I noticed last month that I have been turning down invitations not because I don't want to go, but because saying yes used to mean rearranging my life around someone else's plan, and I'm still flinching at a contract nobody is asking me to sign anymore

The invitation came through on a Tuesday afternoon in Singapore. Drinks at a place ten minutes from my apartment, with people I actually like, on a night I had nothing else booked. I declined within ninety seconds, citing a vague work commitment that did not exist, and went back to whatever I was doing as if I had just dodged something. It took me another week to notice the pattern. I had said no to four things in a row, all under similar conditions. None of them would have cost me much. All of them I had wanted to attend in some quiet, unspoken way. And yet the reflex to refuse arrived faster than the consideration to accept.

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