There were a few times, though, that I didn't hang out with these friends. Instead, I wanted to go out with some of my other friends. Invariably, when I laid the proposition before my parents, they would answer my question with a question of theirs. It was the same question every time: What's the plan?
This question annoyed me a lot at the time. "I don't know, Dad," I would say, checking my fingernails. "We're just going to hang out at [fill-in-the-blank]'s house."
"You don't know what you're going to do?" my dad would ask. At this point, I could practically feel the increase in his blood pressure and I knew what was coming next.
"We'll probably....I don't know, we'll probably watch a movie, or play some games? I'm not in charge. We're just going to hang out."
Already, I knew the battle was lost. I felt a strange mixture of helpless agitation as I watched my dad's expression turn from apprehension to exasperation. I scrambled around in my teenage brain for something that sounded plausible as a Friday night activity for a bunch of teenagers in Howard County that didn't involve sex, drugs, or police. None of these things had a place in my life, but for some reason, during these conversations, I could never think of anything constructive my friends and I might spend our time doing.
"Okay so....you're going over to [so-and-so]'s house, and you're all just going to go and....sit."
"No - Dad, no. We'll do something, I just don't know what." At this point I decided it would just be best to shift the responsibility to someone else, someone far out of the reach of my Dad's ridiculously probing questions. "I mean it's not my house, I'm not the one in charge. We'll come up with something when we see what we all feel like doing."
"I don't like this idea, this whole going by the seat of your pants, thing."
THERE. There it was. He said it every time! "Seat of your pants...." what does that even mean?? Before I could catch myself, I felt my eyes rolling involuntarily.
"Heath, I mean it!" my dad snapped. "I mean, it's just stupid. You can't get a bunch of teenagers together with no plan....no plan is a bad plan. You're not gonna come up with something good."
Of course, this was a personal attack. "Are you saying you don't trust me?" I asked, my eyes suddenly widening. "Dad, these are my friends!" The invisible drama-meter in the room shot up to 100 as I struggled to regain control of myself. "Don't you think I can make good friends? Don't you trust me?" I asked. "We will come up with something good!"
"Okay. Why don't you come up with it before you all get together?"
Suchhh an unreasonable request. I was appalled at my father's seemingly relentless desire to completely lay waste to my social life. Somehow, these discussions would come to an end, usually with me promising to come up with an acceptable activity and tell my dad what we would be doing before I went out the next night.
At the time, I saw myself as an underprivileged and mistrusted youth whose parents were purposefully depriving me of valuable experiences to build relationships with the people around me. I'm sure that my reaction was partly due to stress and lack of sleep (which are very real problems in high school, I won't try to downplay that) and partly due to the uncontrolled hormones ricocheting around in my head.
Now that I am in college, I can see my dad's point of view much more clearly. I think that, more than wanting to hang out with my friends in high school, I just wanted to have friends. If we didn't have a plan, it didn't really matter to me, as long as I was there for the hours we were hanging out, however unplanned they were.
Besides, plans seemed overrated to me. Every hour of my day was planned out, from seminary at 5:45 to school at 7:25 to orchestra rehearsal at 2:30 to piano lessons at 4:00 to work at 7:30 to homework at 10:30 to sleep at....whenever I finished my homework. In my mind, plans were equivalent to sleep deprivation and stress. I wasn't interested in any more of that, so I just naturally associated the weekend with no plans and no stress.
College is very different from high school. I choose my own schedule. I live with my friends. I spend my time doing whatever I want. Compared to high school, I have more free time now and fewer obligations. Even work and school are optional to some extent, in that I can usually find someone to cover my shift if something comes up.
With this change in lifestyle, I have experienced a change in attitude. I hate when there's not a plan. I hate just going by the seat of my pants.
Some people aren't bothered by not having a plan. Some people aren't bothered by the people who aren't bothered by not having a plan, but I am not one of them. These people actually bother me a lot.
I was working in the Writing Center a few weeks ago and tutored for a boy who then bought me lunch and got my phone number. He txted me later that night and, after some small talk, asked if I would like to go out with him the next Friday. I was a little annoyed that he was trying to ask me on a date through txting, but he seemed nice enough, so I chalked it up to post-mission awkwardness and told him to call me.
By Wednesday, he still hadn't called and my sister was wondering what the plan was so she and Dahl could plan their weekend, since she wanted to double with us. I ended up calling him. When I asked if we were still on for Friday, he said: "Friday.....ohhh, Friday, oh.....yeah, yes. Friday." This was (a) annoying, since I did not want to be the one to plan it, and (b) insulting that he had forgotten about me. We worked out a tentative plan (aka, I came up with a tentative plan and he said it sounded fun) and I felt a little better.
On Friday, three hours before we were supposed to leave, this boy txtd me and asked if we could go later. I was so annoyed by the whole ordeal that, in the end, I went with my roommates instead. We had a lot of fun and I felt really good about this decision.
Tonight I am going out with another boy for a late-night date. I think he wants us to get something from Jamba Juice? This sounds like a great idea, except for the fact that we are both very busy people and he will be picking me up at about 10:30. When we were talking about it on the phone, I asked if Jamba Juice would still be open at this time and he said he wasn't sure. Then he said, "Well, if it's not, we'll figure something else out."
In my head, I thought: "You'll figure something else out."
When boys have a plan of what they want to do, it is nice for many reasons. It's respectful of the girl's time. It makes it so I don't feel stressed because I have to keep reassuring the boy that it's no problem that we don't have a plan. Because it actually is a problem.
Also, I feel like my time is valued when there is a plan. I have a really busy schedule, so if a boy is wanting to take me out on a date, I hope that he realizes that I am going on the date because I want to spend time doing something fun with him and not because I want to spend time figuring out something fun to do with someone I hardly know. I can have fun with people without a specific plan, but if I don't know you, I can't always be spontaneous and fun. Sorry.
I don't want it to sound like I'm super anal and schedule-oriented. I just think it's annoying when boys that I don't really know are like "Oh hey, wanna get together and do something fun sometime maybe?" It's frustrating. I don't even like it when boys I'm interested in do this. It's a turnoff. It makes me feel like I'm just there to entertain you.
The important thing isn't even if the plan works out exactly how you want it to. This past weekend I went on a date where literally everything went wrong. My date, a boy in my ward, was an hour late picking me up, because something was wrong with his car, so we missed the kickoff and almost the whole first quarter. His roommate, who was going to go with us, couldn't find his date's house and ended up dropping out, so my date and I had to go and get her. He hadn't bought tickets yet, so we had to get them when we got to the stadium...............
My point is, everything besides the weather went wrong, and I still had a really fun time. Honestly. I knew that he had tried to plan it out, and he was really apologetic about everything. He was very thoughtful in asking me if I wanted something to drink or any food. Things were going wrong, but they were largely out of his control. I didn't feel stressed or annoyed or disrespected, because of the way he handled it.
So gentlemen, please learn from this entry. When you are just getting to know a girl, come up with a plan. Actually, come up with two. Just in case Plan A falls apart. No more going by the seat of your pants.
No more throwing your pants up in the air sometimes.
