Has COVID made cancelling plans acceptable?

This is a story about cancel culture. Don’t worry, not that kind of cancel culture: J. K. Rowling is not involved. I’m talking instead about literally cancelling plans – and how, in the past two years, our relationship to plans, and our attitude towards keeping them, has fundamentally changed.

In the past two years, our relationship to plans, and our attitude towards keeping them, has fundamentally changed.Credit: Alamy

Here is a brief history of how people met up with one another. Before mobile phones, you and your friends would agree to meet on the steps of Town Hall at five o’clock on a Saturday. Come hell or high water, which happened less frequently back then, you’d be there. If you weren’t, there would be an assumption you had either died or there had been no express bus.

With the advent of mobile phones, people became less good at keeping plans. The era between 2005 and 2020 could be called the “Great Flake” because that’s what everyone did to each other. It was an age of excuses, hastily given, grudgingly received. And tardiness no longer mattered because instead of imagining all the creative insults you would fling at your friend when they finally arrived, you could simply bide your time by scrolling through Twitter.

But in that period of rampant excuses, the one that didn’t really fly was a generic cold. “I’ve got a runny nose,” was among the weakest of reasons not to show up somewhere. Everyone soldiered on with Codral, until they didn’t.

By 2022, the idea that if you’re sick, you should stay home, has stuck. Making plans, on the other hand, has fallen by the wayside. This came up for me because I was recently meant to return to Australia for a holiday after almost four years away.

I angered the gods by attempting to schedule the trip as I used to: a coffee here, a drink before dinner.

Booking the flights had itself felt like a leap of faith. I felt sure another racoon, cat or pangolin would disrupt my plans. But two weeks out, with my landing day within the weather forecast, I let friends know I would be coming. In retrospect, I angered the gods by attempting to schedule the trip as I used to: a coffee here, a drink before dinner. I even planned brunches, and should have known better because brunch belongs to an earlier, halcyon era.

With COVID-19 case numbers rising, I made the wrenching decision to cancel. Regretful emails were dispatched to everyone I had eagerly contacted a week before. No one seemed to mind. There was an air of inevitability to the whole sorry affair. After so many years apart, perhaps I was as much a figment of their imagination as they are of mine.

The episode reminded me of a friendship I have here in Washington, DC. The two of us try to grab lunch every couple of months, but have taken to texting about when we won’t see each other, not when we will (“So I definitely won’t see you on Thursday at noon, right?” ). In this way, we fly under the radar of whichever celestial force is bored enough to be tracking our correspondence and possesses the power to disrupt our plans with an errant throat tickle.

Meanwhile, the lesson has been learnt on my homecoming. When it does happen, and the plane touches down, I will slouch silently through Kingsford Smith International Airport and refrain from making a single connection with a friend until my feet are firmly planted on Sydney sandstone. Better yet, I’ll hang around the steps of Town Hall until I see someone I know. No plans needed.

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