u/Hefty-Confusion6810

I used to think it was me and take it personally. I will say more often than not a so-called friend will cancel plans the day before or the day of. Sometimes they will cancel less than 10 minutes before we are to meet to go somewhere. I organized a birthday party a few years ago and invited 15 people. They all said yes but then only two showed up. I was calling and texting and never got a reply from the other 13. No one knew one another so it was not as though they conspired together to stand me up.

I hear this is common these days and a lot of people complain about so-called friends canceling, flaking, and not showing up when they said they would. My parents were born in the late 1970s and said it was almost unheard of for people you knew to do that. Sure it happened but not as much as it does today. I saw an episode of The Simpsons and Homer said to Bart that his own generation actually shows up for things they say they will unlike the generation Bart is in. That means it is not a niche thing. Millions of people are noticing it.

Does anyone have any idea why flaking and standing people up became normalized?

Gosh, I finally paid off **one** of student loans, and it only took me 18 years almost to the day! I love how this country is all about providing educational opportunities to everyone! And now that I earned my second master’s degree in December, I applied to over 30 full-time jobs in my field between January-March! And guess what? Not a single one replied! I hit every single qualification and heard nothing! Isn’t that lovely? Not a yes, not a no! Just nothing!

I was able to get a position as an adjunct professor in my field a few years back, but it’s only part-time and it’s online! Good thing about that is I can work from anywhere, but living in a city with over one million residents, the COL is insanity! Makes me want to dance! After graduating and getting ghosted at least 30 times, I applied for a job overseas on a whim and got a response two weeks later! I have to leave the Land of Opportunity to get an opportunity! Isn’t that swell?

Now, this is the best part! My retired mother was nice enough to let me move back home as I wait for this overseas job to start in January so I can save money, and I didn’t want to sit around the house doing nothing, so I applied to work at the large retail position down the street part-time and they literally called for an interview two hours later! I have three degrees and I’m stocking shelves! Don’t you just love it? It’s the only job I could get. Hey, maybe I should’ve joined the military! I’ll ask my co-worker who is in the military and working alongside me part-time and does Uber at night how that’s working out! He’s not married and has no children, so no tax breaks for him!

“Well you have a useless degree. You should’ve went into STEM.” And have my job taken over by AI like all my former classmates? Sounds like a grand idea! One had to sell his car after getting laid off! I’m sure he’s thrilled about that! And if it’s so useless, why were there 30+ jobs open? Oh wait. I remember. Many jobs just do internal hiring or post jobs they know they won’t hire anyone just to get more money from investors who will think the company is growing and so they’ll have a pool of applicants when they do decide to start calling people six months later! That’s reasonable! Most people can go six months with no income!

Last but not least, I had a beautiful girlfriend for six years. I started secretly looking for rings to propose to her, but out of the clear blue sky she started bringing up things I had done months and months ago that she allegedly didn’t like but never said anything and said we should break up. And we did. How about you just tell me what his name is, ok? I’m not stupid.

Or maybe I am for believing in the American Dream!