AIBU to rant about friends being flaky or is this the new normal?

[Treasure114]

I'm getting really fed up of arranging to meet with friends and then having them cancel at the last minute! I wouldn't cancel unless I really had to once I'd made plans to meet up, but my friends will cancel with very little notice with really crap excuses. I'm quite shy and hate the idea of cutting off the few friends I do have (in effect, cutting off my nose to spite my face) but at what point does it become unacceptably rude? I'm so sick of having to tell my DC that their playdate's off because my friend's cancelled within half an hour of the time we were supposed to be meeting. (I'd stopped telling DC about any plans to meet right up to the event itself but half an hour seemed reasonable to tell them about it.) Is everyone this flakey nowadays or do my friends just hate me?!

Goodness no.
I have a very close group of friends and no one cancels. I mean I’m sure over the years there’s been cancellations due to illness, but other than that - we are all desperate to get together!

Have you said anything? It’s very rude but you don’t necessarily need to drop them. Maybe next time you have an arrangement you can say, great, that’s definitely in the diary then. Then confirm the day before because you don’t want the dc to be disappointed. If they then cancel on a flimsy excuse I would say something because they are rude.

If you just allow it to drift they will regard all arrangements as casual. It seems to be a thing these days. Alternatively ignore any last minute calls or messages so it’s harder for them to cancel.

It’s getting worse and worse. I used to think it was personal, but conversations with other various people seem to show it’s becoming more and more widespread. I thing it’s because it’s so much easier to get in touch with people now and easy to hide behind a text to cancel.

I’d tell them or drop them.

At least it's not just me then, @Jim! I do think that not having to speak on the phone to cancel makes it easier.

I really am tempted to say something but don't know if I could cope if I had no friends left at all then! If it was just one or two friends and I had lots of others to fall back on it would be ok, but I don't.

I have exactly the same thing OP. It’s horrible and makes me feel like utter crap. You’re definitely not alone and I’m sure it’s not you, some people are just really really rude .

I have a friend who sometimes does this. She also (while cancelling) says “What other dates can you do? Send me some dates”. So I send her dates more than a month away (this is not sole awkwardness - I probably could juggle things and meet her sooner but I’m not going to).

Thanks @Coffee. Yeah, I do feel like utter shit when this happens