For those of you who work as creatives in the entertainment industry, you may come across the often repeated but seldom followed phrase: “Let’s catch-up soon!”
Through my experience as an actor, such is the nature of the business that once a project ends, it’s rare that one will ever get together again with the creatives with whom many weeks or months were spent investing in a joint venture.
It’s understandable, after all the next project may find one in a foreign country working on a new television series which may go on to win multiple awards. On the other hand, some of us will end up back at the day-job or on the endless hamster wheel of the hustle.
Having said that, the last few months have been a blessing, I’ve managed to catch-up with fellow freelancers in the industry, some of whom I haven’t seen in years, and others in decades. You all know who you are, and I extend a big Thank You for following through when you said, “Let’s catch-up.”
In the age of social media, sporadic messaging just isn’t the same as a face-to-face conversation. A lot can be misunderstood via texting, the tone can be misconstrued, or worse taken quite personally when all you were trying to ask was, “How are you?”
On the other end of the “Let’s catch-up soon!” spectrum we have the Non-Committals, or perhaps more accurately the Dismissals, for whom the aforementioned phrase holds no weight, and in fact means quite the opposite.
For them, “Let’s catch-up soon” is another way of saying:
“Let’s not catch-up soon as I don’t really want to because…..reasons. But I’m going to say it anyway as society requires me to be polite even though you can probably tell I’m being insincere. Anyway, bye!”
– Anonymous
Of course, the unsuspecting rookie creative who doesn’t have insincerity on their social radar, takes these words as gospel and follows up via text or other means for said ‘catch-up’, and what happens?
Tumbleweed.