West Coast Syndrome

I stood in the crowd of boisterous people, scanning the faces. Somewhere, there had to be a familiar one. After striking out in the first room, I moved on. Strangers, in their small groups, were smiling and laughing. After making my way through the various spaces in the gallery it became clear: I’d been stood up.

The sad thing was, I was hardly even surprised. When I make plans with people in Seattle I really don’t consider the plans concrete until I am standing face to face with someone. Up until that moment, my cell phone could ring (or worse, just “ping” signaling a text), begging off with some excuse. “Oh, I have to work late. I’m not feeling well. I forgot about this other thing I have to do. I’m washing my hair.” Hell, even getting any notice at all is a courtesy not always afforded me. What is up with people here?

It’s something I often refer to as “the west coast syndrome.”

The worst thing about it is that it’s cultural. It is so pervasive here that it becomes contagious. I am sitting here writing this self-righteous rant but it’s not like I never do it either. It is so socially acceptable to be a flake that when you do it there isn’t even any need to feel bad about it.

So if everyone does it and no one feels bad about it then does it even matter? I think it does. Many people including myself complain often about how hard it is to make friends here. This flaky behavior is one major reason for this. Once you jump the enormous hurdle of getting people to initiate plans with you in the first place, you are expected to forgive their flakiness on multiple occasions in order for you to stay friends.

It may sound like asking for trouble but I refuse to do this. I have a zero tolerance policy for flaking. If someone makes plans with me then stands me up, that is it. We are no longer going to spend time together socially. If someone backs out at the last minute (less than 2 hours) then I no longer initiate plans with them. If they try to initiate plans with me, I think long and hard about whether I am going to attend. And they have to repeatedly not be flaky in order to sustain a friendship with me, otherwise I drop them.

I have occasionally made exceptions, but rarely. I have one friend here, a transplant from San Francisco where the syndrome is even more widespread, who has exhibited flakiness on many occasions and yet we still hang out. Frankly, she is such a truly high quality human being that I just can’t bear to eliminate her from my life even though some of her flightiness has been atrocious (she’s the one who stood me up at the gallery).

As a result of all this, I do not have as many friends here as I would like. I have chosen quality over quantity, a decision I am not always happy with. Probably if I wasn’t in a relationship I would have taken a different road on this issue. It would be awfully hard to spend as much time alone as a hard line stance on this issue would require for a single person.

I am writing all of this as an encouragement to all of you Seattleites out there. If you are reading this and nodding your head, help me change this. Cultural change starts with you and me. Let’s all become a little more hard nosed against this behavior, and refuse to engage in it ourselves. On that cold crappy November night when you want to stay in your pajamas instead of meeting your friends for drinks, kick your own ass off the couch. When your friend backs out on your 6pm plans at 5:30 with some lame excuse don’t tell them it’s ok. Tell them you’re pissed! This is what happens to people who engage in this type of behavior in other parts of the country, like the East Coast or the South. Let’s make this kind of thing less socially acceptable, something that has negative consequences.