A Lesson in Spontaneity

Don and I are planners. I think we probably always have been. In general, we're pretty busy, but we're used to living life by our calendar. Not too big a deal. Over a year ago, some of our friends wanted to introduce us to the concept of spontaneous gatherings. In short, let's not "plan" to get together anymore let's just let it happen organically. So, if we find ourselves free on a Friday night we'll just call up so-and-so and see if they can hang-out, go-out, whatever. Don and I were game. It sounded ok, in theory. As long as we could still have quality time with our friends we were fine. I've already extablished that Don and I are planners, so just calling people out-of-the-blue doesn't come naturally to us. Honestly, I don't think it comes naturally to many people, because I think that we've been called about as often as we've called people! lol. Over the past two weekends, I think that I have observed that there are differences in spontaneity. Same day spontaneity doesn't work, but your chances of success increase if you make the call the day before (is that really spontaneous then? oh, well.). It didn't matter who we called (we tried friends and family); if we invited someone to do something that day we were unanimously rejected. But, if the idea came up the day before then we had a plan. Weird. Are people really busy, or do they need 12 - 24 hours to prepare to go somewhere or visit? And, is asking someone to do something the day before spontaneous enough? You wouldn't think that socializing would be so hard! My goodness! This spontaneous thing is just as much a pain in the butt as planning to get together weeks in advance. The only difference I see is that I'm not as upset if people bail on a spur of the moment invitation than I am when we specifically make a plan and people don't show. So, the jury's still out on this whole spontaneity thing. At least we're trying. But, I'm not giving up the calendar just yet!