We’ve written about the importance of making and maintaining friendships in adulthood and the benefits of face-to-face interaction. 我們已經寫過成年後建立和維持友誼的重要性以及面對面互動的好處。

After reading one of these articles, maybe you tried to get your friends together to do something. 閱讀這些文章後，也許你試圖召集朋友一起做些事情。

Perhaps you threw out a text to them, and the resulting conversation went something like this: 也許你給他們發了一條訊息，而導致的對話大致上是這樣的：

You: Hey, that new pizza place just opened up. Let’s get together for dinner there next week. What night would work for you guys? 你：嘿，那家新的比薩店剛開張。下週我們一起去那裡吃晚餐吧。你們哪一晚有空呢？

Friend 1: I’m free Saturday night! 朋友1：我星期六晚上有空！

Friend 2: Reese has a basketball game that night.  朋友2：Reese當晚有一場籃球比賽。

You: What about Friday night? 你：星期五晚上怎麼樣？

Friend 2: I’m going out for my and Cheryl’s wedding anniversary that night. How about Thursday? 朋友2：那晚我要和Cheryl慶祝我們的結婚週年紀念日。星期四怎麼樣？

You: I’ve got Boy Scouts that night.  你：那晚我有童子軍活動。

Friend 1: Thursday wouldn’t work for me either. How about Wednesday? 朋友1：星期四對我也不行。星期三怎麼樣？

Friend 2: I’ve got to work the late shift that night. 朋友2：那晚我得上晚班。

And on it went until the discussion devolved into a vague commitment to try to get together some other time.  然後一直進行下去，直到討論演變成模糊的承諾，嘗試在其他時間聚在一起。

Not only is it hard to corral your friends for a simple hang out, but if you belong to any civic or church groups, you’ve likely encountered a similar difficulty in getting people together. You plan an event for which hundreds of people might potentially attend, but only a handful show up. Folks just have all kinds of other conflicting events going on.  不僅是很難召集朋友簡單地聚會，如果你屬於任何市民或教會團體，你可能會遇到類似的困難，無法讓人們聚在一起。你計劃了一個可能有數百人參加的活動，但只有少數人出現。人們只是有各種其他衝突的活動。

A lot of ink has been spilled on what’s causing the decline in in-person socialization in the West. Technologies like television and the internet have undoubtedly played a role. But an oft-overlooked factor is that in our modern, hyper-individualistic world, people no longer have schedules that sync up. When everyone is living in their own timeline, there are fewer shared areas that overlap, and getting together becomes increasingly difficult to do.  許多人已經討論了西方社交互動下降的原因。電視和互聯網等技術無疑發揮了作用。但一個常常被忽視的因素是，在我們現代、極端個人主義的世界中，人們不再有同步的時間表。當每個人都生活在自己的時間軸上時，共同的區域就越來越少，聚在一起變得越來越困難。

There’s a telling lesson from history on what happens to individuals, families, and society when there’s no longer a shared calendar or schedule: In 1929, the Soviet Union adopted a continuous workweek plan called nepreryvka. The plan aimed to increase the productivity of factories to speed up industrialization.  歷史上有一個明顯的教訓，當個人、家庭和社會不再有共同的日曆或時間表時會發生什麼：1929年，蘇聯採用了一個連續工作週計劃，稱為nepreryvka。 該計劃旨在提高工廠的生產力，加快工業化進程。

First, they rejiggered the calendar so that a week only had five days instead of seven. Next, workers were assigned to five different color groups. Each group was assigned a weekly work schedule where they’d work four days and have one day off. Which days were work days and which day was an off day differed between each group. On any given day, 80% of the population was at work, while 20% was at home. 首先，他們重新調整了日曆，使一週只有五天而不是七天。接下來，工人被分配到五個不同的顏色組。每個組別都被分配了一個每週的工作時間表，他們會工作四天，休息一天。哪些天是工作日，哪天是休息日在每個組別之間有所不同。在任何一天，80%的人口在工作，而20%的人在家。

While this arrangement allowed factories to run non-stop, it also had immediate social consequences. Friends, family members, and even husbands and wives were often separated into different color groups. Socializing became nearly impossible because everyone had different schedules. Clubs and church congregations began to atrophy, friends stopped seeing each other, and families became distant and stressed. From the point of view of the Soviet commissioners, this disruption of organic social life was only another benefit of nepreryvka: keeping people atomized made them easier to control.  雖然這種安排讓工廠可以不停運轉，但也帶來了即時的社會後果。朋友、家人，甚至夫妻也常常被分成不同的色彩組別。社交幾乎變得不可能，因為每個人都有不同的時間表。俱樂部和教會團體開始萎縮，朋友們不再見面，家庭變得疏遠和緊張。從蘇聯委員會的角度來看，這種有機社會生活的破壞只是nepreryvka的另一個好處：讓人們分散，更容易控制。

By 1931, the Soviet Union gave up on nepreryvka because production began to slow down, likely due to a plunge in morale amongst rightfully resentful employees. But the social damage had been done. Those two years of schedule discoordination created tears in the fabric of society that took a very long time to mend. 到了1931年，蘇聯放棄了「不斷生產」的政策，因為生產開始減緩，可能是由於合理憤怒的員工士氣下降所致。但社會上已經造成了傷害。這兩年的生產計劃不協調在社會結構中造成了裂痕，需要很長時間才能修補。

In the modern West, we see a similar thing happening as happened during the Soviet nepreryvka. Instead of some giant bureaucracy jacking up everyone’s schedule from the top down in the name of collective efficiency, our social discoordination is coming from the bottom up, as individuals choose different schedules to make a living or pursue interests, often for the sake of personal efficiency. 在現代西方，我們看到類似於蘇聯的不斷運動期間發生的事情。我們的社會不協調不是由一個巨大的官僚機構從上而下地調整每個人的時間表以實現集體效率，而是從下而上地發生，因為個人選擇不同的時間表來謀生或追求興趣，通常是為了個人效率的緣故。

Due to the changing nature of work, the traditional Monday to Friday, 9-5 job is no longer the norm. Many people not only work during the day but also in the evenings and/or on weekends.  由於工作性質的改變，傳統的週一至週五，9點到5點的工作已不再是常態。許多人不僅在白天工作，還在晚上和/或週末工作。

Not only does modern work create syncing problems, but the abundance of choices in leisure and extracurricular activities (for both children and adults) can keep people apart as well. Whereas a hundred years ago, maybe the only game in town on Wednesday night was a meeting at the Freemason lodge, now someone might be at a CrossFit class, movie, church youth group, or any number of their children’s sports games.  現代工作不僅會造成同步問題，而且休閒和課外活動的選擇豐富（無論是兒童還是成人），也可能使人們分開。一百年前，也許星期三晚上唯一的活動是在共濟會大廳開會，現在有人可能在CrossFit課程、看電影、教會青年團契或是孩子的任何一場運動比賽中。

Oliver Burkeman wrote about this issue in his book Four Thousand Weeks. He pointed out that what usually keeps people from getting together with friends isn’t an outright lack of time, but the simple inability to sync up schedules.  Oliver Burkeman 在他的書《四千週》中談到了這個問題。他指出，通常阻止人們與朋友聚在一起的不是時間不夠，而是無法協調好行程。

This challenge of social discoordination is a stinker of a problem to solve. Here are some suggestions that have worked for me and that I’ve seen work in other people’s lives, which can at least help manage and mitigate the issue:  社會協調不良的挑戰是一個難以解決的問題。以下是一些對我有用，並且我已經看到在其他人的生活中也有用的建議，這些建議至少可以幫助管理和減輕問題：

Accept that getting together with others is going to be hard. The expectations you set for something play a primary role in how you experience its result. If you’ve got it in your head that getting together with people should be fairly easy to do, when it isn’t — which is very often the case — you’ll end up feeling frustrated and resentful. Instead, accept the fact that any kind of socialization in the modern world will include friction and take effort and won’t always work out. When it does work out, count it as a great win. When it doesn’t, just shrug it off and try again some other time. 接受與他人聚集在一起會很困難。你對某件事情設定的期望在你體驗其結果時扮演了主要角色。如果你心中認為與人聚集應該相當容易，而實際上並非如此（這種情況非常普遍），你最終會感到沮喪和憤怒。相反地，接受現代社交中任何形式的摩擦和努力，並且不會總是成功。當它成功時，把它當作一個巨大的勝利。當它失敗時，只需耸耸肩，另外再試一次。

Create a set, recurring date for get-togethers. One effective way to mitigate social discoordination is to create a shared schedule with your friends and family by setting a recurring date for get-togethers.  建立一個固定的聚會日期。緩解社交不協調的有效方法之一是與朋友和家人建立共享日程表，設定一個固定的聚會日期。

People often can’t fit in an event with only a week’s notice, but when an event is recurring, they can start planning their calendar around it.   人們通常無法在一週的通知內參加活動，但當一個活動是定期舉行時，他們可以開始計劃他們的日曆。

A few years ago, I belonged to two different social groups — one a scripture study group and the other a book club — that got together regularly by using this practice. With the latter group, we met the third Wednesday of every month at 6 p.m.; with the other, we got together every other Thursday at 8:30 p.m. We all agreed to the schedule and stuck to it and were able to plan the rest of our lives around it. It worked wonderfully for a couple of years. (Both eventually disbanded due to people moving. Sad!) 幾年前，我屬於兩個不同的社交團體 - 一個是經文研讀小組，另一個是讀書會 - 他們經常使用這種方式聚會。對於後者的小組，我們每個月的第三個星期三晚上6點見面；對於另一個小組，我們每隔一個星期四晚上8:30見面。我們都同意這個時間表，並堅持遵守它，能夠計劃我們生活的其餘部分。這個方法在幾年內非常成功。（由於人們搬家，兩個小組最終都解散了。很傷心！）

We’ve seen success with this tactic on The Strenuous Life. Early on, we noticed that local chapters had trouble planning and organizing meet-ups because members couldn’t sync schedules. So we introduced the idea of “Strenuous Saturday” and designated the third Saturday of every month as the official day for meet-ups. Groups don’t have to have their meet-ups on the third Saturday of the month, but setting that as the general norm certainly helped make events easier to plan and more frequent.  我們在「The Strenuous Life」上使用這種策略取得了成功。早期，我們注意到當地分會在計劃和組織聚會時遇到了困難，因為成員無法同步日程。因此，我們引入了「Strenuous Saturday」的概念，並將每個月的第三個星期六指定為官方聚會日。小組不必在每個月的第三個星期六舉行聚會，但將其設定為一般規範肯定有助於更容易計劃和更頻繁地舉辦活動。

The recurring events you set don’t have to be things that you do weekly or monthly. They can be annual traditions too. Maybe every year you throw a Memorial Day BBQ for your friends. They always know it’s coming, and always know to save the spot on their calendar for it. 您設定的循環事件不一定是每週或每月要做的事情。它們也可以是年度傳統。也許每年您都會為朋友舉辦一次紀念日燒烤派對。他們總是知道它即將到來，並總是知道要在日曆上留出位置。

Try a 2-hour cocktail party on a Tuesday night. People’s weekends are pretty booked up. On Wednesdays, some people have church youth group. Thursday nights are a great night to attempt to get folks together — people are already transitioning into the weekend mindset but aren’t as busy as they are on Fridays and Saturdays. But if you really want to plan an event where the preponderance of people will be available to attend, Tuesdays are where it’s at. Tuesdays are dumb. Hardly anything goes on on a Tuesday, and a fun social event would be an accessible and welcome break from the norm.  在星期二晚上試試兩小時的雞尾酒派對。人們的週末已經排滿了行程。星期三，有些人有教會青年團。星期四晚上是一個很好的聚會時刻 - 人們已經進入週末的心態，但不像星期五和星期六那麼忙碌。但如果你真的想計劃一個大多數人都能參加的活動，星期二是最好的時候。星期二很無聊。幾乎沒有什麼事情發生在星期二，一個有趣的社交活動將是一個可接近和受歡迎的突破常規的休息。

You could plan any kind of get-together for a Tuesday, but to maximize the fun and effectiveness of the event, you can’t go wrong with a “2-hour cocktail party”; Nick Gray goes into all the details of how to execute one in this episode of the podcast. 你可以計畫任何星期二的聚會，但為了最大化活動的樂趣和效果，你不能錯過「兩小時雞尾酒派對」；Nick Gray在這一集的播客中詳細介紹了如何執行。

Get rid of the “maybe” mentality. Manners expert Thomas Farley says that “we’re living in the age of maybe.” We get invites to weddings and parties and never commit to yes or no because we think there might be something else going on at that time that will conflict (and that we’d rather do). This makes planning an event harder for hosts and social initiators, which makes them more reluctant to plan future events, which makes in-person get-togethers more and more infrequent.  擺脫「或許」的心態。禮儀專家托馬斯·法利表示，「我們正生活在或許的時代。」我們收到婚禮和派對的邀請，卻從不確定是否會參加，因為我們認為可能會有其他事情發生在那個時間，而我們寧願做其他事情。這使得主持人和社交發起人更難籌劃活動，進而使他們更不願籌劃未來的活動，進而使得面對面的聚會越來越少。

Instead of saying “maybe” to social invites, make a firm commitment to either yes or no. If you say yes to an invite, stick to it, even if something else comes up.  不要對社交邀請說「或許」，要堅定地做出肯定或否定的承諾。如果你接受了邀請，就要堅持下去，即使有其他事情出現。

Embrace “Downton Abbey” sociality. There have been other times in human history when logistical factors prevented people from socializing very often. On the Western frontier, people who lived on far-flung homesteads sometimes didn’t see any non-immediate family members outside of a long trek to church on Sundays and very occasional visits from extended family and friends. It was the same deal in many rural areas up through the 20th century.  擁抱“唐頓莊園”的社交性。在人類歷史上，有其他時期的物流因素阻止人們經常社交。在西部邊疆，生活在遠離家園的人有時候除了在星期天長途跋涉去教堂和偶爾的探視親戚和朋友之外，很少見到非直系家庭成員。在許多鄉村地區，直到20世紀，情況都是一樣的。

In Downton Abbey (hey, don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it — it was a good show, man), the characters live in homes and manors spread out across the English countryside. Set in the early 1900s, when automobiles and telephones were coming on the scene but not yet common, friends and relatives could go weeks and months without seeing each other and communicated largely by letter. In the show, when characters do have the chance to meet up, they tend to blurt out their deepest feelings for each other, without much preliminaries. Some of this is, of course, the product of screenwriters who are looking to condense and gin up the drama. Yet it also feels authentic to what these kinds of interactions would have really been like; when it might be weeks before you’d see someone again, when you did see them, you’d skip the idle small talk and get right to the nitty-gritty.  在《唐顿莊園》（嘿，如果你還沒看過，不要嘲笑它——這是一部好節目，伙計），角色們住在遍布英國鄉村的房屋和莊園中。該劇設定在20世纪初，當時汽車和電話正在興起，但還不普及，朋友和親戚可能會數周甚至數月不见面，主要通過信件交流。在節目中，當角色們有機會見面時，他們倾向于毫不掩饰地表達彼此最深的感受，没有太多的前奏。當然，其中一些是編劇為了鴨缩和激發戲劇效果而創作的。然而，它也感覺真實，符合這些互动的真实情况；當你可能數周后才能再次见到某人时，當你見到他們時，你會跳過閒聊，直接進入實質性的問题。

In our own age, we’ve returned to a time of Downton Abbey-esque sociality. We “talk” to people more often via text than we see them in person, and we can go quite awhile between the times we interact with them in the flesh. When we do get together, then, we might take a page from the post-Edwardian era and really make these meet-ups count, spending less time on trivialities and more time on the deeper things we’ve been thinking and feeling since the last time we rendezvoused.  在我們現代社會中，我們回到了一個類似《唐頓莊園》的社交時代。我們與人們的溝通更多地是通過短信而不是親自見面，我們可能會很長一段時間沒有親自與他們互動。因此，當我們真正聚在一起時，我們可以借鑒愛德華時代後期的方式，讓這些聚會更有意義，花更少的時間在瑣碎的事情上，更多的時間關注我們自上次會面以來一直在思考和感受的更深層次的事情。

原文網址:

https://www.artofmanliness.com/people/relationships/the-challenge-of-social-discoordination/