How Did a Cancelled Plan Help Me Understand My Psychology, Thinking, and Values Better?

Okay, now I want to write down and reflect on a situation that happened today. In itself, it really wasn’t a big deal. It was just a tiny, insignificant thing. But somehow, it triggered some negative emotions inside me. And I know pretty well how this mechanism works.

Tonight, M called me and asked if I wanted to hang out. Basically, they asked when I would be free so we could go somewhere together. At the time, I was at the Living Lab and couldn’t just leave immediately. I also wanted to spend some time cleaning up my house before going out. So I said something like, “Maybe around 9 or 10,” because I wasn’t sure exactly when I would be free. I told M that I would call back around then. M said okay.

I didn’t think much about it because I assumed the plan was going to happen. I actually wanted to go earlier than 10 because M had said that if we only went out at 10 and came back at 12, it would be too short. So I also tried to arrange my time so that I could leave earlier.

Then I simply went on with my own work. Around 10, I started calling repeatedly and sending a bunch of messages. There was absolutely no response. At that point, I could have simply said, “Fuck it,” and gone on with something else. I always have something else to do. But I didn’t. I kept calling, partly out of irritation and partly with a little bit of panic. “Why isn’t M picking up?” I kept wondering. I tried every possible way to get in touch, but nothing worked.

Then, sometime after 11, M suddenly showed up at my house. Not to pick me up and go out, but apparently just to return some things. They looked like they had just finished playing sports. And when they saw me, they didn’t even say hello. They just started talking to my friend.

I was genuinely pissed off.

That feeling of being ignored and abandoned immediately showed up. Luckily, I was still aware enough to recognize what was happening inside me, so I didn’t react impulsively. I chose to respond normally. But M continued not paying attention to me, and that basically doubled the irritation inside me.

Looking back, I have to acknowledge that my ability to regulate my emotions has improved quite a lot. I was able to recognize what was happening, acknowledge it without suppressing it, and choose a response that I felt was appropriate. I also have a few tools and ways of dealing with these kinds of situations. However, the emotional atmosphere inside me was still pretty dark, even though it was much better than when I am fully triggered by negative emotions.

So what exactly triggered me?

The first thing was being ignored. The fact that M didn’t come to what I thought was our plan and instead chose to play badminton felt, to me, like a lack of respect. I felt that I wasn’t being valued or considered important. That touched one of my core values: the need to be respected. And so I became irritated.

The second thing was that whenever my friends are around, M tends to pay almost no attention to me. They don’t greet me or talk to me. This time was the same. Once again, I felt ignored. And it became even more uncomfortable when my friend mentioned that M had gone to play badminton instead of hanging out with me, while M still didn’t acknowledge me and simply continued talking to my friend.

To me, that translated into something like: I am not important enough to deserve your attention. And that made me even more irritated. More than that, I was genuinely hurt by it.

I could feel the anger and frustration guiding me to some extent. They were there. They weren’t overwhelmingly strong, but they were strong enough that, without awareness, they could easily swallow me up.

This story is not really about M

Okay. The story above is not really about M. And it isn’t really about me either. It is about how I respond to things that don’t go the way I expect them to — specifically, how I get triggered when I feel that I am being ignored or not valued.

It also helped me understand communication more clearly. I need to pay attention to intention and context rather than looking only at the event itself and interpreting everything solely from my own perspective. And I need to prepare myself mentally and have some useful tools ready for when something similar happens again in the future.

Ultimately, what matters more is how I become a mature man: calm, empathetic, ethical, grounded in my values, and capable of responding to life with awareness — rather than becoming a weak little boy who is easily hurt, trapped in a victim mentality, and overly bothered by trivial things.

When I encounter a situation in which I feel ignored, my mind tends to become completely focused on that person or that situation. I become unable to do anything else. When I can’t get in touch with someone, I keep texting and calling, hoping that I will somehow reconnect with them. At that moment, I need their attention. I need the sense of safety that comes from knowing that the connection is still there. And if I don’t get that connection, my mind keeps circling around the same issue. It doesn’t take me anywhere.

Instead of repeatedly texting and calling, I can pause and look at the situation as a whole: What is happening? What do I need? What do I want? What can I do? And if I still can’t get what I want, then what? After trying to make contact for a reasonable amount of time without getting a response, I need to recognize that further action is unnecessary. At some point, I am no longer trying to solve the problem. I am simply wasting my energy and letting it leak away.

The uncomfortable energy — the irritation, frustration, or anger — will probably still be there. I can feel it in my chest. What I need to do is accept it and have compassion for it. I need to acknowledge that its presence is meaningful. It can stay there for as long as it needs to. I don’t have to suppress it or force it to disappear. And when its presence is no longer useful, I can invite another part of myself to step forward and continue the conversation.

That is the emotional side of the response. But there is also another part: how I make sense of what actually happened.

I should try to describe the situation as it is, using language that is observational, neutral, and as free from interpretation as possible. For example, in today’s situation: M called Huy, they talked for a while, and M invited Huy to hang out. M asked what time. Huy said around 9 or 10 and said he would call back. M asked how long Huy would stay out. Huy said maybe until 12, and M said that was too short. So Huy tried to arrange his time so that he could leave earlier. Huy assumed that the plan was going to happen. When the time came, Huy couldn’t reach M. Later, Huy found out that M had understood the conversation differently: because the exact time and place had never been confirmed, M didn’t consider there to be an actual plan yet. So M chose to play badminton instead, and happened to stop by Huy’s house on the way home to return some things.

Huy understood the conversation as meaning, “We’re going to hang out; we’ll figure out the exact time and place later.” M understood it as, “We haven’t actually made a plan yet.”

That is simply a difference in how two people interpreted the same communication.

The lesson here is quite simple: if we’re making a plan to hang out, we should first establish whether we’re actually going or not, and then decide on the time and place. There needs to be something clear enough to ensure that both people understand the situation in roughly the same way.

The desire to be noticed

Now, there is another layer to this: the feeling of being ignored when we are together.

I’ve always wanted people’s attention and care. So when I don’t receive them, I become sad and feel abandoned. Because of that, I don’t want to be left out in any situation. When I’m working or meeting with people, I want to be part of the conversations. When there is general information, I want to know about it, even if it is simply for the sake of knowing. I want to be included in things.

There is nothing inherently wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with wanting attention, care, or inclusion. The problem is that these desires can become the seed of suffering when reality doesn’t unfold the way I want it to.

And reality often doesn’t. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, these things seem to happen to me quite often. And of course, I become sad. I feel inadequate. I feel like I have failed when I’m not included or when I can’t keep up.

But if I constantly stand in my own position and look outward, expecting other people to pay attention to me, that is simply unrealistic.

Every person has their own hierarchy of importance and closeness with different people. That is their own perspective, their own values, their own internal system. I can know something about it. At most, I can influence it. But I cannot completely control that system inside another person.

Those systems are shaped by their worldview, their values, their life experiences, their individual relationships, and their experiences with the people around them. And even the person themselves may not have complete conscious control over all of those things.

So why would I expect something that the other person themselves may not have much conscious control over?

It is almost as irrational as expecting sunshine in the middle of the rainy season.

There is another side to this as well. If I want to receive care and attention, I should also offer those things to other people.

Relationships operate through cause and effect, through reciprocity and interdependence. If I want other people to pay attention to me, then at the very least, I need to pay attention to and care about them first. I need to take action. I need to plant the seeds of care, attention, and consideration first. Only then might the fruit eventually grow.

Things cannot simply emerge and flourish out of nothing. This is partly a matter of awareness and thinking, and partly psychological. But at this point, I don’t think the main issue is that I have some deep psychological problem. It is much more about my awareness and the way I think.

I need to change this mindset of sitting around waiting for good things to fall into my lap, keeping my mouth open and waiting for the river to flow in, dreaming unrealistically, relying on sheer willpower, and ignoring reality.

Change the mindset, and the perspective changes.

Change the perspective, and the actions change.

Change the actions, and I become a different person.

The strange push and pull

There was one more interesting thing I noticed while messaging M earlier.

When I was a little angry, M wanted to back down and apologize. But the more they backed down, the more I wanted to push further. Then, when M stopped backing down, I suddenly wanted to be the one to back down and pull their attention toward me again.

Push and pull. Back and forth. It’s kind of funny when I look at it.

But perhaps that’s another thing worth noticing: sometimes what I think is anger is not simply anger. Underneath it may be a desire to reconnect, to be seen, to know that I still matter to the other person.

And perhaps that is what I am really learning from this small, almost ridiculous incident. Not how to make other people pay more attention to me. But how to remain grounded when they don’t. How to recognize what is happening inside me without immediately believing every story my mind creates about it.

How to communicate clearly enough that misunderstandings don’t become unnecessary wounds.

And, perhaps most importantly, how to become the kind of man who can care deeply about relationships without making his sense of worth depend entirely on how much attention he receives from other people.