Why Do People Complain About Being Lonely, But Never Make Plans?

Author image for Emmy Pratt
Emmy Pratt • Senior Editor
Jul 2, 2026 7:45 AM EDT

Is curing loneliness that simple?

It's no secret that many Gen Zers are lonely. They are going out less, making fewer friends, and having a worse time than generations before them, but why is that? It is easy to blame phones, and I think that might be a pretty big cause of loneliness, but I don't think that's the only cause. I think a lot of young people are unwilling to take the risk of putting themselves out there out of fear of being rejected by their peers, and therefore, they're making fewer plans. 

As one of the main planners in my friend group, I try to fight my own loneliness by being the one to initiate making plans. I look up events in my city, and I can nearly intuit which events my friends would want to go to and which they wouldn't. I realized early in my young adult life that if you sit around waiting for somebody else to invite you to something, you're going to be waiting for a while. This is not because my friends didn't like me or didn't want to hang out with me, but because most people are not planners by nature. They do not have the skills or desire to reach out to the people in their lives and make specific, actionable plans for a variety of reasons. One reason is fear of rejection. If you ask your friends if they want to go to the theater and none of them want to, you might feel dejected or humiliated. Another reason is that it's not easy. Have you tried coordinating five adults with their own social lives to find a Saturday when they're all free and an activity they all want to do? It's not easy. 

The dude in this story shared his unpopular opinion about friendship and plans, and it might not be as unpopular as he thought. 

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  • A lonely woman sitting by the water and wondering why nobody has invited her to hang out in a while
    via Jarle Johansen

    A representation of a lonely woman sitting by the water and wondering why nobody has invited her to hang out in a while

  • Unpopular Opinion: Most people do not actually want to make plans. They want to be invited to plans someone else made.

    A lot of people say they want to go out more, meet people, have a social life, or do more interesting things on weekends.
    via u/depredador93
  • NORTHY WORNER GO est Art, Flags, tea a LEFO DOWNTOWN BELLINGHAM PARTNERSHIP
    via Lorin Lindell

    Models of a group of friends doing something interesting on the weekend. 

  • But when someone actually tries to make that happen, the enthusiasm often turns into "maybe," "let's see," "who else is going?" or complete silence until the plan is already happening.
    via u/depredador93
  • I think this is why so many group chats slowly di . Not because nobody wants to do anything, but because almost nobody wants to be the person who chooses the date, checks the place,
    via u/depredador93
  • books the activity, reminds people, deals with cancellations, and risks looking annoying for trying. Everyone likes the idea of being included. Far fewer
    via u/depredador93
  • people like the small boring work that makes inclusion possible. I do not think this makes people bad. Life is tiring, money is limited, and sometimes people really are
    via u/depredador93
  • busy. But there is a difference between being busy and passively waiting for other people to maintain your social life. At some point, "nobody makes plans anymore" often
    via u/depredador93
  • means "nobody is doing the planning for me."
    via u/depredador93
  • Spiritual-Bobcat5635 people are missing the main reason. yes, it takes more effort to be the catalyst, but the big thing is you are opening yourself up to rejection for little in return compared to the invitee. It takes a certain type of person to do this without d_ng a little inside every time
    via u/Spiritual-Bobcat5635
  • maddy273 There's also some risk that anyone you don't invite (for example because you have limited space in your house) will get offended. Or if you pick a date when not everyone's free people can get offended too.
    via u/maddy273
  • whale_and_beet As someone who plans a lot of the gatherings in my friend group, yes. The anxiety of having to herd all the cats, and then have half them cancel day of, and then have everyone who does show up seem kind of disappointed because "there's no one here..." It's a thankless, stressful role to play.
    via u/whale_and_beet
  • TurbulentAerie3785 YOU HAVE TO BE A FRIEND TO HAVE FRIENDS! Seriously, I don't mind being the planner because if everyone has this attitude we all end up sitting home alone. Making plans is easy. People overthink it. "Want to do X on date/time/location?" "We should do something sometime" is not a real plan.
    via u/TurbulentAerie3785
  • babe_ruthless3 True. Also, when ever I would hear or see in a text "maybe", "let's see", and especially "who else is going" i was out. I dont want to hang out with you with.
    via u/babe_ruthless3
  • New-Message-2016 Why "who else is going" especially?
    via u/New-Message-2016
  • minskoffsupreme Because it says you are not good enough as is.
    via u/minskoffsupreme
  • Dalmatian_In_Exile Anyone who ever tried to organize something bigger knows how daunting it is, and people have zero respect for the time and effort that goes in it.
    via u/Dalmatian_In_Exile
  • Friends hanging out at a large gathering, which likely took some painstaking work to plan
    via Curated Lifestyle (Unsplash+)

    A group of friends hanging out at a large gathering, which likely took some painstaking work to plan

  • kdawg09 This should not be unpopular but as the person who always gets stuck making the plans, buying all the things and doing all the things to make it happen only for people to be flaky and inconsistent or want finicky changes after you did all the work (like asking for a date change last minute when a date was already been agreed in and plans have already been set in motion. It's so frustratingly true that I almost made this post last week.
    via u/kdawg09
  • depredador93 OP Just to clarify what I mean, since some comments are missing the core argument (and yeah, maybe it wasn't the best title choice, but I can't change it now): the unpopular opinion isn't that planning is hard work. It is that a lot of modern isolation is entirely self-inflicted by a culture of social consumerism.
    via u/depredador93
  • The hypocrisy is the worst part. People will constantly say they wish someone would organize an event, but when you actually step in to make it happen, they treat the plan like a pop-up ad they can just swipe away. You spend hours researching and coordinating, and they think a thumbs-up emoji is enough investment before flaking at the last minute. They want a thriving social life with zero skin in the game, and then they wonder why the group chats di when people get tired of having their time di
    via u/depredador93

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