My Old Blog

You know what I’m talking about…..you leave a message and the person never calls you back. There are also the derivatives: the people who always call when they think it will go to voicemail, and the people who send a text message instead of calling. There are also varying reasons…..like “I owe the person money” or the “I hate that person now” or the old standby “What a dork!”. But today I want to talk about the “non-caller backers who mean to call back and have nothing particular against you” since they are more of a mystery. Why don’t they call??

I used to ALWAYS call people back. I used to always do alot of things though, and didn’t find myself any better off for it.

So what drives these people to not call back? They like you. They presumably want to talk to you. Maybe they don’t like me though? Hmm….that is a possibility. Certainly it is nothing personal? They can’t possibly know how seldom I shower through the phone. I don’t think I’ve offended them. My deodorant can usually covers that up anyway.

I think alot of it has to do with what I call “life maintenance” activities. After work and eating and traffic and stopping by Target to get extra socks and underwear….then sitting for 10 minutes to rest….then zoning out for an hour, then cleaning up a little, then ironing maybe….then getting tired……well, they just never get around to it. They mean to….and they mean to every single day…and they even feel guilty sometimes when they have a moment, but they don’t generally do it. When they have a “free” moment, they generally just take it, instead of calling another person which is essentially just another thing to do.

So I guess I am just not a high priority for these people? Maybe not. I figure everyone has their “short list”, those people they call back immediately. It may be their immediate family and like two friends from high school or something. The “short list” gets a lot shorter when you have more to do…in fact it may dwindle to no one.

The problem is, even if you want to call these good friends back, the longer you go without talking to them the more time it will take to catch up…..and time is exactly what you don’t have…why you didn’t call them in the first place.

Perhaps we all should all have “briefings” ready, so that we can interact more quickly and thus avoid this problem?? Well, that’s bullshit…..I don’t believe in quality time, more so in quantity time. I only wish we could spend a few crucial moments with people and make the relationship deep and meaningful.

So we all know that I do not like to “hate” on shit. My premise is that if enough people do it, then there is usually (though not always) a good reason for it.

In an ideal world you call back the people you care about in a short, reasonable amount of time…..no exceptions. Unfortunately we do not live in a world without exceptions. In fact, exceptions drive most of our days.

So if so many people do not call back or do not show up on time….then perhaps my expectations are just off. After all, it is far easier to shift my expectations of the world, than it is shift the world to meet my expectations.

Bottom line: It does no good to hate what is so prevalent. It just makes you hate everything and then you waste your emotional effort….which could be used loving something instead.

So what is the impetus (<-- SAT word) of this post? Grant, where the fuck are you? Can you possibly be so busy that it takes you 8 months or so to call me back? I bet I call you a dozen times before I finally get a reply. Not that I am hating. I still think you’re the best. I know you’ll call me one day. Remember taking the baseball bat to my MIBS desk? Remember spooning Matt in Guadalajara?? Viva Los Arcos!!! Viva Grant!!

P.S. You better make up a really good excuse for not calling me back. WTF??!!??!!?!?

Comments from the peanut gallery? What do you guys think about “people who don’t call people back”?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 30th, 2006 at 6:24 pm and is filed under Inside My Head. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.