I've been "stood up" quite a few times before in my life, but I've also stood other people up, so I'm not sure if I'm positive or negative in "Suppokasu" karma. I'm not sure what the exact definition is, whether making plans but then cancelling them at the last second counts as standing someone up or it has to be a strict "no-show," you don't show up at all without any explanation. I suppose a last-minute cancellation (ドタンキャン)- the Japanese have a lot of terms for this category, cancellation is not as bad because the other person can at least move on with their life and go do something else besides waiting for you wondering if you'll show up.
I got stood up last night! A friend of mine who I haven't seen in a while just got engaged in the morning to his girlfriend (now fiance) and said he was going out that night and invited me to join, I accepted, he said he would text me location ("send me location"- inside joke) later that night but never did. This morning, he told me he got super drunk and forgot to text me. Hmmmmmm......is the natural reaction, cuz for me even if I get pretty drunk my sense of obligation will probably force me to say something or have it on my mind. This friend is very popular (especially with the ladies too) and has a lot of friends though, so it's definitely possible he just lost my text in the sea of congratulatory texts he got about his engagement, or it's also that subconsciously he lost track of me because I wasn't that important to him, also probably part of it. Regardless, I'll give him slack because he just got engaged and was probably celebrating and having his mind somewhere else .
It's a cruel realization sometimes that just like some people are going to be more popular with dating and the opposite sex, some people, usually those same people, are also going to be more popular and more people will want to be friends with them. It's a sinking feeling but important concept to realize you might not be as important to them. A lot of people try to go against the grain and try to be close to those popular people even more and feed off their popularity, almost parasitically; I of course tried to be as cool as possible as a kid, but I actually tend to go the other way: I try to reach out to people who seem like they're alone, or looking for attention and not getting any, because I know what it's like to be them; I also want to be included in the group or conversation. When I'm in a big group of friends in a circle, I'll try to get someone who hasn't talked or awhile into the conversation by asking them a question; I'm like an emcee at a networking event; try to get everyone involved.
It's also kind of a sinking but realistic feeling that "high school never ends." (a popular song by Bowling for Soup). Life at the workplace, life in social circles, life with friends.....life on Facebook, life in dodgeball: there are definite popularity contests, and the popular people usually get more people who want to be near them, who try to be their friends, so it becomes a black hole of attention; they're their own star with planets/moons rotating around them in orbit, to extend the analogy. Luckily, in this world popularity isn't the only thing that matters, but it does get people invites to parties on Saturday, and it does prevent them from being stood up, and force them to stand other people up once in a while who aren't important.
My biggest pet peeve is people I've befriended and tried to bring them into the group, but then they find other people in the group who are more popular and abandon me. It's a savage, savage world out there, but that kind of betrayal just makes one feel unwanted, used, and abused. I wish that one day those people who are popular (and a few of them do this) looked around and understood why they're so popular, and then reached out to those who might need some attention and share some of their popularity, like a popularity socialism, spread the wealth a little bit. Alas, just like capitalism, popularity seems like the rich keep getting richer at the expense of the poor, and the cycle continues.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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