(no subject)

[greenstorm]

Three possible kinds of contact patterns with folks: regular or frequent substantive connections, regular check-ins with irregular or infrequent substantive connections, irregular or infrequent substantive connections.

Three other possible kinds of contact patterns with folks: supportive/hard times connections, celebratory/fun connections, maintenance/just whenever connections.

Makes sense to negotiate these in a friendship to make sure you're on the same page as the other person, right? So someone doesn't feel abandoned, or used for support, or like you hide rough times, or overcommitted, or whatever?

Comments

[yarrowkat]

it does make sense, yeah. how much disappointment and miscommunication could be saved! how many people would be up for clearly negotiating friendship boundaries? i feel like there's a handful of people i could have that kind of conversation with (brian & matie leap to mind, and my body trust fam in general, deeply embedded in consent culture as they are) but other folks even having the conversation would feel like an edge - i suppose that's information, too. hmm. this is excellent food for thought.

[greenstorm]

I really like to be able to talk about things explicitly with people, and I do find that approach matters: a casual "hey, do you usually like to be a frequent-contact friend?" in a breezy tone after an interruption to the normal contact schedule can imply that this is a normal question about an already-known set of categories and folks are more likely to go along with it. Saying "I want to discuss our friendship and talk about our boundaries and preferences" to begin a conversation is much less likely to go over well. Which, you probably already know that, but it's a survival strategy for me.

[yarrowkat]

yes, i can see that! a casual tone goes a long way towards making an important conversation feel un-charged and therefore accessible.

[greenstorm]

And a normalizing tone really, really works a lot of the time. Folks will take cues on whether something is acceptable from how it's presented.