“Hey, we should catch up!”
I am sure you have heard that many times before, especially when you roll into town after being away for some time. Once you have announced your intended return to your circle of friends, some acquitances whom you did not disclose your trip to but heard about your return from your friends may also ask to … catch up.
If you post your return on social media, well… you know what I mean…
In my previous 2 trips back to my hometown though, I only informed a selected few of my return. It was like I intentionally made my trip extremely stealthlike.
Maybe it is age, maybe I really wanted time for myself, maybe I just wanted to meet up with a selected few, one thing that is certain… I knew I do not wish to engage in endless catch-ups. When it comes to catch up, something an ex-colleague of mine said to me left a really long-lasting impression.
“Alvern, there’s no point catching up if there’s no follow up”
So you strolled into town and you had countless coffee, or lunched or dinners. Granted, some of these people you have not met for a really long time and a catch up is well and truly due. After the initial small talk, they will all end up asking you the same set of questions, and you will be repeating your story over and over and over again, just to different faces.
And that is if you’re lucky.
If you’re not so lucky, you might need to find time in your trip to meet them (because you’re the one on holiday and they are ‘busy’), and during the catch up, they unload their stories to you. The saving grace is that you don’t need to repeat your story again.
Once you bid your farewell, snap a few photos for social media as ‘memory’, all of you went back to your own lives, you never spoke to each other again, you forgottem their stories, and they probably have forgotten about yours.
There’s no follow-up.
Sounds familiar?
“Alvern, there’s no point catching up without follow-up”
Hence, during my trip, only those whom I have been communicating regularly over the years, and whom I know will continue to communicate regularly after my trip got into my catch-up circle. Some whom I wanted to catch up with but was unable due to time constraint, I informed them as such.
As for those whom I know will be deficient in the ‘follow-up’ territory, very likely they will have the “Hey, I didn’t know you were back” expression.
So if you are heading somewhere, or maybe someone is heading to your town, and if you so happened to miss a catch-up session; fret not, if it’s meant to be, there will be follow-up.
If not… “there’s no point catching-up, if there’s no follow-up”.
