Rant

Be advised: I'm flustered.

So I love living in Utah. The weather's nice. There's no humidity. BYU is a great school. I love my professors. I love what I study. I live with the nicest (and cleanest) girls I've ever lived with. I have great friends. Life is good. But there is still one thing that I can't stand about living in Utah: the prevalence of flakeyness as a socially acceptable behavior.

Now I realize that it's not only in Utah (I'm sorry, I should specify), Provo, that people are flakey. I've lived around the country and outside of it. I know that people have their fair share of flakeyness. But it is rampant here. How is it acceptable to make plans with someone and then never follow through with them?

I'll give you an example from my day today:

So I went up to Salt Lake to hang out with some friends from my mission. So three of us were talking and I thought, hey I should call my friend, we'll call him Dane. So I pick up the phone to call my friend Dane to see if he wanted to hang out with us. He lives in Salt Lake and he complained to me at our mission reunion that we never talk anymore. I mentioned that it was because I was always the one to call him. He apologized and said that at least he always called me back. So since then, I've made more of an effort to hang out with Dane. Two times since then, I've called him to make plans. Two times we've made plans. Two times he hasn't called me like he said he would. But tonight I thought I might have more luck. After all, I was in Salt Lake. All he had to do was take a hop, skip, and a jump and he would be there. So I call him. He's at the Jazz game and picks up the phone. I tell him who I'm hanging out with and invite him to come. He says that he'd love to but he's at the Jazz game. I understand this and so I tell him to just give us a call when the game gets out and he can catch up with us. (After all, it wouldn't take any time to get over to us.) So I continue with my perfectly pleasant evening. I keep expecting him to call to at least say that he can't make it. But no. No call, no text, nothing. Three strikes. He's out. At the very least, he could have made some recognition that he couldn't go.

I don't expect people to drop everything and come running to me with daisies and lollipops and teddy bears. No, we all have lives and schedules. I get that. I really do. But still. Is it that hard to just call and say you can't do it? Really.

I realize that my ranting is not going to change anything. I get that. I really do. And I'm not saying that I haven't been the culprit. But it just drives me crazy. I know rejection is face-threatening. I study linguistics; I've studied this. But just saying you can't is so much better than just letting the other person wonder. So please guys, if you make plans with me, just communicate. That's all I ask.