Imagine a situation; it is Thursday night and you went out to a cool place for some drinks and laughs with friends. After an hour passed by and you had few drinks and chatted up everyone you know around you, you get a phone call from another friend who is still at home and you start a shouting contest:
Friend: “WHERE ARE YOU???”
Joe: “AT THE NEW PLACE WE TALKED ABOUT WITH THE PRETTY BARTENDER I LIKE”
Pretty bartender: WHAT??!!!
Joe: CAN I HAVE MORE VODKA ON ICE LIKE I LIKE??!!
Friend: “HOW IS IT?”
Joe: “VERY COOL, LOTS OF PEOPLE”
Friend: “ARE YOU GONNA STAY THERE FOR A WHILE?”
Joe: “WHAT????”
Friend: “DO YOU THINK YOU GONNA STAY THERE FOR A WHILE???????!!!!”
Joe: “oh… we came about an hour ago… I guess we are going to stay for about 1-1.5 hours and then move along”
Friend: “WHAT????!!!!!! I CAN’T HEAR YOU!! GET AWAY FROM THE NOISE”
Joe: “WE ARE GOING TO STAY FOR ANOTHER HOUR OR SO!!!”
Friend: COOOOOOOLLLL!!!!!! I’M HITTING THE SHOWER AND COMING”
Quick math for you; shower + dressing + hair + change clothes + hair again + fixing a light snack + change clothes again + driving + find parking + getting in the club at this hour = 54 – 72 minutes.
So, now I sort of promised to be in the club for another hour if I like it or not and when my friend arrive it means I have to stay with him as if we just came in together.
Now… what should Joe do?
a. Stay until my friend arrive and have a few drinks like it’s no big deal
b. Stay until he arrive only to say good night and leave him a warm beer
c. Wait until my friend is on the way and text him “dude we left but have a great time”
d. Just ignore my friend and leave or stay without worrying about it
A bigger man would say the right thing to do is definitely a. stay with your friend. I say good for him. If you ask me, the answer is somewhere between C and D. let him fry in his own lateness.
In my opinion it shows an utter disrespect to people’s time. If I’m going out on 11:00 pm I guess I’ll be home around 01:30 am. So I have 5-6 hours of sleep. But the social norm today is if someone new arrives around 00:30 then the clock starts all over again and you should stay with him for few hours at the least.
I believe I am obligated only to the ones I went out with in the beginning. All the rest are free agents. If I let someone know about my whereabouts it is only information and in no way it should be interpreted as a promise for companion. Or as Parker Lewis used to say: “synchronize swatches”.
Maybe I'm exaggerating but as I mentioned again and again; my time is all I have. It is the most precious resource I have at my disposal and I am not about to give it away to “time hitchhikers”. Like any commodity, if you put too much of your time out there it loses its value.
“Pull a Sara” is when someone calls you after you’ve been in an event for some time to ask if you are there and that he is now on his way. It can be a party, a BBQ, the beach and more.
It is named after a dear close friend of mine who is a beautiful person and one summer she used to call us after we’ve been at the beach for 5 hours to tell us she is on the way. That’s when my famous impatience kicked in and I started calling it “pulling a Sara”. Yes, being my friend is peachy.
