The Culture of Last Minute Plans, FTW

Planes improvisados are the compass that guides Spain's social interactions, and I'm here for it

Yesterday the weather was unusually warm for a winter day in Sevilla, I felt like going for lunch to a new spot along the river that promised spectacular views. I woke up that morning feeling energized and feeling in the mood to socialize. So at around 10am I started writing a few friends to see who was keen to have lunch, got a few yes’s and a few no’s, and voila, at 2pm there were 4 of us having lunch on the river.

This moment is a snapshot of the way people in Sevilla typically make plans. Literally the opposite of my experience while I was living in the US, where I’d often make plans like a coffee date or happy hour at the very least days, if not weeks, in advance.

It was only a few months into living here that I became so aware of this tendency for Spaniards to make planes improvisados. This awareness was triggered by the fact that for the first few months I noticed I fell in a continual loop of feeling a little down on Thursdays and Fridays, realizing time and time again that I had no plans for the weekend. This was further exacerbated by my friends at home asking me “what’re your plans for the weekend” and me feeling like a loser telling them I didn’t have plans. The expectation of friends back home wanting to hear all about my exciting Spanish life and feeling like I was falling short.

But what I began to notice happened each weekend is that there was also a loop of people calling me Friday evening, Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, to propose plans just a few hours in advance. My Whatsapp was always pinging throughout the weekend with variations of:

“Te apetece tomar algo antes de cenar? Do you want to have a drink before dinner”?

“Hace un día de sol perfecto, quieres comer juntos? It’s a beautiful sunny day, do you want to have lunch?”

I finally started to realize that the sadness loop was a waste of my energy, I needn’t be sad because without fail every weekend I’d get at least a few pings from Spanish friends suggesting last minute plans. I started to see that this was just the way things were, it appeared everyone around me was living in this same fashion.

Shortly after this realization, I commented on this to a dear Spanish friend, explaining the tendency in the U.S. to make plans well in advance, even sharing an example of making plans on a Tuesday for the upcoming Friday (not even that far in advance, in my American opinion).

“Pero que? Que pasa si ese viernes no tienes ganas de quedar al final? Wait what, but what happens if Friday comes around and you don’t feel like hanging out that day?”

This amused me, because in my personal experience this had happened to me many a time while living in the U.S. You’d make plans way in advance, but then maybe the day you’re supposed to hang you had a bad day at work, or maybe you slept poorly the night before. But, at the risk of looking flaky, you suck it up and go anyway.

I explained this to my friend as well, and in the midst of explaining I realized I didn’t actually know the Spanish word for “flaky”. I love these moments, which still happen to this day, where you stumble upon a word you don’t know in another language. You then have to explain the word in Spanish to see if you get the person to guess, and therefore teach you, the word. But in this particular instance, despite my best descriptions, my friend was unable to provide a word. He was like, this word doesn’t exist. He said, we don’t make plans far enough in advance for someone to become “flaky”.

It was a lightbulb moment for me, and from that moment on I realized I absolutely love this Spanish way of socializing. You should make plans because you truly feel like hanging out. Making plans way in advance coverts said plans into an item on your agenda often makes it feel like a task. Especially in the cases where, life happens, and for myriad possible reasons you end up feeling not in the mood to go through with the plans.

Now, whenever I make new expat friends here, I feel like I always have to explain when I call them to make a plan the day of, “I’m going to be really Spanish here and propose a last minute plan”. But for those expats who stay here long term, they eventually respond with “don’t worry, I prefer planes improvisados too.”

Photo by Simon Hermans on Unsplash