I Never Have Weekend Plans

When a clear calendar feels like failure.

Welcome to Hey Shani, an advice column by Shani Silver. I am accepting new questions! Email yours to heyshanisubstack@gmail.com.

#114, June 10th, 2025

Hey Shani,

I never have plans for the weekend, I feel like a loser. Any advice? Thank you!

Hey You,

Let’s start by asking ourselves why having plans on the weekend was ever something that made us feel like winners, hmm? I think you’re equating the volume of social engagements on your calendar with your value as a human being, and while there are reasons why we picked up this limiting belief, it is absolutely time to snap out of it. You value is inherent, and any time we rely on outside sources for validation or a sense of worth, our self worth is pretty low. Alternatively, you might just be bored! It’s totally okay to want weekend plans when you don’t have them, we can talk about that.

I have such strong memories of this feeling. I think I actually remember the first weekend I ever experienced with “zero” plans, I was about 25, and I remember how terrible that felt. Having no plans made me feel unloved and unwanted. Why did nobody ask me to hang out? Is there something wrong with me? Do people not like me? What the hell is going on? Nothing was going on. I just didn’t have plans for the weekend. It was never and will never be that deep. How you feel about “no-plans weekends” is a bit deeper. We should unpack that, so you can start feeling better about your day-to-day life, regardless of how other people interact with it. I don’t want to live a life dependent on other people asking me to hang out in order to feel valid, and something tells me you don’t, either.