Stop Resisting: Adults make plans. Deal with it

The other night, This Guy told me he wanted to see me this coming weekend. I agreed, and he moved on to a new topic.

Since then, Roommate has asked me to attend an open bar event with her Saturday that will give me a perfect excuse to wear the dress Ms. Potato gave me for my Birthday, which I've yet to don. A friend's daughter is in a play that I can only attend on Sunday afternoon. Blonde Beauty asked me to go to the Snow Patrol concert with her on Friday.*

When I talked to him last night, he seemed quite perturbed that I didn't just block out the entire weekend for his half-assed request. This annoyed me. Maybe even angered me.

Here's a newsflash, kiddies. We're adults. We've officially entered the working world. These aren't my do-everything-on-a-whim-and-deal-with-the-consequences-as-they-come college days. Five days of my week are pretty much eaten by the work thing. The other two are precious. And if I don't make some kind of plans before they arrive, I'm slightly more likely to be sitting on my arse doing nothing than I am to be out having fun. Why? Because my friends are also adults. Adults who have jobs and responsibilities and tend to make plans for themselves before the weekend arrives, too.

I don't want to come across as anti-spontaneity. That's not it at all. I love to be spontaneous. But it's hard to do so all the time. If I'd waited for This Guy to fill me in on his plans for us at his leisure, I probably would've been stuck with nothing to do all weekend but go out with him.

I'm beginning to notice this trend more and more. In the last week, I've had two guys ask if I'd want to "go out sometime." When I said I'd be up for it, neither of them even attempted to discuss making a plan. They still haven't. It's not like I'm sitting around waiting, thinking to myself, "Gee, I hope Johnny Internet calls tonight. I came home and got ready just in case he wanted to take me to that movie we've been talking about."

That's right, contrary to what seems to be popular belief, asking if someone wants to do "something" does not constitute an actual plan.

I went out with another guy one time months ago. We've spoken occasionally since, and he always says we should hang out again. The guy was nice but had the mental capacity of a cockatiel**, so I've pretty much avoided it. After breaking up with NRA, I was feeling lonely one night and said "sure" when he repeated his request. His response? "Great. Sounds like a plan." NO! No, idiot, it is not, in fact, a plan. A plan is when you establish a date and a time and a meeting place and, perhaps, some kind of idea of what you're going to do in that time.

If my friends and I want to see each other, we don't say, "We should get together!" "Okay, great! Sounds like a plan!" We actually make plans. We say, "I'll be at this place at this time on this night; you should be there, too." or something similar. That's what a plan is!

Do you all encounter this BS, or is it just me? I'm hesitant to say this is a male quality, but I'm barely holding back at this point. It might be more accurate to say it's a lazy Internet dater thing, but I don't have enough data to know for sure that it isn't just my magnetic pull on guys who can't commit to a freakin' date a few days in advance. Sheesh.


* Before committing to Blonde Beauty, I told her I had to check with This Guy about our plans, which I think was rather generous of me.
** The guy literally just repeated everything that was said about a million times. I'm not dissing cockatiels, but I could've sustained about the same level of conversation with one.