It’s a Friday on a long weekend. Joy is ebullient within the flat. Even the dog and cat are getting along (i.e. not shrieking at each other). Lurking in the back of my head are my evening plans. Hiding behind that is the joy of knowing that for the rest of the weekend I have no plans at all.
I am not sure when it happens as you age or, as my pretend mental therapist Julio calls it, ‘careening towards your final just desserts’. But I view plans as a direct, almost personal insult. It should be nice to get invited places. But I just can’t see it like that. My Friday plans were all pleasant and involved nothing more taxing than getting together for dinner and drinks with a couple of friends. I didn’t even need to wear underwear. And yet, at the appointed time I slogged out of my house and limped towards the metro. I cursed my primate ancestors that decided social behavior was a developmental imperative. I had just taken off my pjs.
Burke always says ‘you’ll have fun when you’re there’ or ‘you’ll be happy when you get there’ and she’s always, infuriatingly right about that. I had a wonderful time and sure enough my Friday plans even enhanced the rest of the weekend’s inaction. But still. I never knew that aging meant making plans and then praying for a natural disaster to force them to cancel. For the three hours before I go out to meet friends (again, friends, not colleagues I don’t like, not my boss – friends) I look at my phone with thumbs held and fingers crossed. ‘Come on, come on, a call from the governor’. Nothing. Drat.
Sometimes I accidentally reflect of myself as a young person. After I recover from the three-minutes’ worth of shuddering and wincing this elicits, I sit in awe. I used to work as a bartender – at night. Not only at night, but until like 3 a.m. And then I would go somewhere with my bartender buddies and have drinks until around 5 a.m. Here’s the kicker: On the nights I didn’t bartend, I still went to a bar and I stayed there all night (or until one of my eyes gave up the ghost and crossed the other’s line of vision like a broken desk lamp). It’s almost impossible for me to comprehend my young actions now. I had a flat full of books, a DVD collection (yes, I’m that old. Even some VHS cassettes!). And yet, instead of stay in that house and read and recline on a couch in a body that didn’t yet creak and bones that didn’t yet ache just because it’s October, I went out. The FOMO was strong in me.
I need a Cheat Code to help me avoid going out. To this day, my dad’s ‘stomach is off’ whenever there’s an event he’s been invited to he doesn’t want to go to. He then watches TV and settles his stomach with 5,000 calories of chocolate snacks. My friends with kids have a clear out for things they don’t want to do. My kids are sick. I have my kids that night. How can you argue? Bring ‘em! Who doesn’t love kids at a bar? I need a Cheat Code Out of going out.
I am busy with work, true, but when I use that too often people begin to show concern for my mental health (more than usual). I’ve thought about having a general ‘No’ policy with going out and occasionally signalling my intent to break it, but this also might put up some red flags. Perhaps I’ll tell people I’ve gone for Trump and buying one of the moron hats. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to spend time with a person as stupid as that. Also, I have mirrors in my house and I’d like to be able to keep looking in them.
In the old days, when someone didn’t want to do something, they used the understood-by-all excuse ‘Gone Fishing’. Now, were they really fishing? Who knows. We only know that they’re not coming out on a cold Friday evening and they are experiencing the bliss of no FOMO.
