“Let’s meet up”

Rant #147: People who say “let’s meet up” but have little to no follow-through.

I used to assume, silly me, that people meant it when they say “let’s meet up sometime.” Since I’ve had some success as an informal organizer of meetups with friends, I want to take this opportunity to share my patented and highly confidential 3-step process to actually meet up with your friends:

1. Look at your calendar to determine when’s a good time to meet up.
2. Text your friend to see if that time works for them. If it doesn’t, go back to step 1.
3. Meet up.

Rocket science, this is not. However, it seems to me that a lot of people must not know this esoteric 3-step process, because I’ve never seen them do step #1 or #2. What I’ve come to realize is that when people say “let’s meet up,” what they actually mean is, “At this moment I like the idea of meeting up with you, and if you organize something that works with my schedule and I still feel that way in the future, then sure, let’s meet up, maybe.”

I suppose this is acceptable because it’s where we have landed as a culture; it’s just something you say and not really mean, like “I’m fine,” or “your baby is so cute.” Therefore, just to fit in I have also been guilty of saying “let’s meet up” with zero intention of planning a meetup…instead I’ll often ask the other party to plan it, just to see if they’re serious or not. The difference with me, though, is that I am fully prepared to follow through if the other party does initiate (which is pretty rare). If I like you enough I’ll go ahead and plan it, because ultimately I enjoy organizing meetups…in return, though, I do expect you to follow the Rules of the RSVP (parts 1, 2, and 3).

About a month ago I ran into my friend Mason*, and as part of greeting each other he says, “It’s been a while, let’s have lunch sometime.” It had been a couple years since I had seen him because he flaked the previous 2 times I scheduled lunch. Even so, I surprised myself when I replied, “Sure, but you plan it since you canceled the last 2 times.” While I pride myself on honesty, that was a bit too honest…clearly I had some unresolved hurt that leaked out in my response to an innocent invitation to reconnect. In any case, we did end up having lunch (he planned it, with my help), and the first thing Mason did was apologize for flaking the past couple of times. I was impressed that he picked up on how I felt, but I was mostly disappointed that I didn’t handle it more maturely.

If you can’t tell by now, words mean a lot to me…I’m all about “say what you mean and mean what you say.” So while I’ve come to terms with the fact that there are many things in current culture that we say but don’t mean, there are still limits to what I deem as acceptable.

I recently organized a lunch for a friend (let’s call him Kyle*) who was visiting from out-of-state. It had been 5 years since I organized a get-together for these particular friends because that was when Kyle had last visited. Afterwards we had the following exchange on a group text:

Kyle: Nice to catch up, guys! Thanks for making the time.
Ethan*: Yeah, good seeing you guys again. Thanks for organizing it Ted.
Brian*: We’ll have to do this every quarter…not every 5 years.

I have to confess…I got kind of angry when I saw Brian’s text. “Every quarter”?? Was he crazy?? Clearly he didn’t mean it, because that was an impossibility with Kyle living out-of-state and now married with 2 kids. Not only that, I had been trying to meet up with Brian for the past quarter and that lunch was the first time I saw him all year. Didn’t he know that these get-togethers don’t happen unless somebody plans it, and he was terrible at following through with what he says?

Brian actually used to be a really good friend, but due to life circumstances we had drifted apart, and nowadays we rarely see each other. I thought I had made peace with that years ago and moved on, but apparently his throwaway comment about “doing this every quarter” still triggered some hurt from the past. 

As a sensitive guy who’s aware of his feelings (sigh, what a curse this is), I learned a long time ago that I need to own my feelings regardless of what other people say or do. In the case of Brian and other people who don’t mean what they say, it’s a matter of adjusting my expectations and recognizing that they’re making emotional statements instead of a statement of intention that they will follow through on. For example, maybe all Brian meant was, “I have no idea how this could happen, but I would love to see you guys every quarter instead of every 5 years.” Is that so bad to say? Either way, I’m pretty sure he had no ill intent when he made that statement, and that’s what I need to focus on instead.

After all, not everyone is like me, and that’s a good thing. We all have our unique gifts and personalities, and bring different things to each friendship. My gift is connecting people and organizing meetups, and your gift is probably something totally different. I do tread more carefully these days to make sure I don’t overextend myself planning things for people who don’t follow through, but in general I love planning lunches and meetups and random events for people I like. Having said that, I find myself being really grateful when people actually do initiate to plan something with me. Heck you don’t even have to plan it…all you have to do is to reach out and say, “Let’s meet up.”

Reflection questions (extra credit):

• Do you “say what you mean and mean what you say,” or are you more prone to making emotional statements?
• What gifts do you bring to your friendships?

Caption: This is me and my friend Justin near the end of our bike ride in Tiburon, and it’s what “let’s meet up” often looks like for our friendship. We’ve also occasionally worked out together, but now that the steam room is broken I don’t even know what’s the point of going to the gym.

One time I tried inviting other friends to join our bike ride and Justin said, “Don’t be inviting other people, this is our time to hang out and catch up.” I really appreciated that, and always look forward to meeting up with him.

* Mason, Kyle, Ethan, Brian: not their real names