‘Does this friend reach out to me?’ is an incredibly noisy signal for how much they like you, and I consider it to convey approximately no information.
I’m not sure I agree with this bit- if someone does reach out to me, I can pretty safely assume I matter to them. But I agree that someone not reaching out is not a reliable sign that they don’t appreciate me.
Ah, sorry, that sentence was badly worded. I completely agree that a friend reaching out is positive evidence. Though it’s still not that strong—highly conscientious people are often good at reaching out to a lot of people, even if they’re just doing this out of perceived social obligation. In general, people’s bar for reaching out will vary wildly, and so the strength of evidence will vary a lot. You can probably tell whether your friend is unusually conscientious though
The point of that paragraph was that people often interpret the repeated absence of reaching out as strong negative evidence, which I strongly disagree with.
Love the post.
I’m not sure I agree with this bit- if someone does reach out to me, I can pretty safely assume I matter to them. But I agree that someone not reaching out is not a reliable sign that they don’t appreciate me.
Ah, sorry, that sentence was badly worded. I completely agree that a friend reaching out is positive evidence. Though it’s still not that strong—highly conscientious people are often good at reaching out to a lot of people, even if they’re just doing this out of perceived social obligation. In general, people’s bar for reaching out will vary wildly, and so the strength of evidence will vary a lot. You can probably tell whether your friend is unusually conscientious though
The point of that paragraph was that people often interpret the repeated absence of reaching out as strong negative evidence, which I strongly disagree with.