friends – Seven Troublesome Sisters

“He asked me out again. I don’t really want to go. But maybe I should. What do you think?”

It’s a common conversation among women.

We continue to have a system in which he is more commonly the inviter, causing plenty of problems for him, and she is more often the invitee, causing another set of problems for her.

She deals with the invitation that never comes, or comes too late, and with finding creative and kind ways to decline the invite she is positive she does not want. Perhaps the trickiest one, though, is the chance to spend time with someone she’s pretty sure she’s not going to want to see more often, but …

This problem, of course, isn’t confined to dating. We’ve all had nice enough acquaintances who’ve tried to include us more, but we just didn’t see that much in common. We’ve been invited to be on teams or join groups that sort of sounded like fun, but weren’t really. It’s usually flattering to be invited, and for reasons of upbringing, personality or societal expectations, most of us find it hard to say no.

We shouldn’t.

Too many people spend too much of their limited free time doing things they aren’t all that interested in, with people they don’t particularly enjoy. I think it’s time we give ourselves far greater permission to treat our time as the resource it is, and learn to say “I don’t want to join you” in a way that is both kind and firm.

Yes, doing this requires a certain amount of courage.

A few days ago I found myself on the listening end of the conversation I started this post with, and was surprised at the vehemence of my answer. Maybe it was because she had just been telling me how hard she was trying to save money, and how poorly it was going. Something clicked.

“What makes you think your free time is any less precious than your spending money? It’s more precious. Hell yes, you say no if you don’t feel like going!”

Then I started to think about the words we use to describe both of these concepts. We have money. We spend money. We have time. We spend time.

Do we spend anything else? I don’t think so. Even our language acknowledges that time is a resource as precious as our wealth.

A few years ago, two former co-workers I hadn’t seen in years came to my home town and invited me out for the day. They seemed surprised and miffed when I declined. The reaction bothered me, and I remembered writing a post then about saying no to things you don’t want to do. I just found it and it’s called No, I actually don’t want to spend time with you.

I reread it and I stand by it. It’s never necessary to be rude. It is fair to be tired, over-committed, in need of some down time or just plain not interested. It is okay to try something, including an activity or a relationship of any sort, and decide this isn’t a thing you want to keep doing.

We go to great lengths to keep a thief from from spending our money. I think we’d be well-served if we were as vigilant about not letting others take over how we spend our free time.

(For more thoughts on how to use one’s precious time wisely, or poorly, see Live like you are going die?)

“A Streetcar Named Desire” made the phrase “I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers” infamous. While it is hard not to wince when the naive yet tragic Blanche DuBois utters it, I think that part of our discomfort comes from knowing that we all do rely sometimes on the goodwill of those we don’t know. Having spent the whole play or movie learning of the cruel events in Blanche’s life, this truth makes us uncomfortable, whether we find Blanche a likeable character or not.

Yet there it is. Reach out beyond your normal existence and you expose yourself to the danger that those unknown to you are devoid of compassion, at least for your particular welfare. It makes a person want to stay home and deal with no one but close friends and relatives. At least, one is inclined to stick with citizens of their own “village”, those who share customs, race, religion and nationality. When possible, one even seeks out those with common age and gender too. It’s safer that way, or so we think.

Enter the internet. Those of us who have years of clear memory before it existed still marvel at the way it can and does put perfect strangers in touch with each other. Yes, we’ve added safety rails all over the place. We rank and review each other and turn to moderators and block the obnoxious. But how does it go when we find we need some strangers in our life?

If you write books, you want a few people you’ve never met to read your novels before you take them to the next step. Friends and family have certain understandable shortcomings for this task, as I wrote about on my other blog. It turns out that the internet is full of unknown curious people, some of whom will actually volunteer to read your book. Should you let them?

If it seems like an easy yes, consider how much of ones heart goes into creating a novel. It is personal. Feedback delivered too harshly can stop any endeavor. Consider that you are depending on people, waiting on them before you continue with a task that means the world to you. They may lie to you, stringing you along with promises of feedback coming before they disappear, leaving you to wonder why they bothered with such a charade. Consider that they are strangers, and you are taking a risk with them.

My most recent novel is now in the hands of thirteen people, eight of whom I’ve never met. I’ve just heard from an older tax accountant in England who admires Margaret Thatcher, and from two young Hindu women engineers who share a passion for enlarging women’s rights in India. The British gentleman and I have played online word games for years and though we disagree about politics he has enjoyed my other books and agreed to beta read this one. My connection with the young women from India stems from one of them winning a copy of my first novel. So they aren’t total strangers, but we’ve never looked each other in the eye either, and I’ve just asked a lot of them.

Their feedback? Helpful. Very helpful, actually. These folks spent a lot of time, caught a lot of minor mistakes, and bothered to describe their best ideas for improving my story, and they did it all very kindly. The only rewards I have to give will be a thank you at the end of the book, and a t-shirt.(I do like to give away t-shirts.) I hope that I get to meet each of them someday,and they will be strangers no longer.

It’s an odd world. We can all choose to stay inside our own cozy homes, hoping never to get caught in a storm. It is true that storms can be dangerous. Or we can go outside every so often anyway, and feel the rain. It may be the best way to find a beta reader for one’s book. It’s the only way to turn strangers into friends.