Making Plans, Selling Out and The Prisoner's Dilemma of Friendship Communication
In which Ms. Gould answers questions received via e-mail, and need not stoop to answering questions from the New York Times' "Social Q's" column.
Dear Answer Gal,
I love my friends, but lately I've noticed that it's a lot more annoying to make plans with them than necessary.
One friend switches at the last minute from communicating via text to email (I don't have email on my phone). Another "friend" sends "Where is that?" texts/emails days before we are due to meet. Um, let me Google that for you! Yet another insists on back-and-forthing via text when clearly a phone call would be more expedient. And why do people need to confirm and REconfirm—again—the day of the meeting? Are there any rules we can agree upon for social planning in this age of ultra-connectivity? Or am I just a grumpy old coot?
—Grumpy Old Coot
Dear Grumpy,
I guess you want me to say that these people are jerks who are wasting your time. You want me to be like, "Here are the rules: they should think before they hit send on unnecessary texts and emails. They should pick up the phone and interact like human beings." But why should I bother? You already know that these people are jerks who are wasting your time. Here is my question for you, Grumpy: why do you keep putting up with it?
I'm going to gaze into my crystal navel piercing (I don't really still have a navel piercing, but this is my way of saying that I will use my own experience to extrapolate something about yours) and guess that you may be paid to put up with similar behaviors in your working life, and this has made you so beaten down that you'll tolerate the same behaviors in your so-called "friends" that you are paid to tolerate in your superiors and business correspondents. There is no good reason why those people can't get it together to learn how to send effective emails, either, but you can't tell them to go fuck themselves or send them links to "let me google that for you." Well, you can, but jobs are hard to come by these days, I hear, so probably you ought not to.
I wish you could, though! I bet you work in book publishing. (I'm not basing this on your email address or anything!) Ok, so, as everyone knows, making it in that industry is now especially a WAR OF ATTRITION. There are a series of culls that happen, it's sort of a choose your own adventure game, actually.
Cull one is: are you rich/do you hate yourself enough to tolerate making this little money? Cull two is, are you willing to buy or sell, like, Meghan McCain's book so that you can make money/get promoted? If you pass cull two, you will probably at some subsequent point ask yourself why you're in the book business when nothing you're doing recognizably has anything to do with "books" as you know them, and so cull three, 'As long as I am going to sell out I might as well sell out bigger" happens.
So then, here is who wins the adventure: rich or self-hating people who are soulless but filled with inertia. Of course this type of person is going to attempt to outsource Googling.
The good news is that while you can't pick your bosses and colleagues—except you can, by quitting and moving to an ashram and maybe you should consider that!—you can definitely pick your friends. If you aren't ready to delete someone forever from your contacts because she sends four "makin' plans" emails then switches to text then reconfirms day of by asking you how to get to Prospect Park, then it's on you to grow enough of a testicle to tell her that she's being annoying.
And tell her via phone call or IRL conversation, not via emailing her a link to this column.
Oh, Emily, as if you know anything about annoying bosses, selling out, and attempting a radical life change based on quarter-life ennui. Oh, wait.
d-yamn!
Hi-o!
Emmie, have missed you, bitch!
My flakiest, most difficult friend quit publishing to live in an ashram. Please explain.
M. was your most annoying friend? Whoa. You must not have very annoying friends. I think she's great!
Ashrams are not the answer! That's like being a blogger most places—you work for free. I mean, someone else's benefit.
M? No. My god there's more than one? Ashrams must be the new graduate school.
Explanation: no big diff.
You know what I miss? The pager. Perfectly acceptable to not return a page.
Agreed. With the paper trail of an IM or an email, one can't deny ever receiving the contact. With a page, the convenient out was, "oh, shit. I didn't get that page. My pager's been freaking out." Nope. Can't get away with that anymore.
You're such a drug dealer.
I find "It got caught in my spam filter" works for email.
And I find, "I've disabled text messaging from my phone" to be a good solution to the SMS problem. Because any follow-up question or debate can be shut down with a "in this economy?!" rejoinder.
Explain to people what you want. If someone texts too often, tell them. If someone acts like a doof about finding the place, send a message "IT'S ON GOOGLE". If someone texts too much, text them "IT'S TOO COMPLICATED TO EXPLAIN BY SMS, CALL ME". Oh,, and I always insist on writing complete words and sentences, even if it means two messages. It really drives people nuts.
I sometimes go with this one…"Sweetie, I'm old. I don't do that stuff. Call me on my cell."
It's not a question of old. I type really fast so I can do a 100 character SMS in 30 seconds. And I'm semi-literate so I can actually explain what I want in few words.
Oh. That means I AM old.
For me, if a friend can't just googlemap a place on their own initiative, it's friendfail 1. And they get a few more and then bye…
Instead of telling them to call I call. Or ignore them.
I had to Google Ashram. I found it in a funky bar in southeast Ohio.
My book deal fell through when they took the metal cord out of the payphone.
Oh, please, people. Everyone knows the modern way to communicate is obliquely, through blog comments. AMIRITE?
If someone wants to be somewhere, they will move heaven and earth to get there. People who switch communication modes or act helpless in the face of looking up directions are not interested in being someplace. Or able to commit to anything. Either love them for it or drop them like a hot rock.
Frankly I find it way more fun to hang out with people you can make plans with by saying "hey let's meet in Rio on June 8" and it's just fucking done. Way more adventure.
Ladies,
You never, ever, ever have to put up with someone (male or female) doing this crap….however it is a domino effect. Once you start throwing out one asshat, the other asshats are going to get sucked out into space like the second to the last scene in Aliens.
It's fun to watch them fly out and around, trying desperately to come back and grab on to you, but no, your safely locked in a space suit with 4 inch space boots. Bia!
I only communicate through classified ads. But that's just me.