The Easiest Way To Tell If Someone Is Worth Your Time

Every time you are introduced to someone as a potential new friend or significant other, you come to a point where you ponder whether or not they are worth investing time into. Your time is a currency — something that has value and something that you shouldn’t frivolously throw around.

You work. You have a family. You have your own personal life. You have a love life (whether or not it is a successful love life or not may be up for debate, but you have one, nonetheless). You have enough going on in your life that when you make the decision to spend time with someone, they should at least be worthy of it.

The easiest way to tell that is simple: Do they make an effort?

Are they engaged in the conversation you two are having, or is it a one-way street? Do they make plans, or is that job always left up to you? Are they constantly flaking on you? When they do flake, do they have valid reasons for flaking? Do they seem sincere when they apologize? Any of the wrong answers to these questions should make you re-evaluate your stance.

What good are friends who bring nothing to the table? What good is it pursuing someone who seemingly always has better things to do than see you? We are all busy. We all have jobs. We all have families. We all have personal lives. We all have love lives. The point is, when you care about someone — platonically or romantically — you make time. You make an effort.

I understand that some of us may be busier than others, but, as I like to say, “Nobody is that busy.” Nobody is so busy for weeks or months on end that they can’t find a few hours out of a day to spend with you… unless they don’t want to.

More often than not, if someone gives you that runaround for weeks or months, chances are that they don’t want to spend time with you. If they give you the, “I’ve just been really busy” bull, call them out on it.

A lot of us 20-somethings are now done with school and don’t have kids, so our lives aren’t that crazy. We can (and will) find time for the people we want to see because, over time, we learn that actions speak volumes louder than words.