Sometime You Dodge Bullets
When has it become the norm for people to suggest something and end the suggestion with “sometime?”
“We should get together sometime.”
“You should come over sometime.”
“We should go see that sometime.”
“I should take you sometime.”
Ironically enough, sometime becomes never because when the party suggesting sometime always seems to never want to set a date for doing what they suggested. I thought it was just a woman thing since I’ve witnessed this in female interactions. You know the ones: two high school classmates see each other years after graduation and after blocking fucking aisle 6 for 20 fucking minutes at the grocery store idly chitchatting, one always says, “We should get together sometime and catch up.” NEWSFLASH! They never do. They friend each other on Facebook (which is what the 20 fucking minute wait time was - them looking at pictures on each others’ phones) and in the comments of their posts ONE of them ALWAYS says, “OMG, gorgeous! We need to get together sometime.” How do I know this? I’M FRIENDS WITH THREE OF THEM and I see the same sentence from them to various people. I even asked one if they follow through with the suggestion. “Oh my God NO! Any more than ten minutes in her presence and I’ll kill her, lol,” was the response. To which I replied, “Fair enough” and the little asshole in me added, “You and I really should get together sometime tho.” She unfriended me. Aw, sad face.
So, I’ve gleaned that sometime means never. I try not to use it. Except when I’m talking with someone who I know for an absolute FACT they have a lot of shit going on currently. I also preface the sometime with “When life slows down” because I know just how chaotic life can get and even when it slows down, you just want to breathe for a second before you go back to peopling with people you don’t normally people with. If someone else says sometime and I actually want to spend time in that person’s energy, I try to arrange a date, even if it’s months in advance. I do this to see if they were serious about sometime, or if they were just “being polite.” Trust me, most people are just being polite. Bullets were dodged.
That’s mostly women though. It’s the males who I can’t understand. Especially if they are interested in pursuing you as a romantic interest. No lie, I have had on THREE separate occasions been asked to go on a date sometime. I say sure. And that’s as far as it goes. No suggestion as to what we would do, but most importantly, no suggestion as to WHEN. I’ve even had one, who plays the guitar say I should come listen to him sometime. Since I enjoy listening and watching someone play the guitar, I said I’d love to. Nothing. I don’t understand. I already said I would go out with you and while I understand that’s a victory in of itself, it’s kind of a hollow victory if we don’t actually go out. Now, I understand that I may not be your cup of tea, or you were just seeing if females would go out with you, or maybe it was a bet or whatever asinine bullshit males do. I get it, and I’m not bothered by it. I’m just confused by it. When did males become such pussies that they can’t follow up a yes with “what about next Sunday.”
Now, don’t get me wrong. There were some guys who did follow up with a date suggestion and the details were hammered out. The dates were fun and there were second ones, but I guess planning three dates is asking too much. Or the rules in dating have changed where the woman is supposed to plan the future dates. I never got the memo. I got text messages asking me when we were going out again. “When you ask?” Not one of them asked again. Again, aw, sad face.
Bullets were dodged.
The thing is though, sometime doesn’t end when you find yourself in a monogamous relationship. When I say monogamous, I mean you’ve dated, you want to be exclusive, and you’ve fucked. Or made love, or whatever. Body fluids other than saliva were exchanged. This is your person. You are now a couple. You make a suggestion on an activity to do with your other. He agrees that you both should do it sometime. And sometime winds back up to never. Case in point: I don’t like watching movies by myself (idk why). My late husband wanted to go to the theaters to see the Marvel movies (Thor, Captain America, Avengers, etc), but we couldn’t afford the tickets. He planned on getting the video (it was Thor) and we’d watch it together sometime. Once it came out, I bought the movie and brought it home. I suggested we watch it together. I’d make our favorite snacks, get our comfy blankets together and we’d have an in-home date night. He agreed. I spent all week looking forward to some quality time with my husband. When the evening arrived, I had all our snacks and blankets ready and went to get the movie. I was never more excited than I was that moment. I grabbed the movie. It was opened. I called for my husband, who didn’t answer. I went upstairs to get him. He was in the middle of a raid in World of Warcraft. I wasn’t happy he was raiding - he was supposed to be spending the evening with me - but I only asked about why the movie was opened. “I watched it last night.” Needless to say, we did not sleep together for a week after that and I stopped making suggestions for us to spend quality time together. Oh, he always made suggestions for sometime and I always wanted to do them. But they never came to fruition because I refused to do the planning.
That trauma followed me into my first relationship as a widow. My ex had said “We should go shooting sometime” and as someone who adores shooting guns, I wholeheartedly agreed. But, I guess since planning when and where that activity was going to happen was too much for my ex; we never went shooting together. We also didn’t go horseback riding together, or skydiving together, or anything else he said, sometime about. Again, sometime means never.
And you know what? That’s ok. Because I’m never doing sometime again. I don’t want to have to constantly plan everything around another person anymore. I don’t want to juggle their life schedule and my life schedule on a consistent basis anymore. I spent 34 years doing it. If YOU want to do something with ME, don’t say sometime; say next Thursday or whenever. If the when doesn’t work, I’ll give you an alternative when. If I don’t want to do something with you, I’ll say, “Thank you, but I’ll pass” and I’ll give you the reason why. Because if one more person says sometime to me again, I’m swear I’m going to become a celibate hermit.
