Friend keeps cancelling at the last minute and wasting my time

[Floraltie]

I have a friend who is unreliable. She cancels 50% of the time. At 4pm today she says can I meet her at 7pm instead of 6pm as she is at work. She then messages at 6pm saying she had a bad day at work and hassle with her sister and to cancel meeting. She wanted to rearrange another date and said she is on holiday on 29th June but I haven’t confirmed as I know she is a timewaster. I understand she doesn’t want to meet feeling rubbish but it’s a habit this cancelling an hour before meeting.

I have replied and said sorry to hear about her bad day and sister but next time we can meet when she is not at work because I have had to hang around and not been able to do much as we were meeting. I don’t want to be nasty but I can’t keep being walked over. I say this as I have been stopping at my partner’s who is a 45 minute drive away and we could have gone out for the day. She also cancelled on her sister’s birthday the once and then when her sister did it back to her she didn’t like it.

I know she wanted to meet up to talk about her problems. She is a nice enough person but it’s all about her and her problems, just an energy vampire. She has no respect for others time when cancelling at the last minute. Mutual friends get fed up with her doing the same thing.

It’s really annoying me this disrespect.

Same here-we like the couple but to many times they have let us down so actually yesterday we decided we won’t make any specific advance arrangements with them again. We both have boats and have arranged joint boating trips but they are chaotic - invite and forget so random people we don’t know have to come on our boat as there’s would be overloaded etc. Always late, faffing, forgetting things.
So no more.

Just wanted to add that it’s not to do with having family issues or a health condition. Friends understand when those can make getting together difficult or if someone needs to drop out last minute. And I have lots of friends with ADHD who can be late and disorganised and I’ve never felt anything other than a priority for them - so I can work around the chaos!

I think it’s the feeling that you get from some people that you just aren’t important enough to remember and that they can let you down repeatedly if something else comes up and you’ll just accept it. I used to let it happen but not any more.

It sounds really frustrating, especially when you've had to put your day on hold and could have been doing something nice with your partner instead.
Your reply sounds measured and reasonable — you acknowledged her bad day without being unkind, and you set a gentle boundary about meeting when she's not coming straight from work. That's exactly the right tone.
A few thoughts:
The pattern you're describing is pretty classic with people who are chronic cancellers — they often don't fully register the impact on others because the cancellation always feels justified to them in the moment. Her sister situation says a lot: she can dish it but can't take it.
Going forward, you might want to mentally treat plans with her as "tentative until confirmed same-day," so you're not putting your life on hold around her. And if she suggests that June 29th date, there's nothing wrong with a vague "let me check and get back to you" — which is essentially what you're already doing.
You don't owe her a confrontation, but you also don't owe her protected diary space when she's shown she won't respect it. Quietly deprioritising her plans while staying friendly is a perfectly valid choice.
Is this someone you actually want to keep making effort with, or are you feeling like it might be running its course?

She’s no friend. She’s a selfish CF.

Thanks all for your replies. She has no health issues which if she did I would understand. Just unreliable and does not respect my time. Time to slow fade.

I had one of these. On the sixth consecutive occasion of her bailing I told her what I thought. Never heard from her again. They can't stand to be called on it.