In this age of online social networking, it is remarkable when friends manage to get together face to face. In fact, it’s remarkable when ‘friends’ have actually ever met in ‘real life’. MySpace and Facebook have made collecting friends a hobby. With so many ‘friends’, it’s hard to keep up. But your real friends, those you met in the sandbox or roomed with in your first year of college, are the ones suffering from your emotional relationship ADD.

More and more of the women and men that I talk to these days are telling me how much they miss meeting up with their friends. Their work lives are taking over their free time and all they can do to keep in touch is send an email once in a while or post a message on their MySpace wall. They accept or extend invites via online exchanges but tend to back out at the last minute, using social network websites as a buffer for real confrontation. I’ve experienced it myself and I think it’s time to end this flakiness.

Why It Happens

Yes, perhaps wireless technology is bringing us together in more immediate ways (I can now talk to my friend in Kenya while at the breakfast table) but it’s also distancing us from the people closest to us. With email, the amount of time that it takes for two people to arrange a coffee date has exponentially increased. It might require a number of exchanges over a week:

“Let’s meet for coffee and catch up next week”
“Perfect – where?”
“I’m free Mon-Fri”
“Tuesday at four?”
“Doctor’s appt – can we reschedule for Wednesday at Café Barney’s?”
“Perfect – call me to confirm.”

In the meantime, a week has passed when you could’ve met at some point if you’d started with a simple phone call. If the email invitation is sent to an address rarely checked, it might take even longer. Ultimately, email and instant messaging allow us to make phoney emotional gestures with no intention to ever follow up.

A Plethora of Plans

So what happens when you don’t actually speak to your friend and you’re not sure if they’ve received your text message? Well, you can’t be entirely sure if your plans are still on. As a result, many people make several plans for one night just in case their original arrangement falls through. Sure, we all party hop so that we can see as many people in a night as possible but double booking is another matter.

It’s hugely inconsiderate to make plans with someone you know is setting aside time for you and then cancel on them at the last minute because something else came up. People who are guilty of this usually cancel on the people most loyal and closest to them, because they know these people are more likely to forgive them for flaking.

So if you’re someone who always has ‘backup plans’ consider this: would you book three vacations at once and then cancel the two vacations you don’t want to take the morning of your departure? Of course not, you’d end up paying for all three in full. Make a commitment to one plan. If it falls through, you might spend the night at home. Trust me, it won’t kill you.