Dear Everyone,

My time is also valuable. Please just keep that in mind. I feel pretty low when stood up or dissed. I'm tired of feeling like I'm being unreasonable, dull, whiny, or needy about it. And it's not about your work, because it's just not. I'm pretty mellow actually, but when EVERY TIME people forget, are late, act like suddenly work got more important than me or promises to me, (when I know they were slacking or doing something else earlier or the day before), then I feel dissed, unimportant, and suddenly bad about myself and negative about everything. About my interestingness, about whether I'm worthy of attention, about my own work, about my status as a human being without a paying, scheduled job though NOT without a job and actually several jobs.

I hereby declare that I am a different person, one who cares if you are late, or if you forget. I am no longer mellow. If you are late, or stand me up, I will directly yell at you right then and there, and you will apologize. I don't get how this will help, since it will make y'all feel bad and make me look like a jerk, but there it is. Maybe it helps in that I will quit the instant internalizing and negativity-towards-myself of being pissed off. I have just become a yelly person instead of an "oh, it's okay, I understand" person. This goes for friends as well as both my partners.

This, also contributed to by the actions of several people, family, friends, etc. Who lately say things like, "Oh, I"m sorry I'm falling through on X thing, and I'd rather do X with you, but the other person will be so angry. They'll yell at me. They'll think that I hate them. So, since I know YOU will understand, I'm going to go be with person Y, the angry yeller." Okay, maybe I need new friends and family, but, that whole thing has just fucked with my head one too many times. I am no longer your nice, understanding, walk all over me because I don't mind, friend. I am your Bitchy friend who is going to rip you a new asshole if you flake out on me.

Comments

[Lisa Hirsch]

Three cheers!

[J]

Punctuality is the courtesy of princes.

[Ms. Jane]

You realize it's only okay to do this if you're not late all the time, right?

That's my major beef. I'm totally prompt. But if I'm late to see somebody's who's always late to see me and they yell at me? The gloves are freakin' off.

[lori]

Stood up, flaked, etc. -- bad. Also endemic to California.

But I will say, I am always running late. I can't seem to make it to work less than a half hour late, and I am rarely more than 15 minutes late for meeting a friend, so I figure my priorities are in order.

I had a discussion of this with a friend who hates lateness, but came to realize that with some people (i.e. me :) ) it is not actually a statement about my friend, their worth, their time's worth, etc. It's just who they are.

So if you yell at me for being late, I will merely look sheepish, but it probably won't change anything.

[garnet]

Sounds fair enough.

Did you get the flower hat jelly picture???

[badgerbag]

no! what flower hat jelly picture??

I still have your books... And Garnet have you read the real Mary Popp1ns books?

[Stephanie]

Instead of yelling, why not say, "this is not acceptable" in a very firm voice? If they are very late (my boundaries are usually 15-20 minutes), leave. Okay, that's what I do and if they call all sheepish and everything, I ask why they couldn't have called before because you know, my time is precious. And even though I always, always, always have a book with me and am pretty laid back, that doesn't mean that it's acceptable. I so feel your pain.

[garnet]

Hahaha! The elusive flower hat jelly is on its way.

I read Mary Poppins, but it was so long ago that I remember almost nothing about the books except that she was not like Julie Andrews at all: vain, not sweet, and kind of testy.