Lately I’ve been noticing an ongoing theme in my life. I’m
not exactly sure if I should be more worried about what it says about me, or
other people (I’m hoping the latter)—people don’t follow through!
Before Thanksgiving I had a friend reach out to me and
request a lunch date after the holiday. This never happened. A month later
this person messaged me and asked to get together over the Christmas break because
they “didn’t have any plans.” A few days later I reach out and invite them to a game night. After practically
stalking them for a response, I was told they were going out of town. WTF! Now,
maybe it’s just this particular "friend," but it starts playing into my
insecurities about being a fun person. It also makes me think about how much of
our social life planning is merely lip service.
When we were kids it was so easy. You’d simply call up a
friend and say “what are you doing?” Typically this question would be followed
by “nothing” and thirty-minutes later you’d be doing “nothing” together. Now we
require evites sent a month in advance due to work, families and various other
obligations, and this is perfectly understandable. But now the problem seems to
be that we often don’t follow through with the initial objective of getting
together with friends, thus we become stagnant, bored and uninspired to do much
more than what we absolutely have to.
Most of the gatherings that I’ve planned or partaken in in
the recent years require meal preparation, major housecleaning or gift giving,
so it always seems like a bigger ordeal than maybe it has to be. It’s also harder
finding friends who have significant others that my significant other will actually get like. Then you bring
kids into the mix and if they don’t get along or have a huge age gap, it’s now
inconvenient and serves no purpose. What the hell has happened?
Maybe it’s time that we adults actually join “play-date”
groups where we just sit around and do nothing together. OR maybe I’ll just
make myself a martini, grab a box of crackers, flip on the TV and be
entertained by people who don’t put me through the ringer just to spend a scheduled
hour with them.
-EJ (aka Miss Whineypants)
ejvalson@gmail.com
You are not alone, EJ. This happens to me all the time. And I know it happens to my friends too, the ones who "want" to get together (or say they do), cuz they miss out on a date with me too! I am not taking it personally. But I do like the martini's and crackers idea ;-). Maybe I'll go have some now.
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