If you haven’t yet read Tim Kreider’s excellent post called The Busy Trap, you should. With care and humor he describes this wave many of us are riding, labeling ourselves as “crazy busy.” It is no longer just the Type As among us who are overscheduled, frazzled, tied to our mobile devices, and stressed out about all the things we are not doing. It’s a phenomenon, and it’s taking over our lives. This trend could be a product of unrealistic expectations, too much screen time, or plain old FOMO (it’s what the kids call fear of missing out). Whatever is happening, it’s made me wonder when we all became too busy to do the things we like to do. When did hobbies, playtime, and downtime get deprioritized or penciled into vacations we’re not taking? When did it become uncool for kids to play in the sand after school? When did it become a waste of time for adults to make time for a glass of wine and dinner with friends?
I admit it: I find myself guilty of this. And I have many, many boy and girl friends who succumb to this mentality as well. And yet, often I find myself wondering if this is a planning problem—not just a planning problem, but a project management problem—attached to the Y chromosome.
I’ll give you a few examples while you’re deciding if you should call me sexist.
I ran into an old friend a few weeks ago. We hadn’t seen each other in over ten years. I was delighted to run into him and happily turned over my email address so we could correspond. My expectation was that we would make plans to have coffee and spend an hour trying to sum up the last ten years of our lives. And so I eagerly awaited his email. I waited. And I waited. I waited so long for his email that I went through all five stages of grieving. After a couple days of anticipation and excitement, I started worrying my writing was illegible or he lost the paper with my email address. Then I thought maybe he didn’t want to hang out with me. But how could that be? Maybe I was remembering all wrong; was he a complete jerk? A guy who can’t send an email is a waste of my time. Then I thought maybe I didn’t want to hang out with him. I had better things to do. And then acceptance followed by forgetfulness. I waited so long for his email that it was a shock when I finally received it.
Receive it I did. It was a friendly hello with some non-specific information about his schedule. Drinks were mentioned, as was lunch. Instead of fussing over the time it took him to write, I took the initiative and sent three dates, times, and locations to choose from. And then I sat back and played the waiting game again. He wrote back the morning after not the first, not the second, but the third date passed. Regarding the timing of his reply, he included some lame excuse like, “I don’t check this email often.”
It’s not a Hotmail account, I thought with not a little snark from the voice in my head. He’s writing to me from his spam account? WTF?
Apparently I am a glutton for punishment. I tried again. This time, I took a different tack, employing the classic combo: Tough Talk with a side of Hard to Get. It went something like…”I made it clear I want to hang out…if you can’t get specific…I guess I’ll see you in another ten years…” That did the trick. Sort of. His reply time went from nine days to 22 hours. He wrote back the next evening to suggest we get together that night. That showed initiative and spontaneity. Except he sent the email at 8 pm. I saw it during the bedtime email check. Disgusted, I threw down my iPhone and let him simmer ‘til morning. (In my head he was up all night waiting for my reply.)
For whatever reason (see above for evidence of masochism) I bit my tongue when I replied. Instead of saying what I wanted to say (“I give up”), I said something compassionate and gave him one more chance. The olive branch was snapped, the door was slammed, my outstretched hand was smacked away. I don’t know the correct metaphor. Let’s just say, I’m clearly not as smart as I think I am. He said, “I’m off to [some European country] for the month of March. Let’s try for something after that.” He had to leave the country to avoid a coffee date with me.
I can hear my mother now, “Don’t worry, honey. You’re smart and beautiful. He’s obviously not good enough for you.” Thanks, Mom.
Maybe she’s right. Maybe he is a jerk, a dud, a bad planner. So what does it mean when a boy normally good at this kind of stuff suddenly…well…isn’t? Is there something about making plans with girls that makes boys stupid? Here’s another example from about three weeks ago.
Him: “Let’s do something this weekend.”
Me (sarcastic): “Something? Sure! I would love to do something. I have the perfect shoes for something.”
Him: “Are we hanging out or not?”
Me (deadpan): “That depends. Do you have an actual plan?”
Him: “No.”
And from earlier this week.
Him: “I think we should go out on Thursday night. For dinner.”
Me (excited): “Great! Where should we go?”
Him: “Dunno.”
Me (enthusiastic): “Well, what kind of place were you thinking? Fancy? So I know what to wear.”
Him: “Dunno.”
Me (taking over): “How ‘bout [here]?
You know what the worst part of these interactions is? Well that’s a tricky one really. Your answer is going to depend on which side of the X vs Y aisle you’re on. For the women readers, the worst thing about each of these interactions is the implied, “I dunno, what do you want to do?” It spells relationship death.
In my personal experience, the women in my life are just as (if not more) busy than the men in my life, but not too busy to pull the name of a restaurant out of a hat, to make a plan and follow through, to do the things we want to do.
And what are you doing? Waiting for us to make the plan? So that you can tell your bros what a pain in the ass we are? Because we’re always making plans?
Why does every relationship devolve into that scene from Dude Where’s My Car? You want to have dinner somewhere unspecified; we want a relationship with a roadmap. Is it because of that scene from Coupling (at 16:05)? We know one more thing than you do. Hah. Newsflash: we know a lot more things than you do. Get over it. You still rule the planet. Why can’t it be like that scene from Buffy where Oz asks out Willow (at 9:00)? Both parties are brave, open, and honest. That, in my opinion, is how all relationships should start.
This whole “too busy” thing feels like a “Men are From Mars” moment. Perhaps you’re too afraid of letting us down, and we are too afraid to be let down. So we all act like we are too busy. And then nobody gets what he or she wants. On some level I suppose that’s fair. But it’s wicked depressing. And for my part, I hope I’m wrong. And since I would rather have burritos for the third time this week than do 99% of the planning, can’t you just say, “Let’s go to Boca” instead of “I don’t know?”
I know I’m ranting. I do have a point, I swear. I’ll even tell you what really prompted this. I have a friend who swears that nice guys finish last. I think women like nice guys, although I am willing to admit that we also fall for jerks. And that’s because we are persuaded by a man with a plan. Nice guys, jerky guys…it doesn’t matter if he has a plan.
You like to do things. We like to do things. Let’s do things together, okay? Great, now get specific. Because we do want to do something. We just don’t want to call the shots all the time. We’re not your mother, not your coach, not your boss. We expect you to engage. Stop acting like you’re too busy. Get in the game. Nice guys may finish last, but that means they’re in the race. A guy without a plan isn’t registered to run.
Visualizing Shakespeare 