Why Inviting Friends to Things SUCKS
Direct invites suck both ways. They're awkward to send and awkward to turn down, and the awkwardness builds up every time. Even with your friends. Maybe especially with your friends.
Three invite tokens
Think of it like this. With every friend, you start with three invite tokens. Every time you invite them, you hand one over. If they say yes, they give it back. If they say no, they keep it.
Nobody actually keeps count. But everyone feels it.
On Monday I ask Fred if he wants to play pickleball. He's busy. Totally legit. He already had plans, he says "next time for sure," and he means it.
But now he's holding one of my tokens, and he feels bad about it. I don't think about it much. One no is nothing. People have lives.
Thursday I want to ask him again. Except I'm down to two. And Fred's thinking, he just invited me, I can't say no twice in a row. So he feels like he has to go. But he really can't. He's got something going on. Now he's holding two.
This is where it changes. One no is a scheduling problem. Two in a row starts to look like a pattern, and both of us notice.
Then comes the third invite. My last token. And I don't even feel comfortable spending it. One of my friends, and I don't feel comfortable inviting him to something. Isn't that crazy?
Meanwhile Fred's thinking, man, I keep saying no to this guy. Does he think I'm avoiding him? And I'm over here wondering if he even likes hanging out with me.
So I stop asking. He doesn't ask either, because he figures the ball is in my court. A few months go by and we're just not that close anymore. No fight, no falling out. Two people who each think the other one stopped trying.
Nobody did anything wrong. The format is the problem.
Why the format is the problem
A direct invite is a question, and a question needs an answer. "Want to play pickleball Monday?" puts the decision on Fred. If the answer is no, he has to say it out loud, usually with a reason, to someone he likes.
And I can't help reading into it. Was he actually busy? Did he just not want to come? The invite was supposed to be about pickleball. It ended up being about whether we're good.
The more you care about the friend, the heavier that gets. Which is backwards. The people you want to see most end up being the ones you hold back from asking.
What we actually want
What we actually want is the open invite. "I'm going anyway. Come if you want."
That one sentence takes the pressure off both sides. I'm not asking you for anything. I'm telling you where I'll be. If you show up, great. If you don't, nothing happened. There's no question, so there's no answer to give.
But where do you send that? The group chat? Maybe you don't have one with that person. And if you do, it has nine people in it, half of whom live an hour away.
A text? Now it's a direct invite again. The second it lands on one person's phone, they feel like they owe you a reply.
Social media? Now everyone can see it. Including people you weren't really inviting.
There's no channel for it. You need a passive way to say "here's where I'll be."
Open to join
So I built one into SoKal.
Put the plan on your calendar and check Open to join. Pick the friends you'd be happy to see there. The ones who are nearby get a ping: "James is grabbing coffee at Starbucks. Feel free to join."
Boom.
If they want to come, they tap join and they're on the plan. If they can't, they ignore it. There's nothing to reply to and nothing to explain.
It works for online plans too. A gaming session or a watch party goes to the friends you pick wherever they live, since distance doesn't matter there.
I'm going either way, so there's no pressure. I'd like you to come. And if you can't, you ignore the ping and don't feel bad about it. No tokens spent. Nobody keeping score.
Back to Fred
The best plans for this are the ones you'd do alone anyway. Coffee, a run, the gym, an afternoon working from a café. Pickleball on Monday.
Fred sees Monday's pickleball, can't make it, and doesn't have to say anything. Thursday he's free, so he just shows up. Neither of us spent a token.
That's the invite everyone wants to send. Now there's a place to send it.
Send the invite everyone wants to send
Put your next plan on your calendar and check Open to join. SoKal is free on iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows and the web.
