When everyone becomes more and more noncommittal, do the opposite.

I hate it when people keep all their options open. In recent years, there has been a strong trend towards not wanting to commit. Take advantage of this trend and be different.

My personal experience with the noncommittal of people

I felt the trend towards non-commitment most strongly last year when I organised a class reunion.

It was our twenty-fifth anniversary and something special. You would think that organizing such a celebration would be much easier today than it was when there was no social media and not everyone had an email account.

I also thought that our big jubilee would make my former classmates look forward to it, and they would already be willing to invest more in it than meeting a neighbor for a glass of wine.

But far from it.

I found most of my former classmates quite quickly on the social networks, but some were not registered there. So I wrote to everyone else and asked if anyone knew anything about those I was missing.

I also asked everyone to let me know their current email address, as I didn’t intend to distribute all the information through a Facebook group.

The response, to put it mildly, was sparse. I did get the contact details of three or four other classmates, but that was it.

The request to give me an e-mail address was usually only met after two or three new requests.

I felt ignored. But I did not let myself be discouraged. I understood that most people are busy and life is demanding. So I did not take it personally. In the end most of them had reacted and I could start my planning.

First I started with a survey with three possible dates and the question of how much everyone would be willing to spend. I had to know for which date I should look for a location and in which price category I had to search.

The best locations in a big city like Hamburg are often booked a year in advance, which is why I started contacting my former classmates early on.

To make a long story short: It became a drama. Many only took part in the survey after several reminders, time went by and a good half of the possible places were fully booked before I could even think of asking there.

When I finally organized everything and told the people when the party was supposed to start and what it would cost, some people actually jumped off.

Suddenly it was too expensive for them or other dates they found more important had come up in the meantime.

My calculation was shaky. I had already signed the contract with the location. The innkeeper had calculated the offer according to the expected number of guests and was not willing to go down with the costs afterwards.

The last two cancellations came one day before the party. Fortunately everyone had already transferred the money by this time. I refused a refund of the paid amounts. Otherwise I would have been left sitting on the costs myself.

At the end I had made a personal loss of sixty Euros.

The party was great, but I let everyone know that I wouldn’t organize the next class reunion again.

Buffet mentality

I might have thought that I was just unlucky with my party, but it wasn’t the first time I had experienced something like this. Only this time I was affected myself.

Whenever I tell this story to my friends and acquaintances, almost everyone has a similar story to tell.

Whether weddings, birthdays, appointments for dinner or children’s parties — there are always a few people who agree, only to cancel at the last moment. Well, sometimes people get sick and can’t come.

That’s okay. But nowadays that’s usually not the reason for late cancellations (if cancelled at all — many just don’t show up for invitations without apologizing).

The main reason why one can no longer rely on the acceptance of friends and acquaintances today is due to a mentality that used to be much less widespread than it is today.

I call it the buffet mentality.

For many people, life seems to be like a rich buffet. You go around, look at all the food, load your plate as full as you can and leave half of it at the end.

That’s exactly what these people do when it comes to spending their free time. They look at the offer and pack their plates full. Your friend’s wedding is on the same day as your favourite band’s concert? No problem. First you say yes to the wedding ceremony and then you try to get tickets for the concert.

The bridal couple is lucky if this friend gets his concert tickets in the regular advance sale, because in this case his cancellation comes in time.

But people like this friend don’t give up looking for better options. If he can buy a ticket on ebay the day before the big concert (and the wedding), he won’t hesitate to send the couple an email and claim that he got sick, that his grandmother died or that he forgot that he already had tickets for this great concert a year ago.

Of course, the damage can no longer be averted. The food has long been ordered, the drinks package has been booked and the personalised table decoration, including the name plate for the guest, has been paid for and delivered.

Our friends are no buffet. I am not part of a buffet. Why do fewer and fewer people understand that?

And it also continues on a large scale: instead of going to the polls, people prefer to do something entertaining. Instead of getting involved in the neighbourhood, you go camping every weekend. Instead of going to the parents’ evening, you watch four episodes of your favourite series on Netflix.

Your chance — be different. Be committed. Stand out

If you want to stand out from the crowd today, it’s not that hard.

Be the one your friends can rely on. Acquire the reputation that your word counts. Be there when you have promised to be there and do not change your priorities every five minutes.

You think these are self-evident? Believe me, many will notice that you have virtues that have become rare today and they will thank you for it.

People who live by the buffet mentality seem to get along well with it at first, but at some point they find that invitations and calls become rarer.

People are not stupid. Sometime they realize that for someone they are just one option among many and distance themselves.

In the end, the non-binding people suddenly stand in front of an empty buffet and wonder what the hell has happened to their lives.

But then you sit with your best friends at an Italian restaurant, drink red wine and laugh with them until late into the night. Because you are someone one likes to spend time with.

The other is just someone who steals others’ time.

Read also:

do you want more of this?

Receive weekly email and don’t miss any of my articles.

suscribe here http://bit.ly/ReneJunge