en
Join our growing site,
& meet dozens of singles today!

User blogs

a2zsms

The what's App Business API is a powerful tool designed to help businesses streamline customer communication, offering efficient, personalized, and secure messaging solutions. With WhatsApp’s vast global user base, the API allows businesses to connect with customers where they are most active.

Key features include automated messaging for instant responses, multi-agent access for team collaboration, and CRM integration for better customer management. Notifications, order confirmations, and promotional updates can be sent in real-time, ensuring businesses stay connected with their audience effortlessly.

Security is paramount, with end-to-end encryption safeguarding all communications. The API also enables interactive messaging with features like buttons and media, making customer interactions engaging and intuitive. Businesses can leverage this tool for customer support, marketing campaigns, and transactional updates, enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

The WhatsApp Business API’s scalability makes it ideal for small, medium, and large enterprises. It bridges the gap between businesses and customers, ensuring a seamless communication experience that drives growth and brand visibility.

To explore how the WhatsApp Business API can transform your communication 



visit A2ZSMS.

Becky Earley

How to cope is the biggest psychological challenge individuals, couples, and  families face during the fires in Los Angeles and in their aftermath. When it  comes to disasters that are […]

The post Coping In Unimaginable Times appeared first on The Gottman Institute.

Valerie L

Howdy Captain,

Thanks for your work and for cat photos.

All players in this story are mid 20s. I (call me Emm, she/her) have been in a wonderful, spellbinding relationship with Ell (he/him) for about a year and half now, and we’re getting engaged in a few months! He has gotten along swimmingly with all the people I care about in my life except…I’ve been unable to get May (she/her), one of my longest-tenured friends, to meet with him.

May and I lived together for three years in college. We’ve been super close since then and she means a lot to me. May has never been in a relationship and has told me she’s insecure about that fact and feels stuck, but doesn’t want to try online dating and works in a field where she has little free time or energy to go out. She’s surrounded by people in serious relationships (both her siblings, her work friends, and mutual friends from college) and I was her last and only single friend –something she was vocally very aware of.

She’s known about my relationship with Ell since shortly after we became official, but the two have yet to meet. Whenever I try to broach the idea of a meeting, she balks.
Examples of this include:
“Hey, I’ve wanted to show Ell this great restaurant that we’ve been to a few times. How about the three of us go on Thursday?” Either ignored or pushed away, with her saying she only wants it to be the two of us.
Okay, maybe it’s because May doesn’t want to be a third wheel. No problem…
“Cee (she) and Ess (he) [college friends, engaged to each other] told me about this cool escape room. Can I tell Ell about it, and the five of us give it a try one Saturday this month?” gets the same sort of response.

We can’t really do low-key, low-effort hangouts at any of our houses since May, Ell, and I all live with our parents. The only event I know of in the near future in which Ell and May will both be in attendance is…Cee and Ess’s wedding in which May and I are both bridesmaids. And by that point, Ell and I will be engaged. It’ll really hammer in the “wow, May, everyone you know is in a committed relationship but yoooooouu” feeling that I know really gets to her.

How can I navigate this situation and have two of the most important people in my life meet with as little stress as possible?

All my best,
Middle Manager

Dear Middle Manager:

Stop doing work about people who aren’t doing work about you.

If May wanted to hang out with you and Ell, she would. You’ve invited her. You’ve suggested. She declines consistently. That puts the ball firmly in her court. She will throw it back when and if she wants to, and she will feel however she feels about it when the time comes. If you want to hang out with May, make plans to spend time with her solo for her own sake. But until she says “I’d love to meet your fella” of her own accord or you’re throwing a general gathering (“Everyone, come have birthday drinks!”), stop trying to cross these streams. Occam made a whole razor about this, and Bartleby walked so that May could prefer not to run.

It’s understandable that you want people you care about to like each other. It’s understandable that you’d like to get the showdown over before you’re at…and in…somebody else’s wedding. You are trying very hard to head off potential awkwardness, but that’s not really possible when the other person in the situation wants completely different stuff than you do, if it’s ever really possible. (Usually trying to head off potential awkwardness later just creates different but equal awkwardness now, and you end up having to pick between which kind is the least worst.) One potential upside of handling the introductions in the midst of being busy at a wedding is a) being too busy with the wedding and too aware of the occasion to have much energy to fight b) there will be lots of other people around to buffer things, including lots of new people neither of you have met, of which Ell will be one more face in the crowd. Either way, it’s time to make peace with the scenario where it probably won’t go how you want it to and there’s nothing you can do about it now.

When the time comes, probably tell May you’re officially engaged the same way you would anyone else in your life who you expect to be happy for you, and let her reactions be whatever they are. “Great news, we’re engaged! The wedding will be around [time].” Until then, maybe tell people within your circle you trust to be happy for you and not convert your good news into a personal attack on them. You’re not getting married at May, and the more you try to manage her reactions, the more you risk being unintentionally patronizing. Just know, there is literally no way you can tell her, no timing, no inviting, etc. that will change an unpleasant reaction into a pleasant one. That’s all up to May. Let’s hope she says “Congratulations!” and takes her complicated feelings about ubiquitous coupledom to:

  • a therapist or counselor
  • other friends & family members
  • online communities of like-minded people
  • her diary
  • a weekly kickboxing or pottery class where she can convert emotional energy to kinetic energy
  • literally any option that isn’t “taking it out on a supposedly close friend for existing and being happy with her life.”

People can have complicated feelings, including scorn, spite, shame, and other not-so-pretty ones, but they also have choices about how they treat you. Part of growing up is to separate the process of feeling our feelings from making choices about how (or whether) to act on them. If you tell May your good news and she is a jerk to you about it, maybe don’t default to how it’s your job to reassure her about why she was a jerk to you or second-guess how or when you caused her to be a jerk to you. There’s never a perfect way to tell people stuff they’re determined not to hear, and if you treat people with scorn when they tell you good news, one reasonable result is that they will eventually avoid telling you any stuff.( Bonus: If you have fantasies of May being *in* your wedding, maybe let go of those until after you see sustained evidence that she’s willing and able to be nice to you about the fact of getting married and nice to Ell in general. )

I hope this all goes more like you hope it will than I fear it might. And congratulations on your happy news!

Here’s a recent Henrietta Pussycat photo drop for your winter viewing. Mood: BABY, but also MURDER

Tabby cat on a cat tree looking at a sisal toy like she wants to adorably murder it. Same tabby cat, same rainbow tunnel, but now she looks plaintive and like a kitten A feisty tabby cat inside a rainbow tunnel made of parachute material

Valerie L

Dear Captain Awkward,

Last year we had a blow-up in the friend group involving a lot of brewing issues left unsaid (especially frustrating when I have made a point generally asking people to let me know if I am doing something that upsets them so that I can address it) and general communication problems. After a while of everyone feeling bad, we had a conversation to address it (which didn’t work for parts of it but that’s how it goes). In that conversation, it was brought up that I should have reached out to people, so afterwards I made a point of sending a message to each person to see if there’s anything they wanted to discuss with me one-on-one. Some did and we largely had good chats, or at least useful ones!

I messaged one friend who had specifically brought up a problem with me in the large group conversation to address said problem. They told me they were overwhelmed that day, but would get back to me the next day. After a couple weeks I messaged asking if they had sent me a message on another platform and I had missed it, or if they just hadn’t had the spoons to message yet. I specified that if it was the latter, that was totally find and understandable, I just wanted to check because my brain was getting anxious that *they* were waiting on *me* and getting frustrated about it. They told me that yes it was spoons (they’d had a death in the family, so that was very fair!) and they appreciated my patience.

It’s now been two and a half months since the initial message. I’m afraid to message again because of the fragile nature of everything after the initial blowup, and because it might seem demanding when the initial blowup placed myself and my partner largely in the wrong (that’s a whole other can of worms). My partner still talks to them casually on a semi-regular basis, and I’ve asked him not to pressure them on my behalf because that feels bad and would probably also go poorly anyway. I just don’t really know what to do at this point. I’ve been pulling away from the friend group more because being there makes me anxious about the one person who definitely does hate me after the blowup, and because the friend group is basically friend-who-won’t-get-back-to-me’s group (I would bet that they wouldn’t see it that way but many others would). I spent the first couple months anxious and spiraling about it most days, and now I’ve internally written them off as a friend to some extent… but that feels unfair and also still lacks closure. Maybe that’s how it has to be though.

Hello!

What the heck did you do to upset these people?  There’s a thread here of acknowledging that you were in the wrong but displacing some of that blame on how others failed to notify you in a timely manner or to discuss it at length to your satisfaction which is not emitting “reliable narrator” energy or (more importantly) helping you resolve this and feel better. It’s hard to fully answer without knowing what your part in the conflict is, but I can address your search for closure. Namely, closure is something you create for yourself, not something you demand from others.

So, what would you do if what you’ve been told so far is everything you’ll ever know?

Based on whatever discussions you’ve already had, what are the behaviors that need to change to avoid the same thing happening again in the future? Make a list. Is it a reasonable list? Like, you can see why these people are upset and acknowledge your role in upsetting them? Are there specific behaviors that could be addressed with effort, or is it more like “change your entire personality (but also we still won’t like you if you do)”?

If it’s a reasonable list, then change the behaviors to the best of your ability, without demanding more feedback or putting more emotional labor on others to correct you if you step out of line in the future. The time for “Let me know if I do something to piss you off” is over. You pissed them off. They let you know. The remainder of the “work” here is yours. Convert whatever issues they’ve made you aware of to date into self-awareness, and do your best not to repeat the same errors in the future. Sometimes that’s all you get, no credit, no applause, just the knowledge that you did your best to fix whatever is wrong and grow and learn from your mistakes. If it’s an unreasonable list of “actually we think you suck no matter what you do and you are now the group scapegoat for everything that’s wrong” then grieve the end of these relationships and do your best to move on. Sometimes the lesson is how there is no point in working on relationships with people who fundamentally do not like you.

Above all, assume that this one friend does not want to talk to you about this conflict anymore, perhaps ever. Stop chasing them! Someone died! They have made it clear that you are not their priority or focus at this time, which is not ambiguous! If they change their mind, they know where to find you. People mostly do not enjoy having fraught conversations about boundaries or constantly auditing the state of their relationships, and this person sound like they really don’t wanna do that with you.

If their lack of interest or ability to sit down and talk stuff out with you changes your own level of investment in the friendship, that is…. fine, actually? It doesn’t *feel* fine, but “withdrawing from relationships that don’t feel good to me” is something you can actually do about this that doesn’t make the problem worse. Channel your energy into relationships that aren’t a constant source of conflict and anxiety, ones where you feel safe and comfortable both giving and receiving feedback, and where you don’t have to tiptoe around people who hate your guts (which it sounds like at least one person does). Friend groups are not a monolith, so if a sincere apology and changed behavior on your part heals some of what’s broken with some of the people you like the most, hang out with them individually or in smaller-subgroups as long as it’s enjoyable for you. If finding compatible, comfortable, safe friendships means seeking some new friendships in this new year, then redirect your energy there and relegate these people to sometimes-friends you interact with occasionally via your partner. And if your anxiety is fucking with your ability to function and enjoy life, seek available anxiety treatments and see if that helps. At least consider that people who aren’t really speaking to you are unlikely to make you *less* anxious.

That is the best I can offer without knowing the nature of the initial rupture. For more about making amends even in the absence of participation of whoever you’re making amends to, I highly recommend On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends In An Unapologetic World by Danya Ruttenberg. It was one of my favorite reads of 2024.

Pages: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 ... Next »
advertisement

Advertisement

advertisement
Password protected photo
Password protected photo
Password protected photo