Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Half-Assed Planning

On a recent brunch jaunt (are you picturing me wearing a hat and pastels? I wasn't) the topic of "our generation" and our neglect of planning, or commitment if you will, came up. A friend of mine (hey!) was ignoring phone calls and blowing off his previous plans to eat eggs in the sun with me and we started talking about how this is not at all uncommon.

Think about it: how many times in the past few weeks have you texted, bbm-ed, gchatted, or Facebooked plans with someone and you've thought, "well, I'll do this, unless something else comes up"? I bet at least once. Our parents never did things like this, they kept planners, date books, calendars and the like, and, more importantly, they kept their plans. Already this week I've blown off three things [just kidding, at least four...just thought of more] that I said I'd "probably" do (sorry to those of you who are a part of that...I swear its not personal)...and that brings up another point: half-assing your commitments to begin with! I am so guilty of this recently and I despise it. Let's elaborate:

Today, for example, I sent out roughly five text messages saying some variation of "hey girl!/hey buddy, whatcha up to tonight? Want to grab a drink later?" All recipients responded (I'm super likeable), a few with "sorry I can't tonight, but whats your schedule like for the rest of the week?", one with, "I have dinner plans but I'll call you at 8, otherwise let's do something later in the week", and one saying, "I'm seeing a show with some friends, want to meet us out after?". From those responses, I made plans for Wednesday night, but with the sidebar, "I should be free, but let's talk around 5", I made plans for Friday night, Sunday, and said that I was free Wednesday and Thursday night to one friend, and told another that I was free Thursday night. I never heard back from the "I'll call you at 8" and I blew off the "meet us after" follow-up text, even though it was a perfectly good invite. In fact, I did nothing with any of those people tonight.

Does this make me a bad person? No, seriously, I'm asking. Don't we all do this? At what point should we buckle down and stick to our engagements? Is it because of the nature of my career? (aka: I could get a call at any moment for an audition or a callback or a role) Or is it simply that we are all products of the ADD generation, the generation of people who are always thinking that someone/something better might come along, so we must be available for it? My vote is yes, yes to all of those questions, and as for when we should buckle down? As soon as possible. It does no good to wallow in our selfishness and "want-want-want" culture. Let's muster up the courage to commit to something once and awhile. Eating sushi with your ex-boyfriend's brother isn't going to be so bad.*

A

*Just kidding, yes it is...don't go!

What do you think about this? Comment away, I want to know what you're thinking. 

5 comments:

Allison said...

I know I'm guilty of this a bit, but I feel like I'm more of a victim of this.

In life there are different types of people - I tend to be the type who ends up stomped on metaphorically. I have friends who can't commit to me because of boyfriends, other plans, dogs they need to let out and walk, busy working on something etc. The excuses vary and tend to be vague and not very creative. I get a lot of "I'll have to let you know last minute." And guess what, I don't make other plans and 9 times out of 10 that person last minute tells me they can't, so I do nothing that night.

I'm not saying you or anyone else who does this is a bad person - I'm just venting my frustrations. Maybe cause I'm single and have a crappy job I have a wealth of excess time that others do not. I try to stick to my commitments, but I do sometimes make superficial offers to people with the secret hope that they don't follow through. "Yeah, we totally should get together soon."

End of rant.

Ali said...

Oh man, I *so* know what you mean.

I like to make plans and stick with 'em. I used to always say yes to everything, then when the time came and I didn't want to go/couldn't (but it was usually "didn't want to go"), I'd feel super guilty. I think we need to commit and follow through, but think about it before we immediately say okay.

Does that make sense? ANY sense at all?

With that being said, wanna hang out?

Anonymous said...

I've never done this, and dont see myself ever doing it. if i'm going to make plans with my friends i'm going to stick to them, not wait for something better. because whats better than hanging out with your friends? nothing. and if a person feels like there could be "something better" than hanging out with me, i'm not sure if i'd want them as a friend.

Anonymous said...

AGREED with Anonymous #1. Never.

laurenne said...

I wanted to write a comment, but now I'm not so sure. Maybe later. I'll let you know.