Correspondence Regarding Relative Contact Request
The call has been pending for eleven weeks. Both parties are aware of this.
CORRESPONDENCE RECORD Subject: Pending Video Call with Extended Family. Duration of Pending Status: Ongoing.
Parties
Party A: the subject of this record, who received the original message. Party B: a relative, specifically a cousin once removed, located in a different city, whose Diwali message in November 2021 included the phrase "we should catch up properly, let's do a video call."
Record of Communications
November 14, 2021: Party B sends message. Message includes the call proposal. Party A reads the message and agrees that a call would be good. Party A sends a response expressing agreement and enthusiasm. The response does not include a proposed date.
November 19, 2021: Party B sends a follow-up suggesting "sometime this month or next." Party A reads this message in a moment unsuitable for scheduling and intends to respond when a suitable moment arrives. The suitable moment does not arrive within the window in which response feels natural.
December through February: no messages exchanged on this thread. Both parties send and receive other messages through the holiday season via group family threads. Both parties are aware the other is active on the platform.
March 2022: Party A's mother mentions Party B in an unrelated conversation, noting that Party B "has been asking after you." Party A indicates the call is being planned.
April 2022: no call. No new messages on the direct thread.
Current Status
Neither party has said they do not want to speak. Both parties have not spoken. This is the stable equilibrium of the pending call: the call has been proposed, accepted, and not scheduled, and its pendency is now past the point where bringing it up again feels normal.
First consequence: the call has become a context-dependent obligation that both parties carry without exchanging it. It appears in both lives as an unresolved item that is too minor to address formally and too persistent to ignore.
Second consequence: the call would take approximately thirty to forty-five minutes and would be genuinely pleasant. This is not in dispute. The scheduling requires one party to name a specific day and time. No party has named a specific day and time.
Third consequence: at the next family gathering, both parties will see each other and will describe themselves as planning to do a call. This will restart the cycle.
Governing Rule
The call will happen. The scheduling of the call is operating on a longer timeline than either party has acknowledged. The longer timeline is informal and has no stated endpoint.
Contradiction
Party A speaks to three other people weekly via video call. One of those people lives in the same city. Video calling technology is fully accessible to Party A. The barrier is not technological.
Resolution
No resolution. The thread remains open. The call remains pending.
Record will be updated following first contact. Estimated date: TBD.