Group Chat is a weekly series where HuffPost UK writers address the diary dilemmas we all face and how to reclaim our social lives in a busy world.
I glance at the clock in the right-hand corner of my desktop. I was meant to be at dinner 10 minutes ago and I’m nowhere near the end of my to-do list. I know I’m about to cancel and I feel a sense of dread build in the pit of my stomach.
That dread isn’t because I’m about to let down my friends, or because I’m going to miss out on the gossip, or even because it will be scrambled eggs on toast again for dinner instead of mojitos and tacos. The feeling is because I’m about to go ‘off-diary’ and ignore the social commitment I made for myself weeks ago.
I send a message to my friends on Whatsapp, draw a cross through the plan in my diary, and can’t shake the bad feeling for the rest of the evening.
Since when did our meet-ups become meetings? Meetings that if we bail on, we immediately feel under pressure to reschedule. I’ll freely admit I fall into the camp of ‘organised person’. I enjoy planning my life in advance to an almost pathological degree – a characteristic that a London lifestyle undoubtedly amplifies. Long gone are the days of popping over to a friend’s for tea with barely any notice. Now it’s not uncommon to need three weeks’ warning and a Doodle poll just to pencil in a midweek dinner.
So why did cancelling my plans last week make me feel so guilty? Objectively, dinner wasn’t what I needed that evening – tired, hormonal and with my mind firmly on work, going home to a bath and bed was the right choice. But it didn’t feel that way at the time. Because when I’m busy, socialising becomes yet another thing on my to-do list. And if I fail to tick it off, I’m failing to achieve something I meant to do that day.
Of course, it doesn’t help that I’m an introvert who needs a pep talk to get me in the mood for socialising of most kinds. But scheduling in friendship the same way I set up a dentist appointment or meeting with my boss robs me of any spontaneous excitement or joy at spending time with my favourite people.
When you’re trying to have a successful career, stay connected to family, spend quality time with your partner, exercise, keep the house clean, eat three meals a day, have a skincare routine that isn’t just face wipes, sleep for eight hours, tweet, volunteer a bit, and watch the latest boxset, something’s got to give.
“Scheduling in friendship the same way I schedule a dentist appointment or meeting with my boss robs me of any spontaneous excitement."”
Friends are meant to be the people who rescue you from the busyness of your life – who restore and re-energise you, bringing you back to centre or stopping you from falling off the edge. But increasingly, I find friendship is sneaking into that Venn diagram of chores and obligations.
This isn’t because my friends aren’t wonderful and I don’t love spending time with them (they are and I do). The same group of friends I bailed on recently are responsible for some of my best memories of my first few years living in London – those nights with too much wine, too little dinner, and lots of karaoke renditions of Cher. There was even an incident with some sellotape that, for career-protecting reasons, will remain under wraps.
But a full schedule makes me see them as just another thing to tick off the list, rather than people I choose to spend my time with.
I wouldn’t have called myself a slave to my diary – but maybe I am. When I put meet-ups in for my future self, I feel a sense of satisfaction because I’ve managed to fit them in. I’ve added them to the list (everything is better on the list). But when the date approaches, I often feel obliged to follow through with plans, even those I don’t really feel like doing.
If and when I do make it out to meet friends, I know I’m not necessarily giving them my best. You know that feeling – when you’re clock-watching until it’s time to go home and get into bed so you’re not too tired to start it all over again.
The to-do list might be an effective way of managing our ever-busier lives, but it seems counterintuitive to being human. Living in a society that wants us to use every minute of our day to be productive has made victims of our social lives. I’m almost ready to ditch my diary altogether – otherwise I’m going to end up with only a to-do list for company.