"Somebody more important came up."

River

Active member
I'm now treating the "somebody more important came up" excuse for not following through on meeting or getting together (with new people) as saying "I've got better things to do than to spend time with you."

Who can blame me? I mean, what's it with the "he's the star and writer of some important play or movie" bullshit. We had agreed to get together for coffee or tea or beer, or whatever, and "somebody more important came up". Okay, you make your choices. Bye-bye. I'm not playing second or third best, thanks.
 
I don't blame you.
 
Yeah I know

People always make time for things they really want to do.
 
People always make time for things they really want to do.

"Yeah, but The Star (the President, the senator, the author....), the Mr or Ms Somebody was suddenly in town, and there I was, unexpectedly invited to meet Him or Her! So I hope you understand, after all, you obviously rank far lower on the totem pole of Life, and one never knows when I'll again have an opportunity to meet Mr Big Shot, right? So step in line behind Mr, Important, bozo. Step in line."

.... I'm talking here about a day and time which has been established to meet, after some talk over time.... It's not as if we didn't put time and effort into finding a day and time that worked for both of us -- we did. And then Mr. Somebody showed up who was more important, more rare, more special.... I figure with such folks I'll always be "so long as it pleases me".
 
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Blech. Definitely not the right way to start a relationship, not even the right way to treat another human being after setting up a meeting....

It's just rude.
 
I just got home from a trip and got bumped by my GF for a lover she has from out of town. He's only here for a few more days.

Do I wish it was ME spending the night at her house? Sure, but I certainly can't be angry. I'll be here when he leaves.
 
I find it depends on the who or what I am being bumped for.
Family member from out of town, once in a life-time experience opportunity, those are fine; life happens.
"I decided to prioritize A over you because A is more likely to kick up a stink if I cancel." Not ok.
 
Theoretically, some cases would be hard to decide. For example, what if President Obama (for some weird reason) wanted to see me? I think what I'd do is try to reschedule with whomever I had plans with.
 
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I can understand some circumstances where a reschedule would be logical and understandable and forgivable too...but there are ways to approach such a situation that are respectful, and ways that aren't.

And if it's that hard to find time for one another, that in and of itself doesn't bespeak good tidings for the future of the relationship, IMO.

I mean, if some rare, special, important person-meeting-opportunity pre-empted my date with someone, I'd expect an arrangement made for another day within the same week or something. If that is a struggle...is it going to always be a struggle to see each other, and isn't that going to be really tiresome? I'd think so.

The Worm King (disastrous fling of last summer) once said to me, after months of not seeing each other, "I miss you." I told him I thought that was kind of a stupid thing to say since I've been pretty clear I wanted him in my life and wanted to see him anytime he wanted to see me and he set everything up on his terms and then ghosted out on me...but fine. You miss me? I'm free Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday nights this week...any of those work for you? "No...I'm busy..." Um. Yeah. See? Well if you ever get some free time you want me to be a part of, you just let me know. *crickets.*

Anything was more important than me. Anything. Watching TV. Dinner party with friends (no way was I invited.) Gardening. Hanging out with his cats.

"I miss you." Psh. You shutcho mouf.

So um, in other words, a recurring pattern would also be a "NOPE."
 
....
So um, in other words, a recurring pattern would also be a "NOPE."

Shoot, these days I've not got much time for anyone making me second best, ever. I guess I must be made of gold and platinum, with emeralds and diamonds for fringe. LOL. :p Oh, yeah, baby. :)
 
Theoretically, some cases would be hard to decide. For example, what if President Obama (for some weird reason) wanted to see me? I think what I'd do is try to reschedule with whomever I had plans with.


He did try to re-schedule. But I got the sense from him that I'd probably always be in line with others for his attention -- somewhere in a ranking system. That may not be the case. I may have made it all up from insufficient evidence. I probably did, in fact. But I'm simply tired of being treated in any sort of ranking way, and so I went with my gut. I want people to see me as golden, if push comes to shove. And if they don't see me as golden, well to heck with them! (I am golden, actually. With some platinum, emeralds and diamond thrown in for good measure.)
 
This is kind of a pet peeve for me, particularly when it's a pattern. People sometimes err on the side of the new shiny thing as opposed to the long term relationship. My feeling is that you should weight things the other way.

Unless that's not how they feel. If the new shiny things always get priority, I'm out of there.
 
River, if I were in that situation I would encourage the other person to go hang out with the famous person. And I would feel good about it.
 
River, if I were in that situation I would encourage the other person to go hang out with the famous person. And I would feel good about it.

I may have done so too, provided I had an opportunity to be encouraging. But what happened is that at the last minute I received a text message saying he'd chosen to go to hang out with this other person instead of me, even though we had already set a day, time and location to meet ... after lots of back and forth over what seems like weeks.

You may not feel so good about it, though, if you had experienced a lot of folks making appointments with you in which they suddenly and unexpectedly bail out at the last minute -- or even after you had waited for them at a restaurant or coffee shop. Sometimes how we experience the day's weather is related to how the month's weather has been.

I would definitely never tell anyone that I've cancelled our meeting date because somebody more important came up. I may ask the person if it would be okay with them, perhaps, if we were to re-schedule. It's plain rude to simply tell a person they've been upstaged and cancelled. There must be a more sensitive way to say it than "well, this really important, famous guy is passing through town and so...."
 
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Was "somebody more important came up" actually the "apology" tendered???

Sound waaaay too much like my favorite:

I had an after-work date with Nancy, the first evening we'd had together in weeks. At 7:00, I called to tell her I was on the way.

"Oh. Well, I was just about to call you. I'm going out with Dee tonight instead."

Dee was her on-again/off-again girlfriend. Apparently they were suddenly "on" again, & this usually meant EVERY spare moment until Dee went haring off again into short-lived monogamy.

Still, I asked how this was at all fair to me.

"Well," she replied, "I guess I got a better offer. >>tee-hee<<"

Naturally, she was "too busy getting ready" to even THINK about maybe making another date.

But, as has been said, Karma can be a bitch.

I hung up, apologized to my cat & told him I was going to go out & drink beer until this made sense. As it turned out, I had a beer & a medium pizza & flirted with Kiki the waittress, then went to my favorite coffeehouse & worked on a novel & enthusiastically applauded a lively jazz quartet & got chatted up by an amazing young woman (who later became a lover), then went back & had two more beers before walking home, much relaxed & at peace with the world.

The answering machine was blinking furiously at me.
-- "Uh, hi, this is Nancy. Well... looks like Dee won't be able to make it after all... >>tee-hee<<... so let me know what you want to do. Bye!'
-- "This is Nancy again. Where are you? The night is slipping away! Call me soon, okay? Bye."
-- "Why are you ignoring my calls?!? I said I want to DO SOMETHING!!"
-- "PICK UP YOUR DAMN PHONE!!"

"Winston," I said to my cat, "one of us is clearly insane."

;)
 
I find it depends on the who or what I am being bumped for.
Family member from out of town, once in a life-time experience opportunity, those are fine; life happens.
"I decided to prioritize A over you because A is more likely to kick up a stink if I cancel." Not ok.

Very much in agreement with this.
 
Again along the lines of patterns of behavior though...

If I had an established relationship with someone and we had many plans kept, obligations met, and in general good mojo, karma, what have you, built up...and say some famous person that they were very enthusiastic (like geeking out) about was in town, it would put a smile on my face to know that they were going to see them. It would be probably better energy if they were to, say, ask if I wanted to go, too...even if they knew I wasn't interested...but the happiness of my loves is my own happiness.

But... In the early stages when you haven't got that secure emotional foundation and somebody handles it poorly, or it's hard to pin them down in general, or you know them well enough to know that (like Ravenscroft and the "Dee" incident) due to a situation now in place you're just gonna be on the back burner... whole different story, that.

You want to know you ARE a priority and people want to spend time with you, and actions speak louder than words.
 
Was "somebody more important came up" actually the "apology" tendered???

Sound waaaay too much like my favorite:

I had an after-work date with Nancy, the first evening we'd had together in weeks. At 7:00, I called to tell her I was on the way.

"Oh. Well, I was just about to call you. I'm going out with Dee tonight instead."

Dee was her on-again/off-again girlfriend. Apparently they were suddenly "on" again, & this usually meant EVERY spare moment until Dee went haring off again into short-lived monogamy.

Still, I asked how this was at all fair to me.

"Well," she replied, "I guess I got a better offer. >>tee-hee<<"

Naturally, she was "too busy getting ready" to even THINK about maybe making another date.

But, as has been said, Karma can be a bitch.

I hung up, apologized to my cat & told him I was going to go out & drink beer until this made sense. As it turned out, I had a beer & a medium pizza & flirted with Kiki the waittress, then went to my favorite coffeehouse & worked on a novel & enthusiastically applauded a lively jazz quartet & got chatted up by an amazing young woman (who later became a lover), then went back & had two more beers before walking home, much relaxed & at peace with the world.

The answering machine was blinking furiously at me.
-- "Uh, hi, this is Nancy. Well... looks like Dee won't be able to make it after all... >>tee-hee<<... so let me know what you want to do. Bye!'
-- "This is Nancy again. Where are you? The night is slipping away! Call me soon, okay? Bye."
-- "Why are you ignoring my calls?!? I said I want to DO SOMETHING!!"
-- "PICK UP YOUR DAMN PHONE!!"

"Winston," I said to my cat, "one of us is clearly insane."

;)


Nancy has no manners and no tact. I'm not saying you should dump her like she was contaminated with plague but does she ever make YOU feel special?
 
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