Tag Archives: being flakey

Flaking out on plans.

paul newman

We’ve all done it. We’ve all flaked out on someone. And we have our reasons, and some of them are good, and some of them are fake because we don’t actually want to say, “I have diabolical diarrhea.” But at a certain point, we all hit our limits. We say, “I get it, I’m never inviting you to anything again.” So how do we determine when that limit is?

I have some ideas:

1. They cancel, but with plenty of notice, and they have a good reason: they’re sick, or have a family thing. No problem.

2. They cancel, last minute, but it’s because they got into some sort of urgent situation or emergency. No problem.

3. They cancel, because they forgot they had other plans. Uh, okay.

4. They cancel in the sense that they don’t even really let you know until and hour or less before, or they don’t respond until you text something like, “Hey, are you coming?” Dude, not cool.

5. They do all of the above repeatedly. Oh come on, seriously?

6. They say yes to all invitations, sometimes add something like, “I’m so excited!” or “I wouldn’t miss this” but then and do the above repeatedly. STOP SAYING YES TO THINGS, YOU SODDING JERK.

Even more annoying is when they never tell you if they’re coming or not. It’s totally easy, here are your options: yes or no. If you say maybe, I don’t really know what to do with that, unless you explain something like, I have something before and I don’t know when it will be over. It’s not that I’m trying to dictate your plans or be an asshole about the whole thing, I just want to know how much food or drink I should provide or when I should get ready, or if I need to put in a plus one.

You all know who you are. And I know some of you think I’m a flake. But please know that if I don’t go to something, it’s because I am genuinely not feeling well, because I am sick all the time, like a small child in a Dickens novel, or I really do have plans.

Here’s an exception: if that person let’s you know well in advance that they can’t come and is sincerely sorry and is totally honest about their reasons, I wouldn’t give up on them. Who knows the kind of guff they’re dealing with or going through? I once didn’t go to a party because my dress didn’t fit. And neither did the 5 other ones I tried on. True story. Rather than say something like, “Cough cough, I’m sick” I told the truth, as stupid as that truth was, because that’s what you do for your friends.

What do you think?

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