To think people are becoming increasingly flakey?

[hearthstone]

In the last 2 months alone:

1. Was supposed to meet a friend at a cafe so I can pass her my old iPad. Went all the way into town and 30 mins before the meet up she suddenly had errands to run and cancelled. She picked another date, a day later she wanted to pick a different date. I just gave up and ended up handing the iPad to my mum.

1. 6 of us were supposed to meet for a friend's 30th. Restaurant booked, scheduled cleared. On the day itself, one cancelled because she was 'too tired', another followed, another followed, and the night just fell apart.

1. Was going to watch a movie with a friend. We bought the tickets, I passed on watching it with my mum because said friend asked first. On the day itself, friend is 'suddenly not in the mood' and I ended up going by myself (mum has since watched it already).

None of these meetups were suggested by me. Is this level of flakiness new? Why do these people constantly suggest meeting up if they always end up cancelling anyway?

I'm not the only one who's noticed this 'trend'. A friend was organising her kid's birthday party. 15 people RSVP'd 'yes', 9 cancelled at varying dates leading up to the party, 3 were no-shows.

I understand that sometimes things happen but AIBU to think that the bulk of cancellations (or no shows) is due to disorganisation and a general lack of care?

Yes, there seems to be less of a sense of commitment when you have made plans with others. It’s annoying and tbh I would stop making plans with such people. A cancellation due to sudden illness or personal emergency is one thing but being flaky at the last minute is just plain rude.

Very true! I remember back in the early 90s, pre-mobiles, I was meeting a friend at the railway station. Her train came in - no friend got off. The next thing, I heard my name echoing over the announcement system to go to the customer services desk - where a message awaited me to say she was ill and unable to come. We were students so didn't even have our own landlines back in those days.

I think, in general, that people are more selfish since covid. Colleagues and friends talk about self care, wellbeing and mental health a lot. As if doing anything at all that they don't want to do might make them combust or something. Seems like consideration and responsibility mean very little now.

I've noticed the people like this are the ones who expect the most from thier friends. They are the ones who dominate group chats with thier own problems and always bring conversations back to being about them. I remember a friend telling the group about loosing her father, cheeky friend tried to bring the conversation around to loosing her great aunt who she never saw and how difficult the loss has been for her. She had form for cancelling last minute pretty much every time we arranged to meet.

I try to distance myself from people like this, I am very patient and probably let it go on for far too long. But for me friendships need to be a two way street, I refuse to act as a free counseller for selfish people.

I think the pandemic set the tone of being able to legitimately cancel on people last minute/on the day without repercussions, because of developing covid symptoms or getting a positive test. Meetups were arranged and it was understood that COVID might mean people dropped out right up until the event. It kind of normalised it for people already prone to flakiness.

My friends who used to be flakey are still flakey, my friends who weren't still aren't.

Choose your friends wisely, or just have realistic expectations when arranging meetups.

Yes people are more flakey now.
I turn up 100% of the time, but I now don't organise much or offer lifts and I'm much more "I'm doing this thing regardless. If you'd like to join me, then see you there".
I think lots of people were pretty unresilient to start with, but the Covid response encouraged a "better to be safe than sorry" mentality that means they now cancel for the lamest of reasons.
I also think a lot of people have hideously busy lives and don't have space for friendship, but try to shoehorn it in anyway, and it doesn't work.
One friend of mine lives half a mile away. We both work from home 4 days a week. We could see eachother SO easily. But she works full time, has 2 kids with a million after school activities, is very highly strung about having an immaculate home and making pasta from scratch for the kids and so on, and being there EVERY night for bedtime - heaven forbid her husband does it! We last had a PROPER conversation last April! She needs 2 months notice to go for a coffee for an hour, and either cancels or is late for everything. I've given up on her. And she's told me that she values me as a friend and wishes she could see me more, so this isn't her ghosting me.

I agree with what some of the previous posters said about „self care“ and people thinking more about how they feel rather than considering others - I‘ve been seeing a lot of that on social media.

Self care is important for sure, but not at the expense of other people. I‘m more of an introvert myself, but even I‘ve been finding all the social media advice about prioritizing your own feelings and moods at all times too much.

One of the examples in the OP, people flaking out of a birthday party is pretty crappy… I‘m lucky to have a couple of good friends I can rely on, but I definitely think there is an issue.

Yes, this. It’s amazing how some don’t seem to understand that friendships are not exclusively about them, but also about the other people involved.

^ this

I think we are slipping from ‘looking after myself’ to ‘I'm the only one that matters’.

As PP said I’m amazed at the ‘friends’ who cancel/aren’t interested/helpful that still expect you to be desperately interested in every aspect of their life and to do them favours.

I'm an old gimmer who had a social life pre mobile phones in the 80s and early 90s. You made plans to meet and you turned up for them! The hours I spent waiting at stations for friends who were running late but had no means to let me know. You just always made sure you had a book with you. By and large peoples timekeeping was a bit better then.

Of my friendship group I have maybe 2 people I can rely on to turn up when they say they can. 1 person who cancels maybe 50%of the time but has a very unpredictable job and always reschedules asap. 2 people who have children under 10 who have after school clubs and erratic childcare but we see each other when we can. The rest I don't think I've seen since before Covid- they are indeed the " we really need to meet up!" people who never come to anything and I'm just quietly sidelining them because organising anything with them ( especially that involves booking numbers) is genuinely dispiriting.

I used to be very flakey due to bad mental health. I uphold my commitments now because friendship is important to me.

Too easy to cry off on text - in the old days it’d be an effort to call someone but a quick WhatsApp is easy.
People are lazy after covid and got used to not going out.
There are often group chats so if one person bails, everyone does.
I stick to an arrangement even if I don’t particularly feel like it as it’s not fair on the other person.

Completely 100% agree. Trying to organise something for my bday the other week, completely arranged it around everyone's various activities which was an absolute ballache and several people cancelled last minute despite me saying in advance I needed to know the day before or I'd be charged the deposit.

However I've got into arguments on here before when people have bent over backwards to defend why it's not fair to expect them to go to something they've agreed to if they don't feel like it. Also using 'mental health' as an excuse which annoys me because I used to suffer hugely from anxiety myself and get really worked up about social stuff, but ironically the only thing that really helped was making myself go. OR, if it was something I really couldn't handle I told the organiser in advance, rather than committing to going and dropping out last minute.

Ironically in my experience the flakiest people are also the first to moan when they aren't invited to things, and also that they 'never go anywhere' and 'don't have any friends'. That's because you're a PITA and don't commit.

Yes people definitely are flaky and I genuinely cannot be arsed with unreliable people. Good friends are great but other acquaintances I cannot be bothered with tbh.
In fact someone cancelled on me today and she has done it once too often.

Exactly. I haven't organised anything for my last 4 birthdays ( one of which was my 50th, and admittedly during Covid) because the absolute ball ache of organising a party/ get together only to have people bail out on the day is just awful.
I live in South London as well, which means half of London would refuse to make the journey on principle.

I'll be honest, I've started being much more up front with people now. If I get an invitation from someone I know will bail nearer the time, I will refuse and tell them why. I'm not wasting time arranging myself to get to a coffee shop three miles away only to get a text message saying somethings come up. So I generally now say No thanks, you cancel too often for my liking so I can't be bothered.
Yes I've pissed some people off but I'm beyond caring.

Yep, 100%, ten years ago you arranged something and almost everyone would turn up, I had birthdays where I would invite over 20 friends and they would all show, same with events for other friends, someone being flakey was very unusual. Nowadays every event I go to it doesn’t matter who organised it there’s lots of people who cancel or just don’t show up. Even at big life events such as weddings, birthday parties, hen parties etc you see lots of no shows and cancellations.

Yes. I give away items on buy nothing groups. Even when I say I'm free for pickup at 2pm, 5pm, or 6pm, please let me know what works for you, I get "I'll text you." Okay, so now I can't go out and have to keep interrupting my work to make sure I haven't missed a message. So I spell it out... Please let me know roughly which hour so I can make sure I'm not focused elsewhere. Finally I get oh okay, 5pm. Then they don't show up. Didn't use to be like this. Drives me mad.

I think you are right OP, and it is so selfish.

I suppose in the past it was much harder to tell someone you weren’t coming without actually speaking to them.
You had to phone them and say your lame excuse out loud in cold blood. Or just not show up and then have to explain yourself to an understandably annoyed person, who’d been cooling their heels waiting for you, the next time you saw/phoned them.

Now people fire off an explanation by text 20 minutes before, which doesn’t get questioned, and feel they’ve discharged their duty by letting you know, rather than completely let you down.

Yes too easy now to cancel. Im not planning things anymore where money is concerned as you left out of pocket its not worth it. I do coffee thats it. !!

I was thinking the same thing lately. Multiple times, things I haven't suggested my self, are backed out of by everyone or cancelled altogether.

I know sometimes people have genuine reasons, but so often these are the people who organise it, and I can't help but think they know they are taking on too much and I'm sick of putting the time by and having plans cancelled.

YANBU - mobiles enable the self-oriented and careless.

My bugbear is waiting for someone in a restaurant only to get the Just Left the House text.

What can we do to get our time back? Preferably without the flakes.

@Supersimkin2 no idea. My gut is saying to stop organising / accepting invitations but I am always still hopeful that this last time, everyone will come. Hopeful it won't be cancelled.

Yes I think people are more flakey.

I do wonder if the slow decline into the cost of living crisis has anything to do with it? I do at times agree to things that I would love to do n the hope that I can save up but an unexpected bill happens and there’s a lot of shame around admitting it’s too costly. Even a night out with two or three drinks can make a huge dent in the budget.

like many others I’m working three jobs just to pay the bills- I’m tired- I’m cranky- I want to do things and try and commit but ultimately when it gets to it I’m exhausted.

I could admit that it’s all to much and drop out of the plans- leave the WhatsApp groups etc but that would mean I would have to admit I’m trapped in this cycle of no time, no energy, no life and no way out. That’s a big thing to have to admit to yourself. So we laugh along- say it will be great to see everyone and get a little bit of vicarious fun in the planning instead.

I’m not saying thats every flakey person out there one but maybe that’s a few of us.

I wordlessly ban inviting flakes for the 2 weeks before Xmas and before bdays.

Afterwards - when timings are less tight cos less to do - they’ll get a call. But not at peak social time, that’s not their milieu.