England, asking, hey, around [June date I forget] we will be in London, want to meetup? A while later I get a reply letter saying sure, how about we meet at Piccadilly Circus on this date at this time. I posted an affirmative reply and there was no further communication. We were in Arizona at the time. On the agreed-to date and time we were there, and so was she. If we were talk about paper maps, it would blow people's minds. If we were to get further in the weeds and describe how we traveled around communist Czechoslovakia w/o a map, only a phrasebook entitled "Travelers Czech", well... Ah I forgot! We, without being specific about the date, knew that other college friends of ours, originally from Czechoslovakia, had told us they were going to be in their home town of Olomouc. We got the barest help in Prague with my wife's bad German on how to get there by train. Arrived, got a room, and called them up. For the next week they showed us around the country and visited family and friends. Other than lousy waiters in Prague we had a terrific adventure. Different times. But you sure had to able to demonstrate you had integrity in your agreements and were open to changes of plans. | | |
| ▲ | pimlottc 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | What's amusing is that I've tried to do this nowadays, where I make plans with someone a few weeks in advance and then just show up. Only to have them not be there, and when I ask what happened, they said, "oh, I didn't think we were still doing that, you hadn't said anything about it in a while" | | |
| ▲ | smelendez 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It’s kind of funny that business etiquette has moved much more to scheduled meetings even for short discussions, and social life has moved in the opposite direction. | | |
| ▲ | ghaff an hour ago | parent [-] | | At higher levels, I think impromptu calls/messages of a time-sensitive nature are probably more common. But, in general, phone calls out of the blue are less accepted than they were 10-20 years ago outside of a very close circle. And in business there would probably be a preceding message to the effect of “can we chat?” |
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| ▲ | wolvoleo 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It depends. My friends with kids have everything planned out months in advance. If they're to come out to something they have to have it all scheduled between judo classes and school birthday parties blah blah The rest of us just wing it. Which I really prefer. I hate having plans. Especially in case I might not feel like it on the night in question. |
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| ▲ | megous 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Czechia has a very dense public transport network and if you want to walk a very nice network of marked tourist tracks. Not that different form 1989, except for marking an explicit cycling network since then. |
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| ▲ | frollogaston an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You already get this experience if one guy in the group has an Android | |
| ▲ | j1elo an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | We don't need to be communicative at all times. But don't romanticize it either; we did what you say because we had to, whether we wanted or not. Not having any chance of correcting course or being more flexible is not a cool thing of the past, it's a limitation of how things were.
That you find confort on it, is a different thing than it being better or worse... it just was. | |
| ▲ | wolvoleo 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It is what it is. It's how things work now. Anyway I have great respect for places that tape off cameras because it makes others feel safe. Because they know they won't be photographed without consent. But being on your mobile somewhere is more of a "you do you" thing for me. I'm not always on my phone, when I go out I don't go near it normally but getting a quick message is no problem IMO. For example when plans change. When others are on phones around me I don't find that very annoying, there's much more annoying behaviour. Personally I hate planning and love chaos so I really like this thing where I see someone online at 2am and they're like "hey why don't you come out to this club". Which happens fairly often. | |
| ▲ | crazygringo 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yes, we need to. If I'm meeting someone for drinks and then an emergency happens, I kind of want to know rather than waiting around for 45 minutes and then giving up. | | |
| ▲ | allturtles 27 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | You described a want, not a need. How often does this actually come up? If your friends are frequently having "emergencies" that prevent them from meeting you, they may not be good friends. | |
| ▲ | 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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