People who cancel for no real reason.....

[Vagabond]

Are people just flaky these days or do commitments not matter to anyone anymore?

I organised a bbq last weekend and made a huge effort with food and prep etc... Had 4 couples coming and 2 cancelled on the morning. 1 couple because they were hungover "we'd stink you out" and another for an undisclosed reason.

My thoughts on this are that people who don't host or organise things, seem happy to cancel.

I went to a party last Sat that was organised by a group FB invite thing. 35 people said they were going. On the day.... about 20 had cancelled. It's just shit.
Don't cancel. make an effort!

Can you always predict how hungover you'll be the next day while drinking? Because I can't.

Well no but surely you can say 'I've got plans tomorrow so only going to have one glass of wine'? Especially if you're inconsistent with how it's going to make you feel.

Or go to your planned when you're hungover and just suck it up.

Margaret, well I don't drink now, but when I used to I would avoid or have very limited alcohol if I had something to do the next day.

IME this kind of cancellation is because someone's been on a night out they knew was going to be massive, not just had one glass too many and got drunker than they'd expected.

Margaret, well I don't drink now, but when I used to I would avoid or have very limited alcohol if I had something to do the next day.

IME this kind of cancellation is because someone's been on a night out they knew was going to be massive
, not just had one glass too many and got drunker tha
n they'd expected.

sorry for the double post!

I think people do see parties as more optional these days, as opposed to more personal arrangements with a defined group. A Facebook 'I'm attending' doesn't mean an attendance, that's for sure.

We were in the exact same position last year - people called in the morning of the BBQ to cancel. Me and Husband decided that it was the same people with the same excuse all the time so we won't be inviting them anymore to anything. Sorry this happened OP - it sucks.

It's got to the point where I'm surprised to see a text saying "hey, what can we bring" rather than "sorry, some shit has come up and we can't be arsed" ....

Have had the reverse -flaky invite!
1st occasion - "come for lunch next Sunday". Wine bought but no contact re what time etc, nothing materialised ( was quite young then & these days I would phone/ text & ask if we were still on).
2nd - same person invited me & DH to a party, then rang up & said her DH thought it was not a good idea cos we would not know any of their friends!

Oh & we have had a no-show for no reason to a small party for DD but with hall hire. Friend of DD never turned up, no text,nada.
Saw mum next day & said "Oh we missed you.."
Reply was " Oh we were out enjoying the sunshine" - no "Sorry I should have texted".Rude!!

I'm a serial canceller/just-say-no-er.

I have 1 friend who always invites us to do last minute and obscure/late night/all day/far away and expensive things with a load of people I don't know when she knows I hve very young children.

I dread getting the messages and whenever I say I can't do that (due to money/distance/timing) I get moods back. Also if I suggest just going for a local coffe, that idea is always rejected.

On the rare occasion I organise something, I always assume half will cancel for the same reasons I've just said. Sometimes things are inconvenient for reasons the host won't understand.

It is shit to cancel when you've organised in advance. And having a hangover from drinking night before a prior engagement is not really acceptable.

YANBU. Accepting an invitation to many people nowadays just means 'I might come if no better option turns up, and I can be arsed on the day'.

The hangover is no excuse - I agree hangovers can be unpredictable, but most people have a safe cut off point, even if it's only one glass of wine. A rude reason to cancel, though in this case marginally redeemed by at least being honest, I suppose.

This really annoys me also. I've invited a couple up for drinks. They texted a half hour after they should have been there to say that they couldn't come as one was sick and they wanted to wait till the last minute to see if he was better and isn't. I had forked out for food/drinks and cleaned the house from top to bottom all to be let down.

My other two friends moan about stuck in the house all day with the baby etc so I text one the other day and said do you fancy taking the baby's to soft play area, I would have picked them up and brought them back etc and they pretended they were sick.

I'd rather just hear I couldn't be bothered than a list of shit excuses

Well at least someone turned up.

Years ago a friend and her DH organised a party, invited lots of people - she and I and other friend spent hours prepping food including trays of open sandwiches. One high point was friend asking her DH to carve a joint of beef. He went into the kitchen, returned one minute later and said 'done'. Disbelievingly all three of us went into the kitchen to find a big joint of beef, cut in half

No guests appeared and as the evening wore on the party throwers got more pissed and more argumentative. By the time it got to midnight, still not a single guest and they started to scream and shout at each other. Other friend and I backed our way to the front door just as the first tray of open sandwiches went flying. Apparently most of the food we lovingly prepared landed on the walls and floor and they subsequently divorced.

So cheer up OP, it could have been worse

I have a friend who did this. He is usually reliable but cancelled a Christmas meet up as he was too hungover. Was a bit miffed as had bought food/drink etc and it was a last minute cancellation. I wouldn't be bothered but he's got so unbelievably critical of any slight of others generally on social media that it grated on me.

The other has form for cancelling when I'm en route to see her.... as in I'm halfway there on the train, 20 mins from hers she texts to say she's not feeling great. Grrrrrr. She also double books all the time "yes I'll meet you at the restaurant at 6 on Tues" then on the day "there's this band on in XYZ, let's go there abit later" to "I've said I'd meet Jane outside the pub opposite the venue at 6.15" then at 5.30 "I don't think Jane can get anymore tickets, shall we rearrange our dinner?"

It's just rude.

The hangover one gives me the rage. Or if someone has dragged themselves hungover to whatever they've committed to once and been a bear with a sore head all day, but don't learn from it and do it again(and again and again)

SIL invited herself and family for New Year with us; we were returning from holiday on 30th. As PIL live near the airport we said we would pop in on the way home, but couldn't stay long as I'd organised a shop to be delivered that evening, ready for the extra mouths to feed.
SIL was at PIL when we arrived, we all went for lunch, she announced they couldn't now come to ours as they had to be at home.
Bit miffed, but that's the way of things sometimes. Anyway, after lunch she started talking to her husband about the friends they were going to for New Year..............BUSTED!

Yanbu - people do seem more flakey - I think it's partly because people are taught it's ok to be more selfish these days and also partly because things are organised so far in advance!
We had a family 2 adults, 2 children cancel on us for our daughters christening lunch ((£90 cost for feeding them all all prepaid) because the children were napping longer than they thought that day! No thought at all of the effort and cost we had spent on them!
Hope you had s nice time with your remaining friends

OK, so a theoretical* question: if I want to back out of your invitation, the only way to do it is to invent a really heavy reason (vomiting and diarrhoea virus), then stay at home (happily reading/watching something) and make sure not to post on any social media? If this is the expectation, people will only accept invitations "tentatively", as the MS Outlook calendar phrases it.

---

*theoretical because I never accept invitations to parties; and I only accept "one-to-one" meetings with friends with the caveat that I might pull out at any time. This is because life is too short to do things in your free time that you don't feel like doing.

Its best not to invite people who do this regularly but if it's a one off then yabu.

I'm worried that the future will be like this:

Don't commit to anything.

Nobody will organise anything.

People will stay at home, glued to social media and looking at pictures of people who stayed at home because they wouldn't commit to going to a party that wasn't organised because nobody would commit to it.

Then we all die, lonely and feeling sorry for the social events that never happened.

Perhaps we'll all just end up looking at pics of each other in our living rooms watching people watch Googlebox.

As Trump would say: SAD!

I don't mind genuine cancellations but if people are generally a bit shit I only give them a couple of chances.

We have an annual BBQ for about 50 people and one of my friends cancelled with some lame excuse a couple of years ago. She had become really flakey since getting into a relationship.

Last year I didn't invite her and her DP and she was most put out and rang me in tears! I saw her recently and she was trying to get me to arrange a night out with our DPs as apparently hers doesn't have any friends. Too little too late, she'd let me down too many times.

My friend A has form for this she asks me to go somewhere on a specific evening. It gets closer to said evening and i have to phone to check its still on. Last time i had to chase after her even though she couldn't make it. I got pushed out as exh decided on an unexpected visit. I now avoid her as she constantly treats me like shite and my mental health can't take it. Even though when i told my dm i had to avoid her now she said that it was awful of me.

Friend B asked me to the cinema last weekend so i sent her a message the night before about the cinema times. She read the message and ignored it so i sent a message the next morning that i wasn't available anymore to go. Turns out she was away visting family and wouldn't be able to go anyhow, but why ask me to go and not reply to my messages...
Bloody users the pair of them!

This is why people become islands. Boo.

Not half Vagabond its like people don't have any empathy anymore, its all about them. Though i do think i've had awful bad luck with friends lately. Happy to be by myself at the moment