the art of making plans

I make plans to break plans, And I’ve been planning something big, planning something big, planning.

- the academy is..

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situation A : haven't seen person A for near a month and a half. no contact or anything, life is _so_ busy.. yada yada. ok cool, i understand lets hang out. ok cool person A says, gets back to _ME_ with a time and day. the day arrives, the excuse is planted:

person A : "i need to find my papers to send out my taxes"
me : "taxes arent due for a week"
person A : "i need to find these papers, i think my roomate threw them out."
me : "i'm filing an extension cause i'm too busy, you could too. takes a second."
person A : "i'm going to have to cancel tonight and look for this paper."
me : "you have 2 days, a weekend, and 2 days till tax day"
person A : "i have to do it tonight, i'm busy tomorrow and friday and i don't want to look for them on the weekend"
me : "i'm sick of you flaking all the time, i'm done with you"

summary : if you aren't in the mood to hang out, don't make lame excuses which basically breaks down into "i'd rather be doing anything else than hanging out with you." as my witty friends said this is the equivalent of making an excuse that will take you like 1 second to accomplish but you insist your whole night is washed out. such as, here is how the conversation could go to the same effect and same overall feelings.

person A : "hey i can't hang out tonight, i've got stuff to do. it's not like i don't want to hang out with you, but this is really important and its not like it needs to get done in a week or anything, or that i have any other options. i'm really in a bind."
me : "oh really, whatcha gotta do?"
person A : "i need to see if there is milk in the fridge."

yah cool... fuck off.

situation B : person B is generally a hermit and you don't see them much, they work like everyone else but seem to have no real desire to socialize after work. if they end up at their apartment after work you'll _never_ get them to come out and hang out, even if you are in the same town/city which is a square mile in size and accessible everywhere by walking. they contact you and say they want to hang out, this has been ping pong for awhile and they have been sick for awhile. you say cool, lets get food and chill out. cool, cool. everything is go, a plan is in effect. 7pm, you bet on it. make dinner plans, avoid other plans with other people because you are _GAME ON_ for dinner @ 7pm.

530pm rolls around, you get a message.

person B : "hey, they had free pizza at work so i had some"
me : "for lunch right? that's cool"
person B : "no just now, it was free."
me : "why, why would you do that?"
person B : "it was free. i'm not feeling so hot either. i can chill tho."
me : "no just go home"
person B : "how about tomorrow?"
me : "no"

summary: rule #527 of planning to break plans. make the breaking of the plan most effectively by snaking in dinner or lunch such that the devastation of the broken plan will result in the person eating ramen noodles at home alone.

so really.. fuck off.