December 17, 2011

Showing Up

A month ago I traveled to Chicago for a variety of minor reasons. Wanted to see a friend, catch a concert, and perhaps meet up with an acquaintance I made in La Guardia airport the prior month. We struck up a short conversation while I waited for my flight back south. Turns out she lived in Chicago, which is where I went to college, blah blah blah, we end up exchanging emails. The conversation continues, I let her know I'll be up in her city and we make plans to meet. Then she flaked out on me. Pretty disappointing.

I'll admit, I've flaked out on a variety of plans. Usually it's just an issue of laziness, which is unfortunate because once I actually get out the door to keep an appointment, it's easy to follow through. It's that getting started part that trips me up. I've also blown something off because I didn't think it'd be worth it. Now that's a huge mistake. Too many times what I thought would suck turned out to be awesome, and what I anticipated to rule ended up drooling.

Case in point: went to a birthday party last weekend. Did not expect anything too dramatic, and really that's how most of the party went. But there were some very interesting people in the place, in particular a cute, not socially awkward, single, female grad student. For those not in grad school, that's the equivalent of a unicorn. Do a little number exchange, and invite her to a year-end department party last night. She comes out, we have a great time, everything goes better than expected.

Here's the rub. A few hours into the evening she tells me she was typing out a text to back out of coming when she got message letting her know to come over. If I replied fifteen seconds later, the night would've been very different. Life would go on, maybe we'd see each other again, but we'd have lost an opportunity to make a personal connection.



I can understand backing out of meeting a guy you met in an airport, but canceling on someone you have an interest in? That would be pretty disappointing. Fortunately it didn't go that way, and life is taking an unexpected turn. So don't flake out this holiday season. Go to the parties, go to the reunions. Humans are social creatures, and the most interesting things can happen when we're put together. Enjoy!

On a somewhat related note, it has been and will continue to be a busier-than-normal period for me. Advanced apologies if I flake on a post or two over the next few weeks. As always, I appreciate the dialogue in the comments, and will be catching up on a number of your own posts this weekend. Happy holidays!

1 comment:

  1. Great advice! Grab this holiday season by the jingle bells and don't let go!

    Also, the unicorn analogy made me laugh out loud haha.

    ReplyDelete

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