I respect what you're doing, but I noticed it's the friends like you (off Facebook, never answers texts) that stopped getting invited to stuff.
Scenario 1: housewarming party 3 weeks away. My phoneless friend doesn't get the Facebook invite used to corrall the other 30 people coming. She also doesn't get the group FB message (nobody uses group SMS anymore in my friend group). A fluke of busyness means I don't see her for those 3 weeks and she thus misses the party.
Scenario 2: my roommate and I just got home from work, and decide to go out. We text phoneless friend and other friend. Other friend shows up. Three hours later we close our tabs, and get a text from phoneless friend. "I just saw this!! Are you guys still out??"
It's a core value of mine that people should be allowed to live however the hell they very well please as long as it doesn't hurt others, but I genuinely feel like without a minimum level of connectedness (at the very least relatively easy access via SMS), they're kinda hurting themselves. As close as a friend as they may be, if the barrier to entry to hanging out with them is providing them step by step directions to the bar we're at as well as making sure all plans are 48 hours ahead and by the way I have to trade voicemails to even inform them... Eeeh...
Standard replies to this kind of post:
>If lack of connectedness is an obstacle to people hanging out with you, they weren't worth your time / that good of friends anyway.
I counter with the idea mass culture movements require participation to, well, participate. My bestest friend ever doesn't have to participate to remain in that state, sure, but I guess if all you want in life is a tiny circle of three of your besties then power to you.
> People were more genuine and less flaky before cellphones
I lived before and after cellphones and in my experience, people were just as flaky back then, it just didn't seem that way because we were all hanging out less. Either way, cut flaky people out o your life homey. It's not as big of a deal to flake out of impromptu Wednesday trivia night at a random bar, only possible at the drop of the hat as my friends like to do, with cellphones. It also allows us to avoid the "fuck I don't wanna be here, normally I do but today was exhausting" aspect of cyclical plans (say regular DND night) because we can all communicate those feelings early and quickly make new plans with the smaller group.