I won’t call or text you, even in the moments I need a friend

Dear friend,

If I ask you how I can know when it’s a good time for us to talk, you’ll likely respond “Just text or call me if you want to talk!” You might even say “Call me anytime!”

Of course I can call you anytime. But not really, not effectively.

Because when you’re in a meeting, or running errands, or spending quality time with your family, you don’t want a call. I know that if I call you anytime, there’s a good chance that I’ll be calling at a bad time. And if I leave a message saying call me back, there’s a good chance that you’re going to call back at a bad time. So even if you tell me to just call, I won’t, because I don’t want to risk bothering you or starting a game of phone tag.

“Ok” you say, “so you don’t like to cold call. But you can text me to see if I’m free.”

Alright… let’s say I text you, “Hey I’m free right now! Want to call to catch up on things?” What happens after that?

I have to wait.

My life is put on hold. I’ve told you I’m free… and now I’m obligated to remain free. But for how long? Five minutes? Twenty? I can’t call someone else right now, because I’ve committed my availability to you. So now I have to wait for you to either respond, or for some unspecified amount of time to go by, before I can move on with my life.

Our relationship is judged against your reason for why you can’t talk.

It’s likely that when I text you, it won’t be a good time for you to talk. You have a lot going on, I understand that. And it’s your time— you are entitled to simply not be available for a call if you’re busy or not in the mood to talk.

However, you feel obligated to respond to me and validate why you can’t talk right now. But likely you could if it was urgent enough. So when you give your reason, in reality you’re saying that whatever you’re doing is more important. I get that you have things going on, but it still hurts to be rejected after reaching out. After a few failed tries, I stop attempting.

I don’t want to schedule a later time to talk.

If it’s about something important, sure, we should block out a time on the calendar when we can connect. But when I just wanted to call to catch up with you about whatever… I don’t really want to coordinate a later time. If we both happen to be free and wanting to connect right now, awesome. But my schedule is busy enough as it is, and I know yours is too. It’s just too much of a hassle to schedule a time just to say hey. And if you think it’s not that hard… think of how many good friends you have, and how many of them you schedule calls with on a regular basis. It just doesn’t happen like we might wish, because scheduling is a pain.

All these reasons combined, mean that when I have a free half hour, I’m quite unlikely to text or call you in that moment, even when I really would love to catch up with you.

I find that rather tragic.

But, there is a solution.

In that half hour I have, it isn’t actually you alone that I’d enjoy talking to. I’d like to chat with you or any of my good friends. I just need to know which of you happen to also want to connect at that time.

That’s where Kovii comes in. It’s an app that lets me notify a selection of my contacts, anytime I want to welcome them to call. When someone calls, or when I don’t want to be available anymore, Kovii marks me unavailable.

No intruding.
No phone tag.
No waiting on others one at a time.
No judgements.
No scheduling.

Imagine I’m eating lunch all alone, at a table for two. I’d like you and my other friends to know I’m there, and to feel welcome to join me. There’s no pressure and if you don’t want to join, there’s no need to give a reason. The invitation is open to you but when one person sits down and takes the empty seat, or when I get up and leave, everyone can see that the opportunity has passed. But there will be more opportunities, because I’ll send you a quick notification each time I’ve got a seat open for you to claim.