LOW POWER
I'm Not Flaky. I'm at 12%.
There is a version of this where I feel bad about it.
I said yes to the thing. I showed up. I stayed for the appropriate amount of time. And then I left, because my social battery was at 12% and the drive home does not complete itself.
Somewhere in there, "flaky" entered the conversation.
Flaky is uncommitted. Unreliable. Says yes and means maybe. That is not what happened. What happened is that I had a finite amount of charge, I spent most of it getting there, and I used the rest to get home. That is not a character flaw. That is a budget.
The guilt is the part worth naming. Recharging feels like a choice, which makes it feel optional, which makes every time you do it feel like you are choosing yourself over the room. The room has opinions.
It is not a choice. Nobody apologizes for plugging in their phone.
I went home. I decompressed. I came back with enough to try again. That is not flakiness. That is the only system I have that works.