Planning an event with friends in London

I have been living in my garden flat since January and although I have had people over and had the occasional BBQ, I have not had a proper party yet. It's a pity since the garden has "BBQ and drinks with friends" written all over it!

So the other day I had a quick chat with my partner, selected a few dates and sent a message with the proposed dates to a group of friends. 

An initial "sounds good" was followed by a "I can't mate, I am off to xxxxx that weekend" and a "cheers but I have plans already".

"But I could on DD/MM if you guys are around then?" one of them added.
After checking my calendar and double checking with my partner, Happy with that new date I proposed it. But this time around somebody else could not make it. So I proposed one more... And an additional one.

When it came to the point that the date I was about to propose would have been more than 2 months away, I got frustrated and gave up, thinking that it was just not meant to happen. 

I'm not saying that all plans in London are unsuccessful like this one, but they are similar in the sense that they require consulting a calendar and they seem like people are trying to schedule a business meeting, not a social event with friends.

Planning an evening with friends in  Rome was quite different. All it took was a text suggesting meeting up the coming weekend (the following weekend at the latest), or even a message the day of.  And if you pulled out a phone to check your calendar when planning a dinner or an evening at the pub, people would make fun of you for months.

Back home the only events which require planning well in advance are weddings, graduation ceremonies, baptisms or holidays. And it makes complete sense. If you want to plan a trip somewhere, then you need to book the flight, the hotel and all sorts of things that require advance planning. But again, these are rare events!

When I first moved to London, since I was new to the city, I was eager to do things and had loads of time on my hands. 

However I noticed right away that even planning a simple night out for a few beers would work out to be a super complex negotiation. 

Initially I thought I would just "play the game", as I couldn't force people to meet me sooner than their busy schedules would permit. But I really intended to try to be as available as possible for "spontaneous evenings", as I was in Rome. 

But then things started to change. I started to meet more and more people... from work, from football, friends of friends, etc. And with all the people came more plans.

I started using the calendar on my phone more and more and before I knew it, I had become one of them... The same ones I initially criticised!

These days I often receive an invitation for the coming weekend and while there are still times when I can go, I have to take a rain check more often than I would like. I really hate it when I have to counter-propose a date that is more than a month away. 

Why does this city change people like this? Is it just because London offers a lot more than most cities? Or because the high concentration of people means that events book up quickly and you need to plan far in advance? Or maybe people in London tend to be more sociable, ending up with multiple groups of friends?

I don't have an answer to this. 

All I know is that although I disapprove of this madness, I ended up adapting to it and, if anything, I'm even contributing to it! Oh London, what have you done to me?