Social Privacy

I detest the idea of having to be glued to my phone all day in fear of offending someone if I don’t answer their texts or calls or people thinking that my capacity for social interactions has affected how much I love and care for them. No, I'm alright I'm just not in the mood or not available to chat or reply. Absolutely, I don't know why it became a must to be reachable 24/7 because I now own a mobile phone.  I understand people don't like knowing they've been blatantly ignored but they shouldn't take it personally. People have their own things to deal with and I think it's selfish when people assume that others should be readily available whenever called upon.

But I think I'm wrong. It's totally bad behavior to constantly ignore someone who are genuinely craving to share some moments with you. You may mean a world to them, and if you ignore them for your own sake, they might lose interest or enthusiasm they have for you. But if it reaches a level everyone is trying to steal your me-time or divert your attention you must find the right response to give so you don't lose your time and hurt their feelings.

We live in a social world. If your social skills aren’t up to par or you need to recharge or whatever other things you come up with, you should work around that. Whether you like it or not, you have to talk to people. Schedule meeting with them. Don’t just blow them off and say you didn’t feel like it. That’s selfish! If they need to talk to you, it’s rude to just ignore them and essentially say “I’m ignoring you for Netflix. I’m not picking up.” Say “I’m not available at the moment, can we talk tomorrow at 6?”. Well, in your personal life? Sure, you may ignore in some scenerios. In professional life?  No, you should return almost all calls, texts from anyone you even slightly care about. This blog post isn't about how to respond in your professional life, it's about how to respond to them in your personal life.

Let's get right to it!

1. Don't say "Sorry I missed your call, I don't feel like talking at the moment": People would take it personal, they'll assume something's wrong, that you're upset, angry with them, etc, when really you weren't just in the mood. Simply say "Sorry I missed your call" or "I apologise for the delay in getting back to you". If you tell your friends you don't feel like talking, it's a great way to make sure none of them ever call you or invite you to places. “Hey sorry I didn’t pick up your call, I didn’t feel like it.” "Okay cool. Don't expect me to call you anymore" lol.

2. On instant messaging apps, let them know you won't be replying them quickly: Some people don't understand that people can be busy, can forget, or sometimes just don't feel like talking. I knew people who would say something, then reply with "???" if I didn't respond within a couple of minutes. They learned very quickly that I was not someone they wanted to talk with since our method of using digital communications were too different. In other to stop  such people from being anxious of your reply, tell them you are barely managing to reply them, as you're being occupied with something else and when you're done, you'll be very available to be talked to.

3. Don't give a reason/excuse why you didn't reply them: If you do this, they'll keep on probing you with more questions. You tell them what kept you busy and they'll show more interest in it. Unless this is what you intend (to know if they cared about what you do or like) or what you are legally obliged to do, don't give an excuse. If it's none of their business, don't do it, you don't owe everybody an explanation. A student once said - When in university my brother gave me this advice: If people ask you to do something with them and you aren't up for it, politely decline and don't give a reason. 

"Hey dude, you wanna come out for  party??" "Nah, not today. Have fun." and that ends it. If they ask why, just say "Just not gonna go tonight, have fun." 

But if you say something like, "I have to get up early" they will say "Oh we won't be out that late so great, we're leaving in 30 minutes I'll come by". So now you throw in another excuse "No, I also want to do laundry tonight." They'll say "Just do it tomorrow, come on!" etc.  

If you just keep it brief and don't go into an explanation, it's no problem, and there's nothing to dispute or latch on to. I think the same idea applies for responding quickly to texts. If you don't reply right away, it's because you didn't reply right away. You don't have to give a specific reason and account for why you did or didn't reply in X amount of time.

If you give reasons that are false, you may end up at telling more lies that are very open ended to more and more questions. E.g. I turned off my phone; I was driving; This phone service is so bad; My phone died; I left my phone in the (office, bedroom, other room, etc.)

4. Let them know when you will be available: Some people are just out to invade your privacy. They'll video call you on WhatsApp any moment and they'll call your phone during sleeping hours. It's best to tell them what time or days you will be available to take such calls and reply messages. This will give you the me-time you want.

That's all I can tell you. Some days, our social energy goes so low we don't want to receive calls or texts, we just wanna sit all alone, watching movies or playing games, while some days we are just busy doing online assignments or reading wikipedia pages, or reading blog posts like this! What's important is not to give others the wrong impression that we don't like them so we don't want to speak or chat with them. We don't want to look like we deliberately ignoring everybody because they can see we are online but we aren't replying their messages.

Posted by Kompleksanda

Follow me everywhere @kompleksanda