Why You Need An Expiration Date For People

Time is one of the concepts I think about, all the time. How it measures, and what it tells us. Can’t think of a better teacher we could have in life, but time. If we understood its concept, instead of just passage of it, we would decipher so many situations and relationships in our lives that leave us puzzled, worried, and dissatisfied.

I caught up with a friend recently; we told each other stories about what happened since we last saw each other. He told me about the girl he was seeing. He sounded troubled, in desperate need of a tête-à-tête. I began thinking my female point of view is the real reason he wanted to catch up.

He laid it out for me. They’ve met, and hit it off exceptionally well. She has a very demanding job and travels a lot but always finds time to see him. Everything went so well until it didn’t. As the story usually goes, he doesn’t know what happened. Her messages got shorter and shorter, laced with a tone of annoyance. She began to never have time to see him, all while spending time with friends, followed by posting pictures from her outings on social media, sans him. But for him to see.

You know the spiel.

He tried to ask her what was wrong, numerous times. She refuses to elaborate, avoids talking about it, and just gives him the classic — “everything is ok, I’m just busy” while keeping some pretend communication while not communicating at all.

I have yet to discover a more mind-numbing thing than dangling a human being in the limbo of nothing is wrong while never disclosing what issues you might have, having a chatter to avoid a real conversation while refusing to take any decisive action in the relationship.

Be in. Or be out. Be something.

My take was something he already knew himself — you need to provoke an actual conversation. Or exit the mental gymnastics. The status quo doesn’t work. Don’t accept it. You take action when she doesn’t. Only, he tells me, yes, that’s the plan, I’ll give her this month to get back to me.

“I will give her a month to get back to me”.

I’m not advertising not giving people time. I’m preaching — assess who to give time to.

Giving people time where the time is not due is something we don’t even notice we’re doing; it’s a discrepancy that creates layers of self-damage.

When I suggested he shouldn’t give her a month to get back to him, after all its something that takes 10 minutes and shows an incredible disregard for another human being; he looked at me and said — “Well it’s ok, I mean I have time, I’m not doing anything else anyway (or anyone else), I’ll just wait.”

You do not have time. Repeat after me.

I learned this lesson in the most hurtful way possible. But also cutting my time for people was the most important part of my growth. Growth turned into complacency. Complacency turned into solitude. Solitude turned into productivity. Productivity turned into a great fucking life.

A few years ago, I had a terrible fight with one of my best friends of 20 years. He was never the most intelligent tool in the box, but he had a good heart so I kept carrying him over, letting him pass level after level of my life, for much longer than his expiration date warranted.

He insulted my family thinking he was helping us understand the errors of our ways, and somehow felt offended in return when I told him no one should get involved in other people’s lifestyles unless a crime has been committed. He had a very strong reaction to how my sister was raising her child, thinking buying him a Coca-Cola and ice cream at the beach warrants very questionable parenthood.

Somehow he found an offense at a 6-year-old at every single turn, yelling and screaming at a child for touching dumbbells in a gym or possibly having more of a personality at 6 years old, than his almost 40-year-old perpetrator.

People might be good-hearted, but if they’re not emotionally intelligent, no matter what curveball life throws at you, you will have tribulations with them at some point. Remember — you can never really fight with an intelligent, emotionally stable, confident person. In that scenario, it’s only called a conversation.

You can only fight with fools.

But that was not the lesson. That was just foreplay. The lesson came a few weeks after when another (mutual) friend asked me about the famous fight. I told him what happened and said I’m still hoping the perpetrator had a case of temporary insanity that day, and will in time understand you absolutely never discuss someone’s family in a disrespectful tone, no matter how close you are. I shared I was hoping he will realize he overstepped, after all, we grew up together. He’ll contact me, and apologize, so we can move on.

I said — I’m here all summer, so, I’m sure we’ll patch it up.

Then the mutual friend I told this story to said the most life-changing sentence I live by, since that moment, until this very day.

“Miranda, his apology has an expiration date.”

I asked him, what do you mean by an expiration date? And he said:

“You will not give this person all summer to apologize. You will give him exactly 2 more weeks. Two weeks is perfectly enough time for someone to assess what happened, analyze sides, and contact someone for a calm, collected conversation. Everything after that time is disrespect.”

I listened. I gave it 2 weeks. The perpetrator did not call. We never spoke again.

And it completely transformed my life.

There’s nothing better in life than thinking you can’t live without someone, only to realize you never needed them in the first place. They were just a deadweight of judgments, biases, and self-issues weighing you down. Without it, you reached the levels you otherwise never would.

Stop giving people unreasonable amounts of time.

You are only teaching them to disrespect you.

There is a timeframe for everything.

There is always time to pick up a call or text someone if you’re uncomfortable talking.

Everyone has time for 10 min conversation. By giving people time and time again, you are telling them to disrespect you, and giving them instructions on how to do it.

I ruthlessly operate by this rule.

I started talking to someone that contacted me on social media a few years back, I remember it was November. I knew who he was, we had a few mutual friends in common. He wanted to meet me, but I was traveling as we started to plan the meetup. We agreed to meet when I return. While I was away, he spoke to me almost every single day. Waiting for me to come back. Excited when I’ll come back. Asking me when I’ll come back.

When I returned, I needed a week to gather myself and texted him I’m back, let’s plan a day. He played professional sports so he was traveling then, and after a few days I saw online he injured himself. There were some rumors of maybe switching cities; I could tell it was a not good time.

We spoke, but I could feel he was down on his luck and wasn’t planning anything. Just stopped making plans after texting me a million times about when I’m free. I don’t dwell too much on people if it's not seamless, so I stopped talking.

He texts me 5 months later — “Hey, how are you, I had some issues and was traveling and had an injury, I’m all good and free now, let’s meet up, I’m free until the rest of the month.”

I understand the issues, I played professional sports myself. I understand not being good with yourself to take on the world or meet new people. But we were planning to meet (on your initiative) in November. Now it’s April. You could have sent that same message, then.

I responded with — “Sorry, the time limit to meet up, is expired.”

He was surprised and a bit stunned at my reaction. And maybe you are, too, reading this. But simply, if you can not verbalize the issues you’re dealing with in a 5-month period, and I’ve got to figure them out on my own, or online — I have no time, and you have no respect.

Giving people time and time again for a simple act of decency, when decency takes 5–10 minutes, is literally giving them directions on how not to respect you.

And by allowing people to do this to you all the time, all your life; whether is the relationships, casual dating, friendships, or even your career — you cluster your energy with a sort of lingering, waiting for something that has no sense of being waited for.

No positive outcomes will ever come out of not telling people how to respect you. Waiting for something that takes no time; you are preventing something better, real and sensible to take up your space.

You won’t lose on things, friends, or opportunities if you adopt this simple rule. You’ll be doing the exact opposite. Being unapologetic with your time and putting an expiration date on people’s disrespectful behaviors — is not how you lose things.

It’s how you GET things.