Stick With It
Let me paint you a picture: it’s 7 on a Friday night. You made dinner plans with a friend for 8, but you still haven’t heard from him. You send a text, ‘We still on for 2nite?” No reply. By 7:30, you’re pacing around the living room, coming up with excuses. Maybe he fell asleep; maybe he’s taking a really long shower. Maybe he’s taking a really long, really hot shower and fell asleep in the tub. Nah, dawg. Your friend’s just a flake.
Even though our generation has a million and one ways to communicate, we still find ways to evade one another. We text back and forth for hours about seeing movies and grabbing food, but when the time comes to set a specific time and date, all we’re left with is that ghostly “typing awareness indicator,” (which The New York Times has reported causes anxiety). Text entered, but no plans finalized. We meet people through online dating sites and we gab about our shared interests, but when ButteredUpperLip6969 asks us to meet at The Top Thursday night, we’re suspiciously absent for the duration of the conversation. I understand how George Constanza felt when he said, “I don't think I've ever been to an appointment in my life where I wanted the other guy to show up.” But there is still something to be said for canceling such appointments.
Is it fear that makes us flake, or lack of interest in the first place? Or are we really that incapable of making plans and sticking to them? I remember clearly the first time I flaked out on a close friend whom I cared for deeply. We were 19, living in dorms and searching for our first college apartments. I made plans with one friend to find a place together. Then another friend asked me to live with her, and I agreed to that, too. Plans were finalizing quicker with the second friend so I chose to live with her, but I didn’t immediately tell my first friend of this change in plans. I waited and I waited, become ever flakier and more elusive. I remember sitting on a bench outside of Little Hall, my thinking place, and wondering what was wrong with me. Before this instance I had prided myself on being a (wo)man of my word – dependable, trustworthy, honest. But now I was a sneaky snake, because I was afraid. I was completely aware that plans were crumbling but was afraid of hurting my friend’s feelings and admitting I had made a mistake.
Sounds like something Hannah Horvath would do. Lena Dunham’s character on Girls falls asleep on the subway when she’s supposed to be en route to the hospital to see her bloody beloved. Her character perpetuates the message that in our early twenties, it’s acceptable to be unreliable, flaky, non-dependable no-shows. And if we answer our friends’ calls and plan weekend trips, we’re boring Marnies. Nobody wants to be Marnie.
HBO drama references aside, I think we see dependability as a condition that will develop later in life, along with an interest in jazz and arm flab. But in reality, it’s a skill that must be cultivated, both in real-life interactions and on the Innernette. When you see an old classmate downtown and she suggests you get lunch, and you promise to call her, knowing you never will – that’s flaky. When you like a friend’s Instagram picture yet refuse to answer his phone calls – that’s flaky. Most of the time, I don’t even get dressed until I receive a confirmation of plans because if I had needlessly applied makeup to sit at home with Mr. Netflix, the earth would shake with the force of my anger.
The tedium of phone call etiquette can be menacing but we must rise above it. We must not let texts sit unanswered in our inboxes for days. When we’re chatting with possible lovers on dating sites and they say something that, for us, completely dries up the interest, we should say something. If we take pains to follow through on plans, it’ll become second nature, a standard that our minds don’t even consider dipping below. We’ll make plans for next Thursday, knowing very well that we can trust our friends and ourselves to hold this plan, or to cancel at a reasonable time. Which means hours before the meet-up time, or whenever the shit hits the fan.
My phone isn’t smart enough for me to know, but is there an emoji of a tiny Head and Shoulders bottle that we can use to call each other out on this trend? Dependability must be learned somehow.