Rung 13 · Graded exposure
Invite someone somewhere specific
Invite someone to a named place at a named time. Not “we should do something” — a place, and an hour.
Your attempts
Nothing is recorded against this rung. The dread you feel next time will be a guess, and you will have nothing to check it against.
Why this one
Vagueness feels like courtesy and works as insurance: nothing specific enough to be refused. Naming the hour is what makes an invitation answerable, and answerable is the entire point of it.
What it buys — A vague invitation cannot be declined, which is exactly why it also cannot be accepted. This is the rung where things start happening.
People underestimate — by up to half — how likely others are to say yes to a direct, specific request.
What it cannot show — Requests for help — directions, a phone, a favour — not invitations. The underestimate is robust across those settings; nothing in it is about asking somebody out.
Here — Again: requests for help, not for a date. The direction is suggestive, not proof.
When to climb
Three logged attempts running at 2 or under, each with a place and a time in it. A “sometime” does not count.
Those two numbers are ours, not a finding. Graded exposure is clinical; where the line sits is our judgement.
Rung 14 — Go again within a daySource
Flynn & Lake (2008). If You Need Help, Just Ask: Underestimating Compliance With Direct Requests for Help. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(1).
The full version of this rung, with the rest of its topic, is exercise 04 of that lesson.