Stop Flaking On Your Friends
Cancelling feels great for an hour... but then a lot of times it feeds anxiety
You know the feeling. You made the plan three weeks ago when you were a more ambitious, better-rested person, and now it’s the day of and you’d pay actual money to stay home. The couch is right there. You’re drafting the cancellation text in your head before you’ve consciously decided to send it.
So you send it. “Ugh, I’m so sorry, I’m wiped, can we rain check?” For about an hour it feels incredible, like you got away with something. Then the apartment goes quiet, you feel a little flat and a little lonely, and somewhere in there you half-notice your friendships have felt thinner lately. You probably won’t connect that to the four times you’ve bailed on this particular person.
That’s the loop. You feel anxious or drained, so you cancel. The canceling leaves you more isolated, which makes the next invitation feel even bigger, so that one goes too. Eventually it gets easier to decide you’re just not a “people person” and friendship is exhausting. What actually happened is more boring: you practiced canceling enough times that it stopped feeling like a choice.
Anxiety is also a terrible forecaster. How you feel before something is almost never how you feel once you’re in it. The dread runs at full volume right up until you’re actually on someone’s couch with a drink in your hand, and then it quietly evaporates and you’re having the night you nearly talked yourself out of. Your brain doesn’t take notes on this. It keeps treating the pre-plan dread like a weather report worth trusting.
This is also why “just honor your energy” gets people into trouble. If you want to know whether cancelling is real self-care or avoidance in disguise, don’t check how you feel about going. Check how you usually feel afterward. When the honest answer is “weirdly glad I went, basically every time,” that’s worth more than whatever the dread is telling you beforehand.
Ask yourself: How will I feel after this event is over?
And to be clear, none of this is about the nights you genuinely can’t make it, or the stretches when your capacity is actually maxed out. I’m talking about the cancels that are really just anxiety, the ones you can usually feel coming and usually regret. And if you have chronic illness or are completely stretched the other way (never say no, feel constantly taken advantage of, this isn’t for you)
Xx,
Amanda
Open Tabs
This slate article about social media genuinely blew my mind. Sam and I are going to talk about it on the podcast next week, stay tuned!! “Your Feed is Fake” it goes into how Justin Beiber’s Coachella set was essentially paid for (among other horrifying things like how politicians are buying virality and elections)
I’m reading the book: Bright Young Women. It’s gripping and excellently written for a thriller!
Lately I’ve been deep in book writing mode so I have just been watching re-runs of Schitt’s Creek and my god I already miss Catherine O’Hara so much.
ICYMI
Latest Article on the Preamble: You Don’t Heal by Getting Over It
Nuance Needed podcast: Rethinking Princess Diana (BPD, Eating Disorders)