I love New York a lot, and after living here for over seven years, I wonder how much I will miss it one day when I leave. But then, I remember the things about it that I’m not very fond of, especially regarding how commitment phobic people tend to be here, and I realize that’s the biggest aspect I will not miss.

Planning things in advance is not something that people generally like to do here. I’ve always loved to plan things in advance, so I will usually ask friends at least a week in advance if they are free for whatever dinner or event I’d like to attend with them. In an age of texting and when e-mails get ignored and never responded to (and people think this is acceptable behavior), texts oftentimes don’t get responded to within a day, or two… or even four, despite the fact that these messages are “instant,” and most of us have our phone settings so that text messages pop up on our lock screen when we click to view the time on our phone.

In passing, we always say to people, let’s do this! Let’s have lunch at this place! Let’s get drinks at that place! Everyone is so excited and happy about it in the moment. Then, when it comes time to actually locking down a time and date, people freeze and don’t respond right away, if at all. It’s as though you are literally locking that person in a room for the hours that you will be with her, and she just can’t handle it. So she doesn’t. And it never happens.

It’s okay. I didn’t expect it to happen.

There are few things worse to me than saying that you will do something and not following through. And it’s the worst of the worst when it affects someone else’s life that cares about you. I experienced it from a very young age and then pretty much expected the world to be full of shit. I generally don’t believe anything anyone tells me about what they will do until I see it happen. But now, I’m a bit relieved to say I don’t take it as personally anymore and just sum it up by saying that the number of people who care about me — really, genuinely care — as in, will cry for days if I died and then be haunted by my (hopefully happy) ghost for decades after — in life is really, really small. And everyone will disappoint me. But what’s most important is how I choose to deal with that disappointment.