Empty offers

Putting my money where my mouth is

A few months ago I was on the phone supporting a loved one while they experienced a panic attack. This was the first time I had ever needed to do something like this and it felt like I was a passenger in a long, slow car skid; heading towards a crash that I needed to help the driver to avoid - all while being blindfolded. I had no prior experience with something like this and it was pretty scary.

It was during that call that I learned something vitally important that I now try to use in all of my digital communication. Here's what I learned:

Whatever you do, try to not make open-ended offers, like:

"If you need something, just let me know"
…or…
"If there's anything I can do, just shout"

On the surface this may seem like a complete, sincere and useful offer, but it can actually do more harm than good. What language like this does is actually put even more pressure on the person who is already experiencing something so all-consuming and overwhelming as-is. They now also need to think about what you can do to help them, while they're already dramatically under-resourced.

How to bring this back into everyday digital communication

Coming back to normal digital comms, it usually starts out with a message that goes something like this:

"Hey man, I hope you're well. We should hang out some time!"

I start to see these sorts of messages as somewhat hollow shows of intent that actually relieve the sender of all responsibility ("Hey, I made an offer, so job done from my end. They just need to plan it in whenever it suits them!") - which puts the responsibility squarely onto the receiver's shoulders to actually find an ideal time, make an actual plan and to really do all of the work that it takes to actually hang out with somebody.

It's easy to do this better

Importantly, I'm assuming that the offer is actually genuine. Sometimes it's really not and is more of a signal to say "I don't have the space or capacity to see you right now, even though I would like actually like to, but I wanted you to know that I'm still here and that I was thinking about you". This is, of course, absolutely OK - but it's also much better to learn how to actually state this boundary instead of masking it with an empty offer.

I'm now finding it so much better to actually engage with a concrete offer in terms of scheduling.

"Hey man, I hope you're well. We should hang out soon! I'm available next week on Tuesday morning and also Thursday afternoon & evening. Do any of those work for you?"

There's an app for this you know?!

I know, I know - there are plenty of digital tools to help align our calendars and find spots in our lives and all that. I'm not here to denigrate those, but I think that approach leans a bit too far into software to be personal for this sort of thing. Instead I think we can still use our digital tools such as calendars to find and block off spots for actual human beings while still making it a human process.

I'm far from perfect

I think this is important to me because I’ve come to realize that my phone is often a source of stress for me, and it’s because of these sorts of things. Perhaps it’s because I read messages that come in immediately and then when I don’t have the time or energy to actually plan something in, it sits as yet another todo on my list (often with me marking the message as unread so I remember to come back to it).

This is something I'm trying to get better at (and still constantly fail at), but I do believe that the more we take on the responsibility of our intentions, the more we will feel less pressure around sending and receiving messages in general.