Sometimes one person is ready to make a plan…and the other person is in what I call Florida Man Mode. Florida Man Mode isn’t about where you live. It’s my affectionate name for the moments when planning feels harder than hoping everything will somehow work itself out.
By that, I mean someone who’s:
- Allergic to calendars.
- Confident that “we’ll figure it out.”
- Deeply suspicious of anything that resembles a spreadsheet.
If you’ve ever wondered what happens when one person wants details and the other wants to “see what happens,” you’re not alone.
Florida Man Mode usually sounds something like this:
- “We’ll figure it out later.”
- “Let’s just see what happens.”
- “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”
- “I didn’t bring that.”
- “I don’t know.”
- “I don’t care.”
- “I don’t talk about money.”
- “We’ll just let the judge decide.”
It can also look like showing up unprepared, avoiding decisions, changing positions from one session to the next, or refusing to get specific.
On the surface, it can look like someone just doesn’t want to participate. Most of the time, it’s more complicated than that.
Most of the time, these conversations aren’t really about calendars, spreadsheets, or parenting schedules. Those are just the places where the resistance shows up.
Sometimes people disagree because they have different priorities. Sometimes they’re missing information. Sometimes they’re solving two completely different problems without realizing it. Sometimes they’re not resisting the plan—they’re resisting what the plan represents.
Once I identify what’s actually keeping the conversation stuck, the rest of the conversation usually starts to make a lot more sense.
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