How to turn down invitations to go out

[akratic]

You asked how to turn down friends, family, and coworkers, but friends and family should know you well enough and care about you enough not to force you into situations that suck for you.

It’s coworkers that you have no control over and often can’t be completely honest with. Suggesting a potluck is well and good, but it’s not going to work well if most of the group prefers fancy restaurants to potlucks.

Personally, with coworkers I got out of whatever was easy to get out of (using jacob’s “no, I don’t like going out”), and instead initiated activities that were easier for myself like coffee breaks or lunch together or game night after work.

However, I was still left with some social obligations that were either essential or were good investments. In this case, I think modeling the cost as something other than an expense can be psychologically helpful.

For essential social obligations, consider subtracting them from income instead of adding them to expenses. Imagine someone who makes $60k, pays $20k in taxes, and spends $2k on essential work-related social obligations. His true income is $38k/yr, simple as that. (If he saved $10k that year, his savings rate would be 10/38)

For social-obligations-as-investments, you could instead model the $2k spent as an investment in an end of year bonus or raise that you wouldn’t get otherwise. You could even calculate the expected value of the return on this $2k and decide rationally if it’s a good investment.

I know that when I was in the accumulation phase, I absolutely hated large bumps in the expense column, but sometimes important work-related social obligations are more like taxes or investments than expenses.

[EMJ]

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