As I get older, I realize that people around me get ruder. Instead of focusing on the negative in people though, I would like to salute all those people who are good, nice, do what they say and show up on time.
I have a lot of respect for people who show up for meetings when they say they would. It's nice to know that when I make plans with a friend, they will be there at the correct location and on time. Some even call me and confirm the meeting.
I had this happen to me this week. I was supposed to meet a friend this Monday. I had a busy weekend and forgot to call them over the weekend. On Monday morning, I remembered our meeting. An hour later I got a call confirming the plans. How good is this? A confirmation call from a friend.
A few weekends ago, I had plans with another friend to go to the movies. When I called to confirm the plans for the time, the whole movie plan was canceled due to them helping someone move. Why not call me and tell me the plans were canceled?
What happened to manners with my so called friends? What happened to people not canceling plans last minute because 'my dog ate my homework'? It's one stupid excuse after another.
The problem with my so called friends is that they can't say No to anyone. If they already made plans to see a movie and then someone else asks them to help with a move, my friends can't say: 'No, I made other plans.' Instead, they agree to help with the move to please another friend.
Perhaps I am bitter because my so called friends cancel plans with me last minute all the time. I do wonder why they have to please everyone and simply can't say No. Is it to avoid conflict?
Yet, I do want to salute those few friends who I can count on to be there for me, even if it simply means to be somewhere when they said they would. These friends have manners. How simple of an idea this is; yet for some, it's difficult to accomplish. I would like for all my friends to have some manners.
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I'm glad you brought it up. I know exactly what you mean, but I have to admit that I am sometimes guilty of this discourtesy myself. However, more often, I believe, I am the victim. Regardless though, I think it is something in our culture.
You're right about people being afraid to say, "No." And, this seems natural enough as it obviously stems from courteous tendencies. The problem, in my opinion, is that in these technologically advanced overpopulated days, we are aqcuainted with more people than we can respectfully manage. Plus, we often tack the label of "friend" to these myriad acquaintences without considering the true values of friendship.
None of us has the capacity to live our own life and simultaneously be a "true friend" to all of the people with whom we are acquainted and thus call our "friends." This is simply because there are too many. In addition, because of our modern efficient means of transportation and communication, we not only have too many "friends", but they tend to be of disparate groups. This makes it impossible to coordinate activities without overriding plans with someone else, because we have so many friends who don't even know each other, let alone engage in social activities together.
I imagine that once upon a time, this was not such a prolem and that people had much smaller groups of people whom they called "friends" and that all of these friends were also friends with each other. Imagine how much easier things would be then.
One last thing that I'd like to point out is the self-perpetuating nature of this problem. As each individual spreads themself thinner (socially) they are giving less of themself to each of their friends. This leaves each of those friends with a "friend deficiency", which they are likely to compensate for by obtaining more "friends" and consequently spreading themself thinner... and so on, etc.
It's scary to extrapolate this pattern and imagine that in the near future, our old-fashioned notion of "friend" may no longer exist and we may just become a swarm of selfish parasites, only interacting with others when it is in some way to our advantage.
We should raise awareness now and begin an International True Friend Coalition... hmmm... or maybe not.
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