welcome to our new culture of immediacy
Wow, what a week. I got stood up two nights in a row, from two different guys. Some would say it's just the nature of men, but I blame our new Culture of Immediacy. With the help of new media, instant messaging and electronic handheld devices, flaking out is now easier than ever before. But maybe without all these conveniences they'd still be flakes.
I broke a rule in indulging one of them who had given me a mere 48 hours warning of his arrival in DC. Because as you see, all we do here in DC is sit around twiddling our thumbs waiting for visitors to arrive to our city on short notice. Seriously though, I'd love to see you but give me at least week's advance notice, OK?
Anyway, while fortunately I didn't cancel anything to meet the first guy, I did state a time and place to meet. But finite points in the time/space continuum are difficult for gay men under 30 to conceptualize. Planning in advance is an annoyance to many, and apparently very challenging for most. Commitment is apparently an inconvenience for those who wish to do whatever they like.
Part of the problem is that a date takes a fairly significant block of time in my life, and I'm a pretty busy person. In the spring and fall I have to balance work, rugby, grad school class homework and sleeping. The infrequent blocks of time I do have available to meet with others are precious and few, so when they are wasted by other people's inconsiderate impulses, I get a little steamed up. Maybe I should just avoid dating or tricking at least until rugby is over. I just don't have the spare time to risk getting it wasted by flaky people.
It's sad when work is going better than my personal life. One would think it should be the other way around but I guess I'll count my blessings. I have good bosses, interesting work, and this week I was moved away from my cubicle existence between the two extremely chatty and entitled government workers who have nothing to do all day but jabber. I have a lot of work to do and I can do it, but I need to be able to think. It is much more peaceful in my new cube.
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Same on the west coast...must be a sign of the times...what happened to common courtesy? :(
Well, their loss for not meeting up with you. :)
"It is much more peaceful in my new cube."
Why do I have a image of a happy Jimbo hampster who has been moved from one cage near the ADD finches, to another near a silent turtle?
The internet made it easier for flakes. I encounter them when I rent out the room or try to sell something via craigslist. I hate say that my flakes have wierd names and african accents, this makes it worse for the next person with an unusual name or from another country.
Bright side: Better to find out they are flakes immediately than to slowly figure it out after weeks/months.
Ditto for Chicago too.
I can understand the whole busy thing. I too am annoyed by the flakes that seem to think wasting other people's time is a fun hobby.
But keep in mind, that there are quality guys out there that you might be missing out on. One really great guy can make up for a dozen flakes (I believe that is the metric conversion for flakes to good guys).
I share a lot of your distate for the culture of immediacy, but... I regularly got stood up by guys in the 1980s and they didn't even cell phones - or in most cases, email.
While I'm not an active participant in dating, hearing about it makes me feel old before my time; I'm just old enough to have lived more than half my life without cell phones, text messaging, online chat, and for a lot of my life most people I know have not had email. All of that does change your ideas about how it all works. For example, when personals ran in the newspaper, you'd have to quickly agree to meet someone, or never talk to them again. So if you were interested, you did (and the same people who flake out on your now would agree to meet, not show up, and screen their calls).
I had a housemate who got unceremoniously dumped by his boyfriend. The boyfriend was moving house. He didn't show up for a dinner date; New England Telephone was on strike, so he had no new phone number; and he hadn't told my housemate his new address ("It's in Dorchester"). He just never called (after they'd been dating for three months) and a few days later a package appeared in the mail containing my housemate's pyjamas, some underwear, and a hair dryer. Done! How's that for flakey?
(I ran into the guy at the gym some time later. It was funny to see how fast he ran away.)
Flakes are flakes, and technology just makes the flakiness apparent. Anybody who would arrange to meet someone and not show up simply sucks, in any day and age.
What does horrify me is that I think the whole "what's an invitation" thing has gotten worse. If I invite you to my home, you need to say "yes" or "no" (or "Let me check with Bob, I'll call you back.") Maybe for anything more organized that "500 people are coming over for New Years" is not acceptable. Last minute cancellations are acceptable if rare and if they come with a convincing excuse. (It doesn't have to be true, I just have to believe it. Sound sick, or upset about your dead sibling.) These days it seems like people don't take invitations seriously. If I invite you into my home, it means something, and if you treat it like nothing, you don't get invited back. Ever.
People have been bad about that for a long time, but they've gotten worse. Nobody has ever texted in the middle of meal in my home, so I'm not sure whether I'd just never invite them back, or loudly say, "Is there an emergency? Would you like to go in the bedroom so you can make a call in private?" in hopes of embarrassing them.
God, I'm old.
I'm much older than your demographic so I can say this without reservation: I can't imagine standing up what the younguns call a "hot piece" like you.
But then back in the 80s we used to say the gay community was like granola - "what ain't fruits and nuts is flakes!"
And John you're not old - you just have respect for the other side of the interaction
It's obvious the guys who stood you up are losers , unfortunately it's not obvious until it happens.
I was dozey enough to wait 30mins sitting outdoors on a cold winters day waiting for a mr.no-show , how naive i was then ! Not any more .
Jimbo mate , your time has come to turn into a hard-nosed bastard !
Yours truely has had this title bestowed upon him for some time now , by his nearest and dearest !!!
Lost friends (that were never friends in the first place)and evan the odd family member but hell , my lifes a great deal better because of it.
Go look in the mirror and repeat after me : GRRRRRRRRRRR !
Bet you feel better already .
I know i do !
Best wishes , Phil.
"I blame our new Culture of Immediacy." I blame the fact that far too many people are self-centered douches. Bill (Btw, Jimbo, I've been trying to leave a comment under my name rather than my blog url but so far no luck even after creating a UserID via ClaimID. I get an error message about too many redirections. At the risk of sounding like a know-it-all douche, maybe you don't have the most up-to-date version of UserID.)
I gotta tell ya, I'm glad I'm not the only one. I got dumped last night AFTER we had really hot sex. He basically wanted one more roll in the hay before breaking it off.
Integrity in gay men is a dying trait it seems. Selfishness is the new black.
Some call being flakey "spontaneous" or "going with the flow." I say bugger them, all they will ever know is instability and fragility. I can safely assume that I'm older than you, and my misspent youth was my downfall and my saviour: you see, I'm an observer of the human condition and, believe me, I FEEL your pain. Tried the dating games and was stood up, rejected because I was too daggy or too intelligent or too geeky or too uncool, stood over and even suckered into a world of lies.
Not being an angry man, and probably slightly passive-aggressive, I always philosophised, romaticised and empathised. At the same time I'm no shrinking violet. The conclusion I've arrived at is I've only ever been too courteous, too fortunate, too unfortunate, too honest, and too adaptive. All with too much integrity. By amazing coincidence the price has been too obvious: I'm a flawed human being who probably deserves less than I've earned. Perhaps an example of The Importance of Being Earnest.
You, my very charming Jim, are also leading the pack in the subtle art of how to get lost without knowing it.
No one can say if we are destined to be lonely but not alone with any certainty. But for our primal instincts of hope and desire to be recognised. I have no doubt that soon enough you will find your very fortunate man.
Keep searching, mate. You'll get the and be better for all the bitter pills you may have to swallow because you are only being you. Best wishes for your journey, mate.