How to use "Be about to"

How to use “Be about to”

When you have a plan to meet your friend at six o’clock and now it’s 5:45, and this is you, completely asleep. And then your friend calls you, hey, hello… And he says we’re meeting in five minutes, right? And you’re still in bed. What can you answer? Of course you’re going to answer this. Yeah, I’m about to leave my house. Be about to do something, this one’s super easy. What does it mean? You’re going to do something, but now, now, now, now, now, like I’m going to do it but, now. The version of be, about to never changes, do, is in the infinitive so the verb that you change it to always stays the same. So yeah, I’m about to leave my house, is like, yeah, my keys are in my hand, I’m about to leave my house. Bullshit, I know, but we’ve all done this, right? Or was that just me?

That was present tense. How about past tense? Well, we’ve all been in this situation. When you and your best friend have that special connection and you call your best friend and say, hi, it’s me and your best friend’s like, oh my god, just before you called me, I was going to call you. Just then, just before. So, how can she say that? In a past, I was going to do something just before you call me. I, you can add the word just, I was just about to, the verb is an infinitive, call, so just about to call, doesn’t change. So, that’s pretty easy. Right? You’re going to do something just at that moment. Just now. Now, you can’t say things like this. Now you can’t say, for example, I’m about to do something in five minutes. Why? Grammatically it’s fine. But yes, in five minutes, it’s a short time in the future. But, when we say I’m about to, we need now, like right now. Five minutes, that’s too far in the future. That’s not right now. So, about to, and more than, right now, can’t say it. So, thanks for watching.